Collaborative Society

The MIT Press Essential Knowledge

by Dariusz Jemielniak, Aleksandra Przegalińska (Contributor)

How networked technology enables the emergence of a new collaborative society.

Humans are hard-wired for collaboration, and new technologies of communication act as a super-amplifier of our natural collaborative mindset. This volume in the MIT Press Essential Knowledge series examines the emergence of a new kind of social collaboration enabled by networked technologies. This new collaborative society might be characterized as a series of services and startups that enable peer-to-peer exchanges and interactions though technology. Some believe that the economic aspects of the new collaboration have the potential to make society more equitable; others see collaborative communities based on sharing as a cover for social injustice and user exploitation.

The book covers the "sharing economy," and the hijacking of the term by corporations; different models of peer production, and motivations to participate; collaborative media production and consumption, the definitions of "amateur" and "professional," and the power of memes; hactivism and social movements, including Anonymous and anti-ACTA protest; collaborative knowledge creation, including citizen science; collaborative self-tracking; and internet-mediated social relations, as seen in the use of Instagram, Snapchat, and Tinder. Finally, the book considers the future of these collaborative tendencies and the disruptions caused by fake news, bots, and other challenges.

Genres: Nonfiction, Sociology, Technology, Society, Social Issues

256 pages, Paperback

First published January 24, 2020

About the author

Dariusz Jemielniak is Professor of Management at Kozminski University, Poland, where he heads the Management in Networked and Digital Societies Department, and the author of Common Knowledge?. He was a Fellow and Faculty Associate at the Berkman-Klein Center for Internet Studies at Harvard University from 2015 to 2018.

Reviews

[Kris Kaleta · Rating 3 out of 5]

Jemielniak and Przegalińska bring to life the topic of the Collaborative Society - a matter that has been sweeping the academic and business world for a long time. Of course, the concept itself concerned mainly the more broadly defined issues of Collaborative Economics, as well as other related topics - such as sharing economy, sharing media, peer production, etc. Nevertheless, the concept of society, which would create a common form, collaborating in order to achieve the merits defined as the state of the relative economic equilibrium of all the individuals that compose it - was featured in the works of many authors before.

What is crucial in the study of Polish authors is a fairly broad analysis of the topic. The authors resort to presenting not so much academic discourse on the subject, but rather a reference of certain academic assumptions to the functioning economic world. This way of contemplating is supported by a collaborative ideology in the spirit – or rather ideology in action - which, unfortunately, in my opinion, sometimes disturbs the flow of the book. By this, I mean an exaggerated emphasis on the [in their opinion], a badly functioning economic system, and a strong implementation of a critique of the overall model of the sharing economy as a model using individual components as the pawns in a corporate game. The object of criticism is, therefore, the 'capitalism', which in its description brings to mind more corporatism in the spirit of the Portuguese Estado Novo.

However, I do not want to delve into the ideological discourse, because the subject of analysis itself is so interesting that, regardless of philosophical stances, one can draw common conclusions about what a collaborative society looks like and what it might look like. The conclusions of the so-called long-term perspective can be significantly different, because, both the authors of this book and I guess some of you, will be addressing the revolutionary potential – or rather the potential of change - towards an economy resembling a social economy ‘collaborative’ in a philosophical sense; closer to the unification of society; and for people with my philosophical perspective, this future stands out as a potential for transferring economic responsibility onto individuals to such an extent that more and more often state governments and corporations - grown on cooperation with such - will be forced to make radical movements and, consequently, lose control over the fruits of the creation process in the long term.

What I liked the most about the book was, first of all, the attention to the collaborative potential of individuals. The chapter on hacktivism gives examples of activities that may have eluded many observers of political life in the world, but which were crucial for the development of the Internet and maintaining freedom in the world. Paying attention to the fact that most of the economy today depends on the virtual world, which, in turn, has crowds of users capable of stopping and starting entire processes - as mentioned, for example, in the context of Polish protests against ACTA - is still only a drop in the ocean of future virtual activities in that regards. The majority of larger countries invest a lot of money in the development of cyber units responsible for potential activities in the virtual world. Importantly this does not mean that they will be able to dominate this surface. The collaboration of users from all over the world can counteract any state interference in this field.

On the other hand, the last chapter deals with many issues related to the development of technology and its impact on human life in general. It is an excellent contribution to reflecting on how our perception of reality will change with the development of new technology. Our thoughts on the political or economic aspects of reality are dictated by the realities in which we live. When the way in which we interact with our environment changes - or any other process that is considered basic or subconscious today turns out to change with technology advancement - consequently our perception of a problem will also adapt or change. It may seem that our political thought, understood as the philosophy of power distribution, can in such cases evolve.

Overall it is a pretty good book on an extremely interesting and up-to-date topic. I am not a huge fan of the ideological discourse of the authors, but I certainly like the attempt to deal with the thorough idea of collaboration in the virtual world.

[Teo · Rating 4 out of 5]

2020.06.15–2020.06.15

Contents

Jemielniak D & Przegalińska A (2020) (05:12) Collaborative Society

Series Foreword
Acknowledgments

1. Introduction
2. Neither “Sharing” nor “Economy”
3. Peer Production
4. Collaborative Media Production and Consumption
5. Collaborative Social Activism and Hacktivism
6. Collaborative Knowledge Creation
7. Collaborative Gadgets
8. Being Together Online
9. Controversies and the Future of Collaborative Society

Glossary
Notes
Further Reading
Index

[ⵎⵓⵏⵉⵔ · Rating 3 out of 5]

This audiobook summarizes online trends of open collaboration, the forms they take, their modi operandi, and their effects, including their benefits and their dangers. In addition to that, the book tries to explore ways in which open collaboration can be hijacked or exploited, either by businesses, for profit (e.g. social media platforms), or by governments or ideological groups to conduct cyber attacks, e.g. using bots, ddos attacks, etc.

Given my familiarity with Wikipedia and other Wikimedia projects, the topic was for me both close to home, and easy to follow. It made for a good listen during my commute time.

[cypher · Rating 5 out of 5]

great book, interesting and useful information, presented in an accessible manner, highly educational for the current cultural, political and economical environment, offering a concise presentation of some modern dynamics and full of explanations on some modern, newly emerged phenomenons (for example, freemium, prosumer, clicktivism, slacktivism, and many more).
i thought this was a really good book, introducing the landscape of the contrasts and dialog between social power and biopower.

[Steven McCorkle · Rating 3 out of 5]

A very interesting, if somewhat technical read. I am working my way through the MIT Essential Knowledge series and expected this to be more of a historical or anthropological study of collaboration. I was pleasantly surprised to find a modern study of online and business and technology collaboration and how these change society interaction.

[Satdeep Gill · Rating 4 out of 5]

Such an interesting book that looks at the contemporary digital societies from various aspects. An eye opener in many ways.

[Ola Podgórna · Rating 4 out of 5]

Chciałabym żeby wszystkie książki naukowe były tak ładnie wydrukowane, to niesamowicie podnosi komfort czytania.