The second day of VIRT3C included even more interesting meetings and presentations. Mathieu O’Neil spoke on the possibilities of doing research on the net and being critical. According to him, critique is about distance. You establish a distance from an object and look at it while standing away from it. Sociology is a history of the present, and being critical in the context of sociology therefore means standing outside of the present. Mathieu applied Bourdieu’s field theory to internet networks, and also mentioned an interesting paper The Sociology of Culture in Computer-Mediated Communication by Elizabeth Lawley.

Stefan Merten of Oekonux gave a great talk about peer production. Peer production is not “facebook”, it is a production process featuring external and internal openness. It is based on Selbstentfaltung. In short, Selbstentfaltung is an important precondition for peer production, which merges individual well-being with societal needs. Volunteers contribute what they select themselves, which guarantees non-alienated leadership.