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Book Details
Abstract
People are inventing new ways of working together on the internet. Decentralised production thrives on blogs, wikis and free software projects. Cyberchiefs focuses on the regulations of these working relationships. It examines the transformation of leadership and expertise in online networks, and the emergence of innovative forms of participatory politics.
What are the costs and benefits of alternatives to hierarchical organisation? Using case studies of online projects or 'tribes' such as the radical Primitivism archive, Daily Kos, the Debian free software project and Wikipedia, this book shows that leaders must support maximum autonomy for participants, and looks at the tensions generated by this distribution of authority.
'Offers an important and relevant account of the innovations in forms of authority expressed by the social dynamics of Internet group formations'
Tiziana Terranova, associate professor of Sociology of Communications and Cultural Studies at the University of Naples 'L'Orientale'and author of Network Culture: Politics for the Information Age (Pluto Press, 2004).
Table of Contents
| Section Title | Page | Action | Price |
|---|---|---|---|
| Cover | Cover | ||
| Contents | vii | ||
| Acknowledgements | ix | ||
| Introduction | 1 | ||
| Part I | 7 | ||
| 1. The Autonomy Imperative | 9 | ||
| Anarchism and the Global Network of Struggles | 10 | ||
| Self-realisation in the Digital Commons | 14 | ||
| Theories of Online Autonomy | 17 | ||
| The Internet Ideology and Informational Capitalism | 20 | ||
| Epistemic Tribal Projects | 24 | ||
| 2. The Distribution of Charisma | 29 | ||
| Sticking it to The Virtual Man | 29 | ||
| Hacking Weber | 34 | ||
| Chiefs Without Authority | 40 | ||
| Distributed Production | 43 | ||
| Toadings in the Early Social Net | 46 | ||
| The Reputation Economy | 48 | ||
| 3. The Tyranny of Structure | 54 | ||
| Power Laws | 54 | ||
| The Impact of Search | 57 | ||
| The Persistence of Archaic Force | 60 | ||
| Field Logic: Bourdieu | 62 | ||
| Gendering the Online Abject | 65 | ||
| 4. The Grammar of Justice | 71 | ||
| Criticality and Justification | 71 | ||
| Legal Autonomy and Sovereign Authority | 74 | ||
| Norm Enforcement: Netiquette and Wizocracy | 80 | ||
| Tracking Authority in Four Online Tribes | 88 | ||
| Part II | 91 | ||
| 5. The Last Online Trive: primitivism.com | 93 | ||
| Project: Web 0.0 | 93 | ||
| Authority: The One Inside | 96 | ||
| Conflict: The Bookchin Brouhaha | 98 | ||
| Radical Dissent and the Net | 103 | ||
| 6. The Primary War: dailykos.com | 105 | ||
| Project: The Democratic Noise Machine | 106 | ||
| Authority: Drinking From a Fire Hose | 109 | ||
| Conflict: The Alegre Affair | 117 | ||
| 7. The Imperfect Committee: debian.org | 129 | ||
| Project: The Universal Operating System | 130 | ||
| Authority: A Bazaar of Cathedrals | 133 | ||
| Conflict: the SL Saga | 139 | ||
| 8. The Great Sock Hunt: wikipedia.org | 147 | ||
| Project: Expert Texpert Choking Smokers | 148 | ||
| Authority: The Cabal | 153 | ||
| Conflict: The Durova Dust-up | 160 | ||
| 9. Online Tribal Bureaucracy | 169 | ||
| Organisation Without Domination | 170 | ||
| Costs and Benefi ts | 176 | ||
| The Role of Conflict | 180 | ||
| The Political Economy of Online Tribalism | 184 | ||
| Notes | 191 | ||
| Index | 233 |