The concept was created by the sociologist and cybernetic culture theoretician Manuel Castells to "reconceptualize new forms of spatial arrangements under the new technological paradigm"; a new type of space that allows distant synchronous, real-time interaction.
Castells defines the concepts as follows: "The material arrangements that allow for simultaneity of social practices without territorial contiguity.
It is not purely electronic space...It is made up first of all of a technological infrastructure of information systems, telecommunications, and transportation lines".
[1]: 147 In 2001, Castells wrote: "the space of flows ... links up distant locales around shared functions and meanings on the basis of electronic circuits and fast transportation corridors, while isolating and subduing the logic of experience embodied in the space of places".
These informational flows connect people to a continuous, real-time cybernetic community that differs from the global village because the groups' positions in time become more important than their places.