Collectivity and Power on the Internet: An Introduction

Abstract

This book provides a comprehensive overview of the manifestations and interrelations of collectivity and power on the internet from a sociological point of view. It addresses questions on how different forms of internet-based collectivities (masses, crowds, movements, communities ) could be understood and differentiated from one another. It presents analyses on the role technical infrastructures of the web play for their formation, how the mobilization and organization of social movements and social protests has changed through social media, how work and decision-making processes are organized in open source communities and why the essential segments of the commercial internet are today concentrated in the hands of a few corporations who dispose over significant economic, infrastructural and rule-setting power. Intro; Contents; About the Authors; 1 Collectivity and Power on the Internet: An Introduction; 2 Collective Action in the Digital Age: An Actor-Based Typology; 1 Introduction; 2 Basic Types of Social Actors; 2.1 Individuals; 2.2 Organizations; 2.3 Collective Formations; 3 Non-organized Collectives and Collective Behavior; 3.1 Types of Collective Behavior on the Web: Masses, Crowds, Publics; 3.2 The Foundations of Collective Behavior: Infrastructures of the Collective; 4 Collective Actors and Collective Action; 4.1 Variants of Collective Action on the Web: Communities and Movements 4.2 The Basis of Collective Action: The Institutionalization of the Collective5 Conclusion: The Socio-Technical Formation and Institutionalization of the Collective on the Internet; References; 3 Social Movements: The Sociotechnical Constitution of Collective Action; 1 Introduction; 2 Social Movements: Conventional Categories, New Attributes and Blind Spots; 2.1 Collective Action: Conventional Social Categories and Their Blank Spaces; 2.2 Connective Action: New Sociotechnical Attributes and Their Blind Spots 3 Social Movements and the Internet: The Transformative Capacity of Technologies and the Rise of a Technically Advanced Sociality3.1 The Structuring and Rule-Setting Capacities of Technology: Social Media as Infrastructure and Institution; 3.2 Technically Advanced Sociality: Social Media and the Movements' Enhanced Repertoire of Action; 4 Social Movements Revisited: The Internet, Social Media and the Sociotechnical Constitution of Collective Action; References; 4 Open Source Communities: The Sociotechnical Institutionalization of Collective Invention 1 IntroductionID=""Fn1""The research for this article was funded by the Hans-Böckler-Stiftung.2 Reconstruction: The Genesis and Institutionalization of Open Source Projects; 2.1 Free Software as Utopia; 2.2 Open Source as Method; 2.3 Open Source as Innovation Strategy; 3 Typology: Varieties of Open Source Software Projects; 4 Discussion: The Sociotechnical Institutionalization of Collective Invention; 5 Conclusions; References; 5 Internet Companies: Market Concentration, Competition and Power; 1 Introduction; 2 Concentration: Market Power and the Fight to Secure Business Sectors 3 Expansion: Competition and New Areas of Rivalry4 Innovation: Closed Cores, Controlled Opening of Peripheries; 5 Power: Centralization, Control and Volatility; References