Collective action through online networks: Online Creation Communities for the construction of digital public goods

Online Creation Communities (OCCs) can be defined as networks of individuals that communicate, interact and collaborate; in several forms and degrees of participation which are eco-systemically integrated; mainly via a platform of participation on the Internet, on which they depend; and aiming at knowledge-making and sharing. This article analyses the conception of participation and the organizational logic of participation in OCCs. Participation in OCCs does not follow a dichotomize approach, but function more as an eco-system. The more significant characteristic of participation in OCCs are: 1) What is important is that the system is open to participation, but it is not expected that everybody participate and contribute equally; 2) Participation has multiple forms and degrees which are integrated. A critical mass of active developers is essential to initiate the project and maintain the content; weak cooperation enriches the system and facilitates reaching larger fields of information resources; and lurker or non-participants provide value as audience or though unintended participation that improve the system; 3) Participation is decentralized and asynchronous; 4) Participation is in public; 5) Participation is autonomous in the sense that each person decides which level of commitment they want to adopt and on what aspects they want to contribute. 6) Participation is not only deliberation but implementation. To conclude, an analysis of the governance conditions under which the resulting outcome could be defined as a digital commons is included. Furthermore, a reflection on the political implications of CCOs is also provided. The analysis is developed over the case studies of a platform provided by the European Social Forum, Flickr, Wikihow and Wikipedia. The main empirical methods are interviews, virtual ethnography and content analysis.