Useful Resources in Understanding Open-Source Protest and Political Economy

Attached are a few resources with regards to mass collaboration when it is facilitated by online networks. This new model is referred to as as ‘Open-source’ political economy by theorists such as Yochai Benkler at the Berkman Centre, Havard – a form of social production that is based on the same paradigm as open-source computer programming that has given us among other things Linux and Apache – with qualitatively new phenomenon such as ‘prosumption’ and the individual ‘pro-am‘ at it’s centre.

Elsewhere I have argued that political participation and protest is beginning to exhibit signs of this same open-source paradigm.

In recent weeks some people have asked for pointers with regards to useful content that looks at the ability for social movements and political protest groups to ‘organize without becoming organizations’.  Below are a few brief articles and videos, I hope that they are of some use.

1) Yochai Benkler on the new open-source economics A good introduction to issues of open-source political economy and its relation to social production – Benkler’s stand out work hitherto is The Wealth of Networks.

2) Clay Shirky on the idea of this same paradigm facilitating ‘organizing without organizations‘

3) Shirky elsewhere arguing how such dynamics create a situation of ‘cognitive surplus‘  – a situation where previously unbelievable possibilities are rendered possible.

4) Shirky’s own thoughts on collaborations vs. organisations had a major impact on this piece on networks vs. organisations

5) Christakis on the awesome and unrealized power of social networks

6) Howard Rheingold on collective action, participation and online collaboration

7) Charlie Leadbetter on the rise of the pro-am – pivotal to the rise of prosumptive production – where distinctions between producers and consumers of social content, including social movements and protest, are dissolved.

Some useful texts for amuch broader context and historical sweep since 2000 -

1) The Cathedral and the Bazaar – Eric Raymond

2) The Anarchist in the Library – Sida Vaidhyanathan

3) The Hacker Ethic – Torvalds, Castells and Himanen

4) The Wealth of Networks – Yochai Benkler

5) The Power of Identity – Manuel Castells

Finally a very good piece on this topic recently is  offered by Joss Hands with James Quinney discussing digital activism at the New Left Project

 

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