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386 Imma Tubellacultural and sociological theory in general. Although the reshaping of culturalidentity by communication processes is increasingly discussed around theworld, the debates remain local and largely overlooked outside their culturalboundaries. For instance, the dependency model or the dependency frameworkhas highly influenced Latin American theory. Latin American scholars areconcerned about the role of the media and popular culture in society and theirrelationship to the process of the construction of identity (Martin Barbero,1993; Garcia Canclini, 2001). European scholars are worried about NorthAmerican influence in popular culture through cinema and television(Mattelart et al., 1984; Thompson, 1995). American scholars (Nye, 1990)concentrate their thinking and intellectual output about influence in a morepositive way. Their simple question is how communication can be used toinfluence. Some of them are engaged in a more critical approach to Americancultural colonialism around the world (Said, 1981; Chomsky and Herman,1988; Schiller, 1992; Martin Barbero, 1993; Mowlana, 1996; Befu, 2000;Garcia Canclini, 2001).However, in general and with some exceptions, at the present moment weface a highly complex set of communication and identity problems equippedonly with the theoretical and analytical tools of the nineteenth century. Thereis a critical need for comparative research about the impact of media on identity.If we are not capable of generating a language that is sufficiently clear tobe able to take account of our world, we will not be able to understand whatis going on. In addition to generating a new language (network society, forinstance), new tools, and, above all, new attitudes, there is a need to re-establishand give new meanings to a multiplicity of social ties and social relations.As Roland Barthes (1970) has already pointed out, in order to formulate newconnotations you have to develop a new language.The development of information and communication technology (ICT) andthe span of globalization are changing the very nature and meaning of culturalidentity. At the same time, ICT has transformed the way in which we createand communicate and this has transformed us. The empirical and imaginaryspace between the individual and the collective is where much theoreticalwork must be accomplished.We live in a time of fractures and heterogeneity, of segmentations inside each nationand of fluid communications with transnational orders of information, style andknowledge. In the middle of this heterogeneity, we find codes that unify us, or atleast permit us to understand ourselves. These codes are less and less of ethnicity,class or the nation into which we were born. (Garcia Canclini, 2001)As Castells (1997: 359) suggests, these codes are codes of information andrepresentation: “The new power lies in the codes of information and in the