ECPR Postdam September 2009

Section: Internet and politics

Panel: Mobilising on the Web: Between old and new practices

Governance of online creation communities:

Provision of platforms of participation for the building of digital commons

Self-provision model: Social forums case study

Mayo Fuster Morell

European University InstituteSocial and Political Science Department

e-mail: mayo.fuster@eui.eu

Research website:http://www.onlinecreation.info

Abstract: This paper is dedicated to the analysis of the governance of online creation communities.

Two components can be distinguished in online creation communities: a platform of participation

around which the community is generated and the providers of such a platform. The analysis is

centered in the several models of provision of the platforms of participation and the relationship

established between the providers of the platform of participation and the community generated.

From a large-n analysis three models of provision resulted: i) a for profit and close provision; ii) a

non profit and “formal” open provision; iii) and a non-profit and and “informal” open provision.

Furthermore, they move alone a line between a service – oriented versus self – provision oriented

approaches. In a second part of the paper, the analysis is centered in the self-provision approach

though the case of the social forums. It presents the organizational form characteristic of the social

forum as a provider of platforms and the tensions (participation versus representation and

individual versus organizations) emerged around the adoption of an online platform (openesf.net)

and around the design of the protocols of participation online. Attention is also given to the actual

data of participation related to those tensions.

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Index

I. Introduction ………………………………………………………………………………………....……..2

II. Governance of online creation communities: Models of provision of platforms of participation.....5

III.Online creation communities provided by the Social forums ……………………………………......8

III. I Politics at technology and participation at the Social forums: The different positions in

the adoption of online platforms of participation and the tensions between representational

and participative logics

III. II Participation dynamics at online platforms

IV. Conclusions…………………………………………………………………………………………...…21

V. Bibliography……………………………………………………………………………………………...23

I. Introduction

Online creation communities

One of the pioneer pieces of research employing the term “virtual community” can be found

in a book of the same title written by Howard Rheingold and published in 1993. Rheingold used the

term 'online community' to connote the intense feelings of camaraderie, empathy and support that

he observed among people in online spaces. Nowadays, Virtual or online community is used

broadly for a variety of social groups interacting mainly via the Internet. But several types of online

communities can be distinguished.1

This paper is dedicated to a specific type of online community, the online creation

communities (OCCs). OCCs are characterized by having as a common goal the building of

integrated and systematized information pools.2

Online Creation Communities (OCCs) are defined as a collective action performed by

individuals that cooperate, communicate and interact, mainly via a platform of participation in the

Internet, with the goal of knowledge-making and which the resulting informational pool remains

freely accessible and of collective property.3

1 Specific type of online communities are mutual support communities, social networking sites, intra-organization communities of professionals (known as communities of practice), or community networks (physical communities that are supported by an online network) (Preece 2000). 2 OCCs have very diverse types of goals (I.e: Memory and documentation of social processes; developing software programs; encyclopaedias; dictionaries; and audio-visual archives; among others). 3 It might be worth mentioning that in information and communication technology research areas, including this research, the term knowledge is used in a broad sense as information and data elaboration, not referring to scientific knowledge. Knowledge-making in the framework of this research is defined as the process of creation and systematization of socially dispersed information and knowledge resources and cognitive capabilities resulting in evolving bodies of shared knowledge.

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Online creation communities are an interesting collective action form from two points of

view. OCC are interesting from the point of view of constituting spaces for civic engagement in the

dissemination of alternative information and for participation in the public space which could

contribute to enriching public discussion in a representative democracy. And, OCCs are also

interesting from the point of view of citizen engagement in the provision of public goods and

services based on a commons approach that is provision of public goods not necessarily linked to

the state or other conventional political institutions.

Furthermore, this research is framed by the notion of transition in which distinct

organsational and democratic logics are emerging at a time when the institutional principles of both

the nation state and the private market are in a state of profound crisis (in the case of the nation

state) and undergoing dramatic change (in the case of the private market). Networks form or

commons-base processes appear as a distinctive form, different from the state and the market

(Powell 1990, Castells 2001, Benkler 2006). In my view, these emerging common-base forms

could provide insight for the building of institutions in a network society.

Contribution to the literature

First studies on the Internet and politics mainly concentrated on well-established and

traditional actors such as parliaments and political parties (Trechsel et al, 2003: 23; Norris, 2002;

Römmele, 2003). As Bennett (2003) claims, “much of the attention to the Internet has been

directed at the places where the least significant change is likely to occur: the realm of

conventional politics” (della Porta and Mosca, 2006). In this line of argument, the debate was

followed by an interest in empirical research on interest groups, NGOs and social movements

looking at the impact of the Internet and the type of Internet use carried out by those groups (van

den Donk et al, 2004; Vedel, 2003). From my point of view, the debate on the Internet and politics

could benefit from expanding further to consider actors with mainly an online base. Interestingly,

the emergence of collective action in online environments apparently follows an organizational

logic that is different to political parties or social movements. Following this potential development

of the field, I focus my analysis on the phenomenon of the online creation communities.

In the last few years, the phenomenon of online creation communities has created some

research attention. The empirical research in this emerging field has mainly concentrated on the

Open source – Free software (FLOSS) case. Instead in this research I examine a larger typology

of online creation communities based on distributed organization. Furthermore the empirical

research centered specifically on the online creation communities is mainly based on analyzing

one type of online creation community; instead, my plan is to contribute to the analysis of online

creation communities by a comparison of several types of online creation communities.

Finally, social movement theory initially tended to approach social movements in a protest

perspective and defined their impacts in terms of national-state political institutions. Yet a narrow

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conception of social movement expressions and outcomes has prevented researchers from

realizing social movements' promise (Giugni 1998; Andrews 2001). In this regard, this research on

online creation communities stresses some challenges already present in social movement theory:

highlighting the performative dimension of social movements (not linked to protest) and expanding

social movements as challenges of socio-cultural organizational logics and modes of knowledge

production. Furthermore, methodologically the research is applied to social movements'

organizational level, instead of the more frequent movement-field level.

Methodology

The empirical analysis is based on a statistical web analysis of a large-N sample of 50

experiences and a comparison of three case studies: (i) Social forums; (ii) Wikimedia, and (iii)

Flickr.

The main case study presented in this paper will be openesf, that is, an online community

related to the social forums. Openesf.net is a platform provided by the European Social Forum

(ESF). The European Social Forum is the main gathering of social movements in Europe. It is the

European part of the World Social Forum, which started in 2001 as a meeting of alternatives and

as a critic of the neoliberal approach of the World Economic Forum of Davos. Around the Forums

meet feminist movements, trade unions, environmental movements, Not Governmental

Organizations for solidarity with the south, among others.4

The other case studies, secondary in this paper are Wikipedia and Flickr.

Wikipedia is one of the most outstanding examples of OCCs. Wikipedia is an encyclopedia

of free contents created in 2001. It is developed in a collaborative manner with the use of Wiki

technology by tens of thousands of volunteers around the world. In May 2005, Wikipedia (in its

English version) contained more than one million encyclopedic articles and more than one million

articles in other languages (Viégas, Wattenberg, Kriss and van Ham, 2007; Viégas, Wattenberg

and Dave, 2004). The infrastructure is provided by the Wikimedia Foundation, a North-American,

non-profit Foundation based in San Francisco.

Flirck is a platform for visual materials sharing and archive. As of November 2008, it

claims to host more than 3 billion images. It is provided by Yahoo.

Data collection

The Social Forums case study is supported by online ethnography and participative

4 According to data at openesf.net the thematics most commonly addressed at the European Social Forum are: War, conflict resolution and peace (14,6%); Democracy and politics (10,4%); Communication technology (10,4%); Art Culture and entertainment (8,3%); Ecology and sustainability (6,3%); ESF (6,3%); Labor Precarity and unemployment (6,3%); and, Woman, Gender, Sexuality (6,3%) (Fuster Morell 2008).

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observation at meetings (2007 - 2008); 25 interviews; documentation review; my personal

involvement and importantly statistical analysis of participation data (digital threads) available at

the openesf.net site.

The Wikipedia and Flickr case studies are supported by online ethnography and

participative observation at meetings (July 2008 – December 2009); 35 interviews; e-list analysis

and documentation review.

Content of the paper

The first part of the paper will be dedicated to the governance of OCCs in terms of type of

platform provision. This first part will present the three models of governance of OCCs emerging

from a large-N analysis, which is: a for profit and close model; an open, formal and non-profit

model; and a open, informal and non-profit model. The closeness and openness of each case is

related to a service versus self-provision approach.

The second part of the paper will be dedicated to explore a self-provision example though

the case of the Social Forums. This second part will present the organizational form characteristic

of the social forum as a provider of platforms and the tensions (participation versus representation

and individual versus organizations) emerged around the adoption of an online platform

(openesf.net) and around the design of the protocols of participation. Then, attention will be

centered in analyzing actual data of participation at the openesf.net.

II. Governance of online creation communities: Models of provision of platforms of

participation

Some authors agree that if we regard communities as collective action, which in some

occasions constitute large performances and produce elaborate outcomes, a number of questions

emerge (Tsoukas, 1996; Eisenhardt and Santos, 2000; Patriotta, 2003): How can complex

knowledge-making and sharing take place in such an extremely decentralized form of organization

in which apparently formal governance structures are weak or invisible, and in which permanent

membership in the classical sense does not exist? How can dispersed activities nevertheless lead

to the creation of a complex product such as software code or an encyclopaedia online? What are

the basic mechanisms underlying the coordination of knowledge-making and sharing in OCCs, and

where are they embedded? (Lanzara and Morner 2003, 2006).

In order to approach OCCs it is useful to do an analytical distinction of between two spaces:

the participatory platform (where the participants interact) and an administrative or provider space

(that provide the platform). The provision part cannot be seen as a dysfunction or unimportant;

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instead it solves some of the questions this type of online collective action necessarily raises. In

the medium and longer term, OCCs require several types of resources to function and it becomes

necessary to have organized their provision. Previous analysis of OCCs had dedicated little

attention to it, but, in my view, in the analysis of OCCs there is the need to look at both spaces and

their particular connection, because both are important and have functions in the governing of the

OCCs.

Figure I : Online creation communities components

But how do the provider space and the community of participants at the platform relate to

each other? Which is the role of each in governing the OCCs?

Resulting from a large-N analysis, the OCCs can be classified in the way in which the

administrative space functions. There is a qualitative difference between the OCCs in which it is

possible for participants in the networking platform to be part of the administrative body and the

one in which this option is not considered, in other words the “closed” administrative space and the

“open” or accessible participative space. A distinction between profit and non-profit between the

formal seems also to be significant.

The “profit and formal closed admin or provision” model is characterized by performing

“technical aspects” (“technologically king”). It favors dimensions of information provision, usability

and technical accessibility, while the “open admin or provision” model is characterized by

performing more “political” aspects (“politically king”). It favors dimensions of transparency and

open knowledge management.

There is also a significant difference in the way in which the administrative space is open. A

“non-profit and formal open provision” model and an “non-profit and informal open provision model”

can be distinguished. The “formal open provision” is characterised by a positive performance of

transparency dimension and/or the presence of a board in the administrative space, while the

“informal open provision” is characterised by poor performance of the transparency dimension and/

or the absence of a board.

In sum, three models of provision result: i) a for profit and close provision; ii) a non profit

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Platform of participation

ProviderAdministrative

space

and “formal” open provision; iii) and a non-profit and and “informal” open provision. Furthermore,

they move alone a line between a service – oriented versus self – provision oriented format.

In the following section the way in which each model tent to frame the relationship between

the providers and the community will be presented .A case related to each of the three provision

models were considered. For the closed and profit provision the Flickr case; for open and non

proffit formal provision the Wikimedia case; and finally, for the open and non profit informal

provision the Social forums case.5

Open Close

Formal Wikipedia Flirck

Informal Social forums

Non - profit For profit

Service – oriented versus self – provision

Three frameworks emerge from the cases studies:

• For profit and close provision: Flickr seems to be based on a sharp distinction between the

providers and the community. The provider, a company, is closed to community involvement.

The providers provide a service and a community of participants congregate around it. It could

be also said that in this case there is an utilitarian approach to the community form; the

community is not a goal in itself, but a means for a profit porpuse.

• Non profit and “formal” open provision: Social forums are based on a almost non-distinction

between the providers and the participants. The providers are a more or less self-selected part

of the participants. More than provision of platforms of participation, it seems to be a sense of

self-provision, self-organization or “adoption” of platforms of participation. The community “we”

(collective identity) is already formed before the platform is provided and this “we” decides to

self-organise to adopt an online platform of participation. In the case of OCCs promoted by the

Social forums, the OCCs are shaped and bridges by the collective identity of the Social forums

as a whole. From a web approach, it is characteristic of these type of OCCs a poorly

performance of transparency, however it seems connected, among other things, to its bridging

5 It might be worth stressing a methodological limitation of this analysis. An analysis of only one case study for each model was developed. This limits the applicability of the insights of each case to represent its correspondence models. For example, Social forums follow the open non-profit and informal model, however it cannot be said that all the cases of this model would result in the same insights as the Social forum did in framing the relationship between providers and community participants. In this regard, for the full compression of each of these three provision models an analysis of more than one case per each model would be convenient.

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with other offline processes.

• Non-profit and and “informal” open provision: Wikimedia are based on an “intermedious” hybrid

form. Wikimedia foundation moves along a line of more closed or more open to community

involvement depending on the issue (eg for legal and funding it is closed, while for technical

maintenance it is more open). In some parts there is a separation between them and closeness

to community involvement and in other part there is an “overlap” between them.

In all these three cases the providers depend on participation in the platform (without

participation the platform is an empty place) and have mechanisms for assuring community

involvement. However, something that seems characteristic of community-driven governance

(Wikipedia and Social forums) is the relationship of cooperation and mutual support between the

providers and the community to the point of the creation of a space of overlapping or self-provision

in which it is difficult to establish a difference between the provider and the community. This is

different from a service-oriented model of governance (Flirck), which does not seem to have such

area of “overlapping” and community – provider collaboration.

III. Online creation communities provided by the Social forums

The OCCs promoted by Social forums have some distinctive characteristics. They are

connected to a political platform, the social forum process.

The Social forums started providing “offline” platforms for participation. In this regard, Social

forums are open spaces for networking and the building of alternatives to the neoliberal doctrine.

They constitute the main meeting points of the Global Justice Movement (GJM) since 2001.

Furthermore, within the framework of Social forums, over the years, there have been several

attempts to also provide online platforms for participation and the generation of OCCs.

The Social forums provide platforms of participation offline, which is the Forum itself, and

the Social forums provide platforms of participation online, with the multi-interactive tools.

Furthermore, the relationship established between the Social Forum as platform provider and the

communities around the platforms provided by the Forums, both online and offline, have some

similarities. This suggests that collective action today is adopting a distinctive organizational form

and democratic logic, which can be identified both in the collective action online base and the

collective action offline base.

The primary unit of analysis in this paper is the OCCs promoted by the Social forums.

However, as introduced, the social forum case is interesting from a double on and offline

perspective as the Social forums are providers of on and offline platforms of participation. In this

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regard, throughout the paper, references to the similarities or not with the social forum provision of

offline platforms of participation will be also made. But, importantly, for the development of the

analytical process in the social forum case study emerged as necessary to examine the

approaches to online platforms and the conception of participation present within the forums. In

other words, the way participation was conceived at the offline platforms and the approaches to

online platforms have shaped the online platforms of participation provided by the forums.

Social forums: Steps in the adoption of platforms of participation

Information and communication technologies were important to communications for the

organization of a global level forum. And the building of an autonomous and independent

communication infrastructure is a strategy present at the GJM. In this regard, mail lists and

expositive-oriented websites have been used since the first WSF in January 2001 (Fuster Morell

2006). Since then several steps has been key in the decision to provide web platforms for

participation.

The first step in the adoption of a multi-interactive online platform was in 2003. During the

ESF II in Paris 2003, in order to give concrete answers to those who raised critiques about the

absence of final decisions in every social forum, an effort was made to collect a “Memory” of the

event, aiming to gather the outcomes of the different activities held in the Forum. Since then,

several platforms have been built in order to enable a collection of the social forum's “memory”.

The memory is also linked to the desire to systematize and democratize access to the information

and knowledge generated by the social forum process, so that not only organizers have access to

it.

The second step was in 2005 when for the V WSF, the decision was made to adopt more

participative methodologies to build the WSF program. The key points of the new methodology

were centered on defining the role of the forum as a merging space, rather than a director of the

movement. This translated, among other aspects, into the absence of plenaries put together by the

organizers of the WSF and instead the facilitation of self-organized activities. It also featured

rounds of consultation in defining the program. In order to do so, online tools were designed to

collaborate in the building of the forum program.

Finally, for the organisation of the "global day of action" on 26 January 2008 a technological

tool was developed. This year, instead of a classic WSF, a day of action was proposed which

would allow all movements and organisations to organise debates, demonstrations and symbolic

actions, among others. This decentralised action required coordination between movements and a

way to visualize those actions. A website was set up, with a world map on which every coalition,

movement or organisation could register and visualize their own actions.

As presented previously several steps created the conditions to adopt online platforms.

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However the protocols to guide online interaction had evolved over time. While the first online

platform was based on an organizational participation (that is, the site was defined for the

participation of organizations not individuals) and controlled access to contents, after several failed

attempts, a tendency towards designing the platforms with a more open, individual oriented and

fluid protocols of participation evolved.

The social forum organizational form

The use of communication tools at the forums is subjected to cultural and political

constraints particular to the forum type of organization. The forum organizational form has been

characterized as an open space or open platform. A synthetic characterization of the forum

approach regarding provision of an offline platform of participation results in: a very broad mission

(Chapter of principles); openness to participation in the platforms to anyone who agrees with the

broad mission; the participation at the forum is oriented towards organizational participation, that is

individuals participate as part of a collective or organization; the contents and program are defined

and “self-organised” by the participants themselves; instead the role of organisers of the forum is

to provide the infrastructure; the forum is provided by engaged participants of the forum, in some

cases self-selected and in other cases filtered by a membership mechanism, and the providers do

not represent the forum.

In order to support the forum as a platform organizational form, the forum has also adopted

online platforms of participation. The online platforms had been set up for 'forum memory'

collection; for a participative definition of the forum program; and to develop a decentralised

“process” dimension at the forum. The provision of the online platform seems to follow a similar

logic to that of the offline platform; however as will be presented in the following sections the online

participation challenges aspects of the conceptions of participation at the offline forums.

Furthermore, the provision of an online platform was not immediate. A process of steps and

evolution took place until the decision to provide online open platforms of participation was

adopted.

As presented previously, the social forum did not adopt online platforms immediately.

Furthermore, several positions around the adoption of online platforms could be differentiated,

which contextualizes the framework in which the forums provide the online platforms. In the

following section the politics of technology around the adoption of open platform though the

specific case of the ESF 2008 will be presented.

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III. I Politics at technology and participation at the Social forums

III. I. I Different approaches to online provision of platforms of participation

The body of research on the politics of the technology at the Social forums assumes that

technology is inherently political (Caruso 2004; Kavada 2007a; Kavada 2007b; Fuster Morell 2006;

della Porta and Mosca 2005; Mosca, Lorenzo, Rucht, Dieter, Teune, Simon and Sara Lopez 2007;

Juris, Caruso and Mosca 2008).6 What in some occasions appears as a “technical” divergence

around the use of technology are in fact clashes of political interest. In this regard, the goal of this

research area is to present how the technology adopted reflects the political goals of the forum.7

Furthermore, this body of research on the politics of the technology at the Social forums is also

characterized by approaching the Social forums not as a monolithic actor, but a result of internal

contentions and collaborations. Following this argument, the literature of politics of technology at

the Social forums views the forums as an expression of diversity. Conflicts around technology

mirror conflicts over the nature of the forum itself and the political strategy to adopt within the

plurality of visions present at the forums. In this regard, the richness of the Social forums as a

meeting point of a plurality of views that conform an “ecology of diversity” is also reflected in the

diverse approach concerning the adoption of the NIT. In the Social forums there is a co-existence

of different political visions associated with particular uses and understandings of technology.

The politics of technology at the ESF 2008

ESF V took place in September 2008 at Malmö (Sweden). The European preparatory

assembly (EPA) is in charge of organizing the ESF. Three websites were used for the ESF

organization: The first, the ESF process website (www.fse-esf.org) that was the “process-led”

permanent website of the ESF and the second the ESF2008 event website (www.esf2008.org) that

is the ESF event site for ESF V. The logic of communication of these two website is to provide the

collectively agreed and “finalised” information (“official”) (Kavada, 2007a: 18). Only authorised

people, under the supervision of the webmaster, can access and change the contents.

6 Previous research on the Social forums and technology were concentrated on the NTI as fields of struggle within the Social forums' agenda (Milan 2004; Milan and Hintz 2004). The research then concentrated on analyzing the typed of use of technological tools (from e-lists to translation tools) by the Social forums. Particular attention was paid to the politics of technology at the Forums, referring to the different visions and approaches regarding technology present at the Forums and how they are connected to visions of the Forum itself and political strategy (Caruso 2004; Kavada 2007a; Kavada 2007b; Fuster Morell 2006; della Porta and Mosca 2005; Mosca, Lorenzo, Rucht, Dieter, Teune, Simon and Sara Lopez 2007; Juris, Caruso and Mosca 2008). The governance of the Social forums has received also attention (Aguiton and Cardon 2008). However, the governance of the OCCs hosted by the Social forums and the role of the Social forums as platforms providers remain unexplored. 7 The result from the empirical web analysis and e-lists analysis of political actors confirm that social actors do not relate to “the Internet as a monolithic unit guided by the technology”; on the contrary, actors are “guided” towards choosing between several technologies depending on their political agency (Vedres, Bruszt and Stark, 2005; della Porta and Mosca, 2005). In synthesis, actors adapt technology to their styles and organizational strategies (Vedres, Bruzts and Stark, 2005).

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The third website by contrast, openesf (www.openesf.net) was set up as a collaborative

working space and tool. The logic of communication of the openesf is to emphasize the

collaborative creation of content and its dissemination in a lateral rather than hierarchical way,

more appreciative of the interactive features of the Internet and its potential for enlarging

participation in the process (Kavada, 2007: 19).8

In this section I analyze the politics of technology at ESF 2008, particularly focusing on the

debates about the adoption of the openesf.net open platform. It includes first an overview of the

positions around technology at the ESF and then presenting two transversal tensions: openness

versus control and individual versus organizational identity.

Positions concerning open platforms at 2008

From the participative observation and interview to EPA participant emerged that it can be

distinguished three positions concerning the open platforms at the ESF 2008: Promotion and

welcoming of open platforms; awareness of risks; and allowing to proceed based on disinterest.

Several aspects were mentioned concerning the first position of promotion and welcoming

of open platforms. Some of these aspects are connected to the discourse of “democratizing” the

ESF, enlarging the possibilities to participate in the organization of the ESF and enabling access to

ESF event outcomes and networking. Others emphasized the benefits in terms of increasing

“efficiency” in the organization of the ESF.

The reasons for welcoming the openesf mentioned by the interviews were: i) Facilitated

involvement in the organizational dimension for people who could not participate in the European

Preparatory Assembly; ii) Contributed to the coordination of the ESF organizational process and

the ESF networks; iii) Contributed to the networking facilitation contact data; iv) Contributed to an

ESF process instead of only an ESF event ; v) To localize the forum; vi) Creation of a community

around the ESF; and, vii) Democratize access to the website.9 10

8 The basic characteristics of the openesf.net are: It is meant to facilitate an online space for any activity/project or entity (organization, network group) working under the Chapter of principles of the WSF, and to support networking around the European Social Forum process. Visitors are free to register and create automatically space for a new project. There is no filter to register or to create a new project. Each new project has access to the following functionalities: Wiki Pages for collaborative writing; Publish news in the project blog; Create and use mailing lists; Store and share files; Contact people and other projects hosted at the OpenESF; Own URL. By default its pages and contents are public; however each project hosted in the OpenESF tool has the option to restrict its space only to its participants. The contents of the Open ESF are licensed under Creative Common Share Alike License unless a specific document specifies another license.9 The openesf is considered a democratic tool because it provides the possibility of directly editing contents by the visitors. Many people interviewed also mentioned the importance of its easy-to-use (usability) character and accessibility of the openesf and the translation of all of the functions and instructions to other languages. 10 The presentations of the above benefits of openesf were also accompanied by some problems that this openness could generate: Platform could host non-constructive behaviors (personal attacks or provocations) and risk of spam attacks. Spam attack are frequent in online open platforms and one of problems that require more time-consuming to

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The second position at the EPA concerning the open platforms was characterized by

drawing attention to the risks. This position was characterized by lack of knowledge on NIT and

“online” phenomenons, and especially the differences between NIT and the traditional mass media

(I.e.: TV, Radio, etc). This position was also characterized by a curiosity towards the technology

and willingness to be open to the technological “revolution”. However, this group did raise some

potential risks.

The potential risks highlighted by this position mentioned were: i) The generation of a virtual

power that “express opinions” but are disconnected from the EPA and the “real” organizational

work; ii) Use of the tool for promoting self-propaganda and particular opinions, instead of

transmitting collective messages in a spirit of collective action; iii) It gives too much space to

individual approaches and to individual viewpoints instead of organizations/movements’

viewpoints; iv) If the openesf is used as a platform for posting opinions (in the line of the blogs not

collectively agreed, this could result tin loss of control over the political message that the ESF

transmits to the mainstream media and to the wider public; v) Increasing the digital divide, because

people who have access and have time can dedicate a lot to online contents; and, vi) Increase in

power of the webteam as moderator of the contents in the openesf:

This last position was formed by the representatives of trade unions which allowed the

project to proceed, as they had no interest in the technology as long as their role of representatives

of organizations was not affected. They had little sense of the potential of new technologies. ESF

webteam members thus had to raise awareness among other EPA organizers of the capabilities

offered by NIT and the political nature of it.

This attitude is problematic for the use of the open platforms at Social forums, because this

sector is one of the ones that has more influence on funding resources of the ESF and tend to

underestimate or are reluctant to cover the costs of maintaining the tools.

This sector raised concerns about possible interferences that the tool could cause in their

role as representatives of organizations. The critique against access to any person for the tool had

to do with the possibility that this interfered with the internal hierarchies of their organizations.

maintain an online open platforms.

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III. I. II Tensions between representational and participative logics

The Social forums are formed by a large variety of groups. Social forums hosts and

combine distinct organizational and democratic logics. On the one hand, the centralized and

hierarchical organizational logic and representational democratic logic of the Left (political parties,

trade unions, large NGOs), and, on the other hand, the decentralized and network organizational

logic and the participative democratic logic of the small anarchist groups, “open space” advocates,

and horizontal organizations with diverse ideologies (Juris, Caruso and Mosca, 2008). The different

positions regarding the online platform are a reflect of these variety of organizational and

democratic logic.

Two main tensions and points of confrontation could be distinguished in the combination of

representative and participation oriented logics at the forums regarding online platforms: One

concerning the protocols of openness versus close-control, and the other concerning the profile of

individual versus organizations.

Tension: Openness versus control

This opposition appears to be based on several aspects.

i) Linear accumulation over a closed formula versus openness to enlargement for change

ii) Communitarian control versus webmaster gate keeper control

iii) Offline versus online: Digital divide versus travel cost divide

iv) Open collaborative self-organized versus clear division of tasks

i) Linear accumulation over a close formula versus openness to enlargement for change

There is a broader oppositional logic between those who wanted to maintain the actual

distribution of power between existing forces at the ESF, a fear of losing control over its role, a

growth strategy based on attracting more people via traditional interventions such as

communications to the Mass Media and alliances with established politics or by increasing

influence over it. And on the other hand, those who were willing to re-direct the role of the ESF to a

new politics based on participation, enlarging its bases through “horizontal” type of actors or new

type of collective actors (like online communities) and an assumption that conventional politics

were in irreversible crisis of and there is therefore a need to experiment with new forms.

In the words of Rodrigo Nunes for the case of the ESF 2004:

“‘The politico-organisational distinction between ‘horizontals’ and ‘verticals’ can be

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posed as the difference between a logic of connectivity and a logic of linear

accumulation – on one side, the loose, shifting associations of small elements that

combine to produce larger effects, which translates into non-hierarchical, networked

structures that (tend to) see themselves as acting apart/outside of/against institutions

such as the State; on the other, the search for general programmes that can bring

together the largest number of people into a unified acting body, which tends to

translate into hierarchical structures and (generally) into an understanding of the goal

of political action as the taking control of, or at least influencing, existing institutions’”

(Nunes, 2005: 308).

ii) Communitarian control versus webmaster gate keeper control

Openness does not assume lack of control, but a communitarian model of control.

Communitarian control is a model based on online open doors to any content and then

decentralized social control over the contents.

Instead the control model of the authorized gatekeeper is based on a central filter of the

information by the webmaster. The information accepted is the one that results from an “offline”

deliberation in the assembly or other sources of authority, like the organizational logistic

information from the working groups. It assumes that the deliberation is not hosted “online”.

iii) Offline versus online: Digital divide versus travel cost divide

The representative of vertical organizations tends to be in favor of a gate keeper control

model because it does not cause conflicts with their role as representatives. However the

distinction between the two control models does not completely correspond to a “participative

versus a non participative approach”. It also has to do with a “offline” participation versus an

“online” participation and the distribution of resources that each type of participation require. The

sectors, which can afford cost of participation into EPAs, are more disposed to a model of “offline”

deliberation and conceive of collective action in only an “offline” capacity. Furthermore they do not

have the technical knowledge to use online tools. Sectors whoses bases had resources in the form

of technological knowledge to participate online and have scarce monetary resources are more

favourable to a model that presupposes the online participation.

iv) Open collaborative self-organized versus clear division of tasks and difficulty of

integrating collaboration

A logic of collaborative administration and building of the contents of the website is opposed

to one of control over the organization of the contents of the website based a clear division of tasks

15

under the figure of the webmaster. Hilary Wainwright puts it: ‘[t]he overly bureaucratic control of the

website is symbolic of a wider problem of mistrust of the capacity of the self-organized new

movements’ (Wainwright 2004).

Tension: Individuals versus organizations

In the Social forums, there is an attempt to develop organization structures that would allow

individual subjectivities and contributions and the multi-faceted belonging and participation.

However, at the Social forums there remains a tension around individual participation.

One reason, the rise of individuals is a challenge to the idea present in some parts of the

social movements, “that individualistic type of cultures tend to produce ideology of success and

tendency for individual achievements. These views are reluctant to perceive positive effects in the

individualization in term of commitment and political engagement” (Interview Donatella della Porta,

2008).

Another reason, individual participation reduces arguments for the representative of vertical

organizations to maintain representative mechanisms and keep control over its bases.

A third reason is a lack of trust over the capacity of organization of a network model

structure versus a vertical and professional model.

Instead in favour of flexible and light protocols that allow, and in some degree support

individual participation, are several type of arguments:

• The defense of individual participation at all the levels in the ESF, as it is a type of

participation that is present within the GJM.

• “It is what works on the Internet”: A practical approach assuming that the dominant model at

the Internet culture is based on the “light” protocols, and so openesf work has to be based

on it, too.

• Interactivity require agile capacity to react and individual reactions seem faster

• To be open to connecting with the online communities’ phenomenon, which is an example

of commitment with individual participation?

III. II Participation dynamics at online platforms

While the previous section was focus on how the webteam functions, and importantly,

which are the different approach in the provision of platforms of participation present at the EPA

and the tensions around the online platforms. Instead, in this section is dedicated to how the

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community around the openesf.net functions.

This section is based on an “e-community analysis” of the openesf.net. If the analysis

on the politics of technology was mainly done by listening and observing the EPA participants

during the EPAs; the community study is based on “look” to the website.

Actual participation dynamics related to the individual versus organization tension

Previous attempts to the openesf.net at building a collaborative space were based rigidly on

participation of one type of participant: i) representative of an organization, ii) belonging only to one

organization, iii) and requiring a reference “leader” for each organization. These protocols of

participation were considered by some as one of the causes of failure of these first attempts.

Instead, with the openesf, registering as a participant requires “light” and flexible conditions. The

participant needs only to provide a name and e-mail (which is not public).This could be fullfilled

both as an individual and as an organization.

However, if we look to the actual data of participation at the openesf.net what emerge is

that the large majority of the accounts (97,19%) are registered with the name and nickname of an

apparently real person. Although the discussions on the EPA concerning the reclaiming space of

an organizational way of participating online, the reference to an organization is not predominant.

Only three accounts have a name and nickname organizations instead of a person.

Concerning the linking to websites, among the participants that did provide a website link,

the organizational websites are six times more than the links to personal websites. Which

suggested that the networking data provided at the openesf.net is oriented towards organizational

networking and not personal networking?

Among the participants that full filled the About and Interest camps (which are the camps

that facilitate more space for providing personal data), people tend to present their self providing a

combination of personal and activist information. Any user provided a presentation of him/her self

only based on a personal information and only some of the s present them self in the About as

members or representative of an organization (Specially Attack people and Trade Unions).

Last, participants tends to provide real information about them self, which invite to conclude

that the participants feel in a non-fictitious scenario.

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Actual participation dynamics related to openness versus closeness tension

Scale of the participation

The participation at openesf.net is distributed across thematic projects and is on a project

scale.

At openesf.net the decisions and mutual dependency among participants are limited to the

project dimension. There are not decisions that a group could take which would affect the rest of

the projects hosted at openesf. In this regard, mutual dependency among the participants is limited

to the project scale. In this line, at openesf.net there are no guidelines or policies that affect the

entire population which have been set up by the community.

There are no supra-project dimensions. The relationships between projects are based on the

multi-belonging of participants to several projects which helps to “bridge” and connect the projects.

The participants who want to engage in an overall “community” dimension are concentrated

in the webteam. In this regard, participation distributed amongst groups around common issues of

interest, but there are not central places for the whole community. Participants engage in projects,

then if they want to engage in openesf.net as a whole they get involved in the webteam.

The lack of a whole community spaces at openesf.net could be associated to the linkage

of openesf.net to the Social forums. The openesf.net dimension seems not to have a personality in

itself, but openesf.net seems to be integrated into the ESF process. Some of the openesf.net

participants are subscribed to the fse-esf.net e-list and use this list as the space of communication

with supra-project level. But the fse-esf e-list is the space to communicate with people interested

on the ESF as a whole, not only confined to the openesf.net users. Channels of communication at

the openesf.net of supra-project level or community openesf level do not exist. Coherently,

openesf.net community identity does not seem to exist and the participants do not develop an

identity as openesf.net participants. Instead they build their identity as ESF participants. In this

regard, the linkage to the social forum of openesf.net seems especially to affect the identity

formation of the OCC participants. In Donatella della Porta's words: “I think there are some OC

that create their own collective online identity each of them, and often people that have this identity

bridge this with other identities more broadly. Like Indymedia and people that participate in

Indymedia in different degrees, they share identities with other independent media and they have

an identity as an organization of the Global Justice Movement” (Interview with Donatella della

Porta 2008).

The offline dimension of the social forum also contributes to shaping the openesf.net

community. The participants at openesf.net provide their own real names. This behaviour seems to

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be related to the fact that people already know each other at the offline dimension of the ESF.

Furthermore, half of the content on openesf.net is related to the offline dimension of the ESF. In

this regard, half of the openesf.net projects are dedicated to groups and aspects related to EPAs

and the ESF as an event. In fact, 54,7 % of the openesf.net projects are EPA related. The other

half of the projects are process-oriented, that is they are dedicated to international work on themes

or are related to local actions. From those, the more frequent projects are the ones that do not

specify territorial dimensions or relationships with the EPA or ESF event (39,6%), but they are

dedicated to work on a theme. Instead, the number of projects associated to local activities is low

(5,7%)..

Distribution of the participation

Concerning the composition of the project, 41,5% of the projects are composed by one

only member, the rest 58,5 % are composed from 2 to 27 members. The more frequent among the

projects between more than one member are the projects with 3 members (20,8%), then the

projects with 2 members (11,3%). Projects with 4 (5,7%), six (3,8%) and 8 (3,8%) members are

also several. While projects with 5, 7, 12, 17, 19, 26 and 27 members are only one per each.

Table: Project Number of members

Frequency Percent Valid Percent Cumulative Percent1 22 41.5 41.5 41.52 6 11.3 11.3 52.83 11 20.8 20.8 73.64 3 5.7 5.7 79.25 1 1.9 1.9 81.16 2 3.8 3.8 84.97 1 1.9 1.9 86.88 2 3.8 3.8 90.612 1 1.9 1.9 92.517 1 1.9 1.9 94.319 1 1.9 1.9 96.226 1 1.9 1.9 98.127 1 1.9 1.9 100.0Total 53 100.0 100.0

The creators of the projects are quiet distributed. 11

Open versus close approach to the content

11 In total, 35 people created 53 projects. 26 people create one project, 6 people 2 projects and 2 people 3 projects. Apart, 1 person created 9 projects. However the case of creation 9 projects is quiet unusual, because all of the projects created by this person are not started to be used and do not have more than one member.

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Concerning the actual participation at the projects, a typology of projects has been

developed. This typology considers two aspects, the orientation of the contents (I.e: Expositive

versus open collaborative) and the number of people that intervened (I.e: if the contents are

generated by more than one person).

Typology of projects by type of use (In parentheses are the frequency):

I. Not started to be used (37,7%): Projects that were created but never started to be used.

Even in the case of projects with several members subscribed, the projects has not been

started to be used.

II. Link oriented (5,7%): A project that basically provide a link to an other website without

hosting any interaction.

III. Group presentation (20,8%): Generally it consists of a wiki page that describe the group.

The contents are presented in a “expositive” oriented form; in a willing of making to know

the existence of the group, more than to use the space to engage in a collaborative. The

presentation can be provided by one participants or by interaction of more than one

participant.

IV. E-list oriented (1,9%): When the project is destinate only to the use of e-lists.

V. Wardrobe of documents (5,7%): When the project is only use to archive documents .

VI.Working group – work in progress (20,8%): A project, which is designed as a working

space. Projects that invite to further develop the contents and invite to a collective

engagement. The contents of these projects generally are edited by more than one person.

However, it could be also the case that all the contents where edited only by one person,

nevertheless this person adopted the role of putting online the contents that were the result

of a collaborative work between other members, such as minutes of EPA working groups

meetings.

VII.Blog (1,9%): Generally only one person develops this space and its contents are a

sequence of last news or opinions .

VIII.Knowledge node (3,8%): The goal of this project is in itself to make available a resource

of knowledge. They do not have like with the other projects a n other parallel goal like

organise a seminar or coordinate the work of a working group .

The distribution of frequency of the type of use and participation of the projects shows that

almost the 40% of the projects are not started to be used. Then the more frequent type is the

projects that are used only to present an organization (22.6%) and the projects that host working

groups (20,8%). Then in minor degree link oriented project or wardrobe oriented (5,7%) (See table

Project Type of use).

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Table: Project Type of use

Frequency Percent Valid Percent Cumulative PercentNot started to be used 20 37.7 37.7 37.7Link oriented 3 5.7 5.7 43.4Group presentation 12 22.6 22.6 66.0Elists oriented 1 1.9 1.9 67.9Wardrobe 3 5.7 5.7 73.6Working Group 11 20.8 20.8 94.3Blog 1 1.9 1.9 96.2Knowledge node 2 3.8 3.8 100.0Total 53 100.0 100.0

In sum, these data suggest that the participants in openesf.net are not concentrated in few

projects but distributed across projects. The projects are composed in a significant part by only one

person or by a few people. Interestingly, the logic of participation in the projects is quiet diverse.

There is not an standard framework of what to do and how to do it in the projects (as it is the case

at Wikipedia), instead each project reflects and accommodates the several organizational and

communicative logics present at the ESF. Some projects are expositive-oriented while others are

collaborative-oriented.

IV. Conclusions: Social forums' provision of online and offline platforms of participation

and the self-provision model

The platforms of participation promoted by the Social forums are characterized by: i) a very

broad mission (Chapter of Principles of the Social forums); ii) platforms that are open to anyone

who agrees with the broad mission; iii) the contents and program defined and “self-organized” by

the participants; iv) the organizers of the forum role is to provide the infrastructure, but not to

represent the forum community. All these four characteristic are also present in other type of cases

(such as Wikimedia and Flickr); however the forums as providers of platforms of participation have

a distinctive sense. The Social forum as a platform provider could be defined as a self-provision,

self-organization or adoption model because the forum is not provided by an external body, but by

engaged participants of the forum (in some cases self-selected and in others filtered by a

representational balance and/or intentional selection). At the Social forums, there is no clear

separation between providers and participants and they have similarities in their organizational

form.

Tensions in self-provision approach

However, social forum can be characterised as an hybrid form concerning its composition.

The Social forums are hybrid forms in their composition because the social forum hosts the “old”

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traditional Left (political parties, trade unions, large NGOs), and the “new” - small anarchist groups,

“open space” advocates, and horizontal organizations with diverse ideologies. The diversity of

organizational and representational logics that host the forums result in tensions concerning the

adoption of online platforms of participation around two main axes: Individual versus organization

participation and open and versus close control.

In the self-provision approach characteristic of the Foruum, there is not a clear cut between

platform providers and platform participants. In this regard; thee above tensions are not stressed in

the relationship between the platform provider and platform participants. Instead, in a service

oriented type of provision, where there is a clear cut between providers and participants and they

follow a different organizational form, these tensions are situated in the relationship between

platform providers and platform “users” or participants.

Online platform versus offline platforms

The provision of the online platform follows in some senses a similar logic to the offline

platform: i) Both online and offline the provider and the platform are based on an open and network

approach, ii) both are composed of a diversity of forms, iii) and in both cases it is difficult to

establish a separation between the provider and the platform.

However, the provision of an online platform was not immediate, there was a process of

steps until the decision to provide online platforms of participations was adopted. To me this is a

sign of the challenges that online platform constitutes for the forum conception of participation: The

online platforms generate two challenges to the conception of participation present in the forums:

an increase in individual participation as opposed to organizational participation; and a

“fragmentation” and decentralization of participation in a way that loses the possibility of

centralizing control and capturing its collective dimension and intentionality. Both challenges were

already present in the forums, however the online platforms have emphasised them. These tension

around the individualization and fragmentation of the participation could be related to the long time

took the forums to adopt online platforms and the small dimension of the online communities

promoted by the Social forums; together with the impact on the offline dimension of the forums into

the participation in the online platforms.

22

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