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Fuster Morell, Mayo (2009) Outline doctoral research: Governance of online creation communities. Provision of platforms
for participation for the building of digital commons. Available at: http://www.onlinecreation.info
Outline Doctoral research – July 2009
Governance of online creation communities
Provision of platforms for participation
for the building of digital commons
Mayo Fuster Morell
European University Institute
Social and Political Science Department
http://www.onlinecreation.info
E-mail: mayo.fuster@eui.eu
Supervisor: Prof. Donatella della Porta
The movement behind online creation communities: Free culture movement
The increasing importance of knowledge-based markets; the increasing cognitive
capacities in the North for the expansion of education at different levels; and rapid technological
change, meaning mainly the digital and communication revolution, have led to the transformation
of network society of knowledge based wealth (Rifkin 1995; Castells 2000). But changes in
information and knowledge use, exploitation, production and dissemination have created a
dialectical and often conflictual logic. Concepts of communal ownership in a free information
infrastructure or of 'Digital Commons' clash with the logic of private appropriation and private use of
information and knowledge. Claims of free access to information and knowledge compete with
claims of private ownership. The Free Culture Movement (FCM) agglutinates pro free circulation of
information and pro public interest domain and commons ownership positions in this conflict
around the new technologies of information and knowledge (NTI). The online creation communities
around the building of digital commons are one of the more visible expressions of this wider Free
Culture movement.
Online creation communities
One of the pioneer pieces of research employing the term “virtual community” can be found
in a book of the same title written by Howard Rheingold and published in 1993. Rheingold used the
term 'online community' to connote the intense feelings of camaraderie, empathy and support that
he observed among people in online spaces. Nowadays, Virtual or online community is used
broadly for a variety of social groups interacting mainly via the Internet. But several types of online
communities can be distinguished.
This research will be developed through a specific type of online community, the online
creation communities. Online creation communities are characterized by having as a common goal
the building of integrated and systematized information pools. OCCs have very diverse types of
Fuster Morell, Mayo (2009) Outline doctoral research: Governance of online creation communities. Provision of platforms
for participation for the building of digital commons. Available at: http://www.onlinecreation.info
goals (eg: Memory and documentation of social processes; developing software programs;
encyclopaedias; dictionaries; and audio-visual archives; among others).
Online Creation Communities (OCCs) are defined as a collective action performed by
individuals that cooperate, communicate and interact, mainly via a platform of participation in the
Internet, with the goal of knowledge-making and which the resulting informational pool remains
freely accessible and of collective property.
It might be worth mentioning that in information and communication technology research
areas, including this research, the term knowledge is used in a broad sense as information and
data elaboration, not refering to scientific knowledge. Knowledge-making in the framework of this
research is defined as the process of creation and systematization of socially dispersed
information and knowledge resources and cognitive capabilities resulting in evolving bodies of
shared knowledge.
Online creation communities are an interesting collective action form from two points of
view. OCC are interesting from the point of view of constituting spaces for civic engagement in the
dissemination of alternative information and for participation in the public space which could
contribute to enriching public discussion in a representative democracy. And, OCCs are also
interesting from the point of view of citizen engagement in the provision of public goods and
services based on a commons approach, that is provision of public goods not necessarily linked to
the state or other conventional political institutions.
Furthermore, this research is framed by the notion of transition in which distinct
organsational and democratic logics are emerging at a time when the institutional principles of both
the nation state and the private market are in a state of profound crisis (in the case of the nation
state) and undergoing dramatic change (in the case of the private market). Networks form or
commons-base processes appear as a distinctive form, different from the state and the market
(Powell 1990, Castells 2001, Benkler 2006). In my view, these emerging common-base forms
could provide insight for the building of institutions in a network society.
Some authors agree that if we regard communities as collective action, which in some
occasions constitute large performances and produce elaborate outcomes, a number of questions
emerge (Tsoukas, 1996; Eisenhardt and Santos, 2000; Patriotta, 2003): How can complex
knowledge-making and sharing take place in such an extremely decentralized form of organization
in which apparently formal governance structures are weak or invisible, and in which permanent
membership in the classical sense does not exist? How can dispersed activities nevertheless lead
to the creation of a complex product such as software code or an encyclopaedia online? What are
the basic mechanisms underlying the coordination of knowledge-making and sharing in OCCs, and
where are they embedded? (Lanzara and Morner 2003, 2006).
In my view, in order to approach OCCs it is useful to do an analytical distinction of between
Fuster Morell, Mayo (2009) Outline doctoral research: Governance of online creation communities. Provision of platforms
for participation for the building of digital commons. Available at: http://www.onlinecreation.info
two spaces. On the other hand, there is a large space of decentralized, spontaneous and open
networking interaction over the platform of participation. On the one hand, there is a (generally
small) administrative or provision space that provides the platform (which, in some occasions
follows formal organization principles such as strong ties and membership).The provision part
cannot be seen as a dysfunction or unimportant; instead it solves some of the questions this type
of online collective action necessarily raises. In the medium and longer term, OCCs require several
types of resources to function and it becomes necessary to have organized their provision.
Previous analysis of OCCs had dedicated little attention to it, but, in my view, in the analysis of
OCCs there is the need to look at both spaces and their particular connection, because both are
important and have functions in the governing of the OCCs.
Figure I : Online creation communities components
But how do the provider space and the community of participants at the platform relate to
each other? Which is the role of each in governing the OCCs? How does the combination of
organizational and democratic logic in each space (hybridism form) affect?
Analytical process and empirical material: Governance, hybridism and scale
Historically, the local and small communities are presented as having better conditions for
democratic organization. Local and small communities could more easily develop control over
decision-making processes; the information could more easily reach all members or participants
and increase participation. However, online creation communities are participative processes which
are able, in some occasions, to engage very large communities. What are the governance
conditions lead to OCCs grow out?
In this doctoral research, the governance form of the OCCs is explored. It applies to
governance structure and its organizational and democratic logic and the combination to different
forms, but also the contentions and tensions present in OCCs.
In the analysis of governance, particular attention is given to the role of the providers of the
platform of participation that hosts the participant’s interaction and the distribution of functions
Platform of
participation
Provider
Administrative
space
Fuster Morell, Mayo (2009) Outline doctoral research: Governance of online creation communities. Provision of platforms
for participation for the building of digital commons. Available at: http://www.onlinecreation.info
between the providers of the platform and the community of participants. Finally, analysis on how
the different styles and organizational form of the providers relate to the community and grow out
of the community is also developed.
Research question: If and how is the role of the platform provider and the relationship and
hybridism established between the providers and the community of participants related to the
community's growth?
Box: Analytical process
Role providers
and
Relationship <<< >>> Community growth
with the
Community
The empirical analysis is based on a statistical web analysis of a large-N sample of 50
experiences and a comparison of three case studies: (i) Social forums; (ii) Wikimedia, and (iii)
Flickr.
Large- N analysis
For the large-N analysis I built pre-defined categories of democratic quality and analyzed
the OCCs according to them. The predefined dimensions of democratic quality were useful to the
overall approach to OCCs and it helped me to draft provision models for the in-depth analysis of
the case studies. However, for the in-depth comparative analysis of the case studies I did abandon
the pre-defined dimensions of democratic quality and used a grounded theory methodology to
understand and analyze what the democratic logic and points of quality present were according to
the actors.
Table: Dimensions considered at the large-N analysis
Democracy Quality
Usability
Technical Accessibility
Accessibility
Openness to participation
Transparency
Knowledge Management
Provision models
(open versus close)
< > Size of the community
Time of appearance
The pre-defined dimensions of democratic quality are: 1) has well-organised and multi-
lingual information required to participate (usability dimension); 2) facilitates accessibility to the
technology that support the process; 3) has a transparent organization structure and accountable
Fuster Morell, Mayo (2009) Outline doctoral research: Governance of online creation communities. Provision of platforms
for participation for the building of digital commons. Available at: http://www.onlinecreation.info
financial aspects; 4) the knowledge management is clear on the authorship and on the conditions
of use; and, 5) is open to participation in the platform and in the administrative space
Hypothesis for the large-N analysis
Hypothesis 1. From the analysis of the presence of dimensions of democratic quality in OCCs, I
expect to find that in OCCs there are several styles of searching for democratic quality. Some
online creation communities stress some dimensions while other online creation communities put
more emphasis on another set of dimensions.
Hypothesis 2. The openness to participation in the administrative space determines the
performance of the other dimensions on the democratic quality.
Hypothesis 3. The bigger the size of the OCC, the higher the performance in the dimensions of
democratic quality.
Case studies
From the case studies emerged that the organizational and democratic logic of participation
in OCCs platforms follow a eco-systemic conception. Participation is understood as an eco-system
in six senses. 1) What is important is that the system is open to participation, but it is not expected that
everybody participate and contribute equally; 2) Participation has multiple forms and degrees which are
integrated: a critical mass of active developers is essential to initiate the project and maintain the
content; weak cooperation enriches the system and facilitates reaching larger fields of information
resources; and lurker or non-participants provide value as audience or though unintended participation
that improve the system; 3) Participation is decentralized and asynchronous; 4) Participation is in
public; 5) Participation is autonomous in the sense that each person decides which level of commitment
they want to adopt and on what aspects they want to contribute. 6) Participation is volunteering.
Participation is not only deliberation but implementation.
Concerning the relationship between platform providers and participants, models can be
distinguished depending on the level of openness versus closeness of the providers space to
participant co-involvement, formal and non – formal organization, and profit versus non profit
approach, resulting in three distinctive models: closed and profit provision model; open and non
proffit formal provision; and open and non profit informal provisions.
Contribution to the literature
First studies on the Internet and politics mainly concentrated on well-established and
traditional actors such as parliaments and political parties (Trechsel et al, 2003: 23; Norris, 2002;
Römmele, 2003). As Bennett (2003) claims, “much of the attention to the Internet has been
Fuster Morell, Mayo (2009) Outline doctoral research: Governance of online creation communities. Provision of platforms
for participation for the building of digital commons. Available at: http://www.onlinecreation.info
directed at the places where the least significant change is likely to occur: the realm of
conventional politics” (della Porta and Mosca, 2006). In this line of argument, the debate was
followed by an interest in empirical research on interest groups, NGOs and social movements
looking at the impact of the Internet and the type of Internet use carried out by those groups (van
den Donk et al, 2004; Vedel, 2003). From my point of view, the debate on the Internet and politics
could benefit from expanding further to consider actors with mainly an online base. Interestingly,
the emergence of collective action in online environments apparently follows an organizational
logic that is different to political parties or social movements. Following this potential development
of the field, I focus my analysis on the phenomenon of the online creation communities.
In the last few years, the phenomenon of online creation communities has opened a debate
on the common-base knowledge-making in the field of organizational studies. My research could
be an empirical contribution to this ongoing debate on common-base knowledge-making and
distributed organizing by putting attention to an area poorly considered, the role of the platform
providers and its relationship with community growth. However, while the empirical research in this
field has mainly concentrated on the Open source – Free software (FLOSS) case, I instead aim to
examine a larger typology of online creation communities based on distributed organization.
Furthermore the empirical research centered specifically on the online creation communities
is mainly based on analyzing one type of online creation community; instead, my plan is to
contribute to the analysis of online creation communities by a comparison of several types of
online creation communities. I especially aim to compare the online creation communities within
the framework of the global movement with other online creation communities, Wikipedia case.
Social movement theory initially tended to approach social movements in a protest
perspective and defined their impacts in terms of national-state political institutions. Yet a narrow
conception of social movement expressions and outcomes has prevented researchers from
realizing social movements' promise (Giugni 1998; Andrews 2001). In this regard, this research on
online creation communities stresses some challenges already present in social movement theory:
highlighting the performative dimension of social movements (not linked to protest) and expanding
social movements as challenges of socio-cultural organizational logics and modes of knowledge
production. Furthermore, methodologically the research is applied to social movements'
organizational level, instead of the more frequent movement-field level. And finally, the research
takes attention to the hybrid character of the organization and the combination of several type of
organization and democratic logics.
Fuster Morell, Mayo (2009) Outline doctoral research: Governance of online creation communities. Provision of platforms
for participation for the building of digital commons. Available at: http://www.onlinecreation.info
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