Critical Studies in Peer Production

Since the VIRT3C conference in Hull earlier this spring, I am involved with an exciting group of people in the launch of a new scholarly online journal focused on collaboration and conflict in relation to commons-based production. I am a member of the scientific committee of this journal, for which a call for submissions is out now.

Critical Studies in Peer Production (CSPP) seeks high-quality contributions from researchers and practitioners of peer production. We understand peer production as a mode of commons-based and oriented production in which participation is voluntary and predicated on the self-selection of tasks. Notable examples are the collaborative development of Free Software projects and of the Wikipedia online encyclopedia. Through the analysis of the forms, operations, and contradictions of peer producing communities in contemporary capitalist society, the journal aims to open up new perspectives on the implications of peer production for social change. Topics of interest include, but are not limited to: the political economy of peer production; peer production and expertise; critical theory and peer production; peer production and exchange; peer production and social movements; peer production as an alternative to capitalism; peer production and capitalist cooptation; governance in peer projects; peer production and ethics; the peer production of hardware; peer production and feminism; peer production, industry and ecology.

All contributions will be peer reviewed. Contributors are invited to follow the Harvard citation style and to submit papers using free software such as Open Office. Once papers have been accepted, it is the author’s responsibility to format them in accordance with our specifications. The journal welcomes submissions based on interdisciplinary approaches including information and computer sciences, law, economics, geography, history, communications, and sociology.

Our approach to peer reviewing is informed by Whitworth and Friedman’s (2009, part 1; part 2) criticism of current academic publishing as a form of competitive economics in which “scarcity reflects demand, so high journal rejection rates become quality indicators”. This self-reinforcing system where journals that reject more attract more results in a situation where “avoiding faults becomes more important than new ideas. Wrongly accepting a paper with a fault gives reputation consequences, while wrongly rejecting a useful paper leaves no evidence”. Whitworth and Friedman propose an alternative evaluation system:

1. higher rating discrimination: a many-point scale, not just accept-reject
2. more submissions to be rated: rate all
3. more people to rate: community involvement
4. different ways of rating: formal review vs. informal use ratings.

Our process is also informed by Toni Prug’s ideas about community reviewing: all submission proposals must be made on our open email list. Prospective authors will then be told by the peer review community whether their proposal is appropriate for the journal and if any additional key elements are missing. Once authors have completed a full submission, they submit it to the editor who will assign it to three reviewers. Reviewers are encouraged to communicate with one another. Reviewers will provide any necessary recommendations for improvement.

Research update

I am sending in two applications for research funding this week. One is on social media and political participation, and the other is on independent computer games and subcultural innovation. I will take part in VIRT3C in Hull, UK in March, and I also recently started a collaboration with the Crisis and Media Society Research Program at Helsinki University. Later this week, we will host yet another event in HUMlab. This time it is about presenting our research to potential funders. My slide for that is posted above. It was a bit of a challenge to summarize my research into one single image, but I guess it will work.

Using the Internet in situations of domestic violence

Together with my two colleagues Susanne (who is the project leader) and Stephanie I just received funding for a three year research project entitled “The role of the Internet as a surrogate social network in situations of domestic violence in Swedish context”.

Domestic violence (DV) victims are successively broken down and isolated, making breaking the cycle of abuse more difficult than it would be if the victim had a network of support from which to seek help. Furthermore, the most dangerous time for a victim ready to leave an abusive situation is during the process of gathering information and the initial escape. The perceived anonymity of the digital can play an important role as a temporary, surrogate social network for DV victims when seeking information, as well as making contact with implicit and explicit networks of support. The role of technology as a tool in these processes, however, is an under-developed area of research in victimology. Although there has been a marked increase in the informational components of DV support promoted through digital channels, few studies have analyzed the effectiveness or the scope of their usage.

DV victims are increasingly reaching out through technology, not only to gain access to information, but also as a means of social support. When the social ties of the victims are broken by the abuser, networks online can become an increasingly important resource. Kranz (2002) warns, however, that DV victims often use these tools without the understanding that the technology they are relying on as a tool for information and support can also be used to track and monitor them. Motivated abusers can use technology to cyberstalk their victims both while the victim is at home, but also as a means of surveillance once the victim is outside the home.

Many digital means such as keystroke logging, accessing user information, reading private emails, using email to harass, or tracking the victim through family or children’s social site profiles can provide the DV abuser with sensitive information.  Both DV victims and private and government agencies alike are developing strategies for protecting privacy online. For example, it is not uncommon, when entering a USA-based DV website that visitors are informed that browsers can track their seeking history and how to erase their browser history. In fact, on many of these sites, the user must click away this warning before entering the site. Despite Sweden’s high percentage of Internet access, similar online information resources are lacking. From a brief review of Swedish women’s shelter’s websites, only a handful provided any Internet safety information, and none used click-through information before entering the site. In fact, one of the most popular Swedish discussion forums for DV, Misshandel i Fokus, was created in response to the need for social peer support.

The objective of the research project is to establish to what extent and in what ways Swedish DV victims use the Internet as a way to reconnect with a network of people and information. This study will examine this usage in two important areas related to DV: initial information seeking and the ways in which social media are used to create networks.

The first sub-project will establish what information is available to DV victims, through which channels this information is available (libraries, women’s’ shelters, websites, social network sites, etc), and how users experience seeking this information. The second sub-project will analyze how Swedish DV victims use social media as a way to form networks after having been isolated during the DV process. These networks will be analyzed in order to determine the effectiveness of the affordances of the different platforms (e.g., Second Life, discussion forums, blogs, Twitter, etc), as well as the strategies that DV victims employ to avoid repercussions, such as cyberstalking, when publicizing information which may not be understood to be personal, although can be used to track or harass the victim.

YouTube as a performative arena

What better way to start this new research blog off than this?! Yesterday night me and my colleagues got the fantastic news that our research project on “YouTube as a performative arena” has received funding from The Knowledge Foundation. More information about this [in Swedish] can be found here and here.

Within this three year project, running 2009-2011, we will analyze YouTube as a place were young people in Sweden express themselves in creative and artistic ways.This will be done in three interrelated subprojects. The first one, YouTube as Hybrid Media Space, is based on ethnographic research and media analysis and is centered around three Swedish youth groups and their use of YouTube in performance. Stephanie Hendrick is the one responsible for this research, and an example of her ideas on this can be found here. The second one, The Discourse on YouTube as Youth Culture, will be headed by myself and consists of an analysis of medialized reactions to young people’s use of YouTube. The third and final one, YouTube, Creativity, and Extended Concepts of ‘Text’, will mainly be run by Patrik Svensson and investigate how YouTube culture relates to learning processes in Swedish schools. We will cooperate with Kulturverket in Umeå. This will be an extremely exciting thing to be part of.