Abstract
Digitalisation has allowed various theoretical perspectives and empirical examples to emerge within both market and non-market realms. One of them is the so-called “crowdfunding”: an online tool widely used for both commercial and non-commercial purposes. Cultural commons, digital commons, private goods and projects with public good characteristics can all benefit from accessing the “crowd’s” support via money contribution and matchmaking supply and demand. This chapter argues that, due to its hybrid features, crowdfunding is overlooked as a tool that firstly promotes diversity, long-tail initiatives, “do-it-yourself” projects and creations of many sorts precisely because of its openness. By allowing that bottom-up solutions emerge without having to pass through traditional certifiers and gatekeepers, crowd-validation tools proportionate a fruitful environment for the “new commons” to thrive. The essay, hence, assumes a normative perspective by which social surpluses, positive externalities and increasing social welfare depend on users having access to digital infrastructures that convey diversity.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Notes
- 1.
The widely cited work of Anderson (2006) guides this assumption.
- 2.
The equity crowdfunding (Ahlers et al. 2015) type is not cited here on purpose as profit-sharing schemes are better understood in comparison to typical investment behavior and traditional financing models (i.e., bank loans, venture capital and angel investment).
- 3.
Numerous scholars had influence his thoughts with regard to critically interpreting the fetishism of images—an aspect already discussed in the work of Marx as well as later in Walter Benjamin’s aura (Merrin 2001). In general, the critical approach of the sociologists Adorno and Horkheimer (1997) had contributed to deny the benefits of reproducibility, of which digitalisation is a major result. As a consequence of this perspective, one can assume that digitalisation magnifies the effects of reproducibility.
- 4.
The underlying rationale is that one cannot know whether the signs available are a representation of the reality or the reality itself once the referent is absent. Baudrillard’s observations on excessive consumerism says that “the referential substance is becoming increasingly rare” (1996, pp. 29–30), which means that we consume without referents.
- 5.
Techno-utopians typically describe a future reality in which the present conditions are improved with the aid of technologies and machinery that make our lives better (Dickel and Schrape 2017). Historically, different techno-utopias have been communicated, especially after the various Industrial Revolutions. The latest object of techno-utopia is digitalisation and its tools: crowdsourcing, blockchain, social media, etc. In contrast, critical perspectives have shown the limits of this approach as often the basic conditions of production and consumption are not overall changed after the introduction of new media devices.
- 6.
The advent of digitalisation and the information society as a precursor for flatter organisations is most often an utopic assumption. Pragmatic outlooks such as Brown and Duguid (2000), for instance, observe that a more balanced view is needed, given that desintermediation doesn’t necessarily do away with intermediaries.
- 7.
The Rational-Choice Theory depicts among other assumptions, the homo-economicus behavior, independent, utility-maximizer and rational for whom collective-dependent behavior would be atypical.
- 8.
- 9.
Its antipodal case for “open-source” solutions is any product organised under “proprietary” systems.
- 10.
A comprehensive study about the heterogeneous groups that embody the notion of “new commons” can be found in Hess (2008).
- 11.
A fee applied to the total funds achieved by the call. Kickstarter, for instance, charges 5% fee.
- 12.
It should be noted that even before digitalisation, social historians and sociologists observed how communities develop collective solutions for problems, such as Sennett (2012) depicted in his work. His argument is that cooperation is necessary for prospering societies and welfare. This essay, however, does not discuss pre-digitalisation periods.
- 13.
Examples of Hackathons (hacker marathons) conducted in various countries show the collective action of engineers and software developers toward the creation of applications, websites and solutions for public policy, firms and other institutions. Typically, Hackathons can be considered as a successful case of crowdsourcing that uses cultural common resources (such as knowledge and information) for public or private purposes.
- 14.
This largely contradicts the widely discussed notion in Economics that sellers know better and therefore quality assurance is of difficult signaling from the seller’s point of view.
- 15.
Researchers such as Felstiner (2011) have observed the trade-offs of this labor contract.
- 16.
Empirical data shows the effect of budget cuts in the cultural sector since 2008 in the aftermath of the economic crisis. Copic et al. (2013), for instance, show this impact in the EU member states.
- 17.
Kickstarter is so far one of the most well-known websites for this purpose (Mollick 2014).
- 18.
Especially in the case of cultural and creative sectors, which mostly utilize the so-called “reward-based model” (Mollick 2014). In this model, suppliers only offer rewards in exchange for money, but not any profit-sharing operation. Besides offering tangible and intangible rewards, suppliers also accept charitable contributions that do not request rewards in return. As the European Commission report (2017) observes, the cultural sectors tend to prefer this type of crowdfunding model.
- 19.
Certifiers and gatekeepers are used in the sense given by Caves (2000) as part of an industry structure that retains information and selects the suppliers who are able to access certain markets. As we argue in this chapter, crowdfunding can, to a certain extent, bypass such institutions in the short-run.
- 20.
The “good” mentioned here is access to the exhibition only.
- 21.
For instance, by sharing the campaign online, taking part in the offline activities and supporting the organisation of collective action.
- 22.
This notion is supported on the premise that commons-resource-management is based on openness, does not discriminate who accesses and does not depend on the approval of a third party (Frischmann 2007).
References
Adorno, T., & Horkheimer, M. (1997). Dialectic of enlightenment. London: Verso.
Agrawal, A. K., Catalini, C., & Goldfarb, A. (2015). Crowdfunding: Geography, social networks, and the timing of investment decisions. Journal of Economics & Management Strategy, 24, 253–274.
Ahlers, G. K. C., Cumming, D., Günther, C., & Schweizer, D. (2015). Signaling in equity crowdfunding. Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, 39(4), 955–980.
Anderson, C. (2006). The long tail: Why the future of business is selling less of more. New York: Hyperion.
Baudrillard, J. (1996). The perfect crime. Trans. Chris Turner. London: Verso.
Belleflamme, P., Lambert, T., & Schwienbacher, A. (2014). Crowdfunding: Tapping the right crowd. Journal of Business Venturing, 29(5), 585–609. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jbusvent.2013.07.003.
Benkler, Y. (2006). The wealth of networks: How social production transforms markets and freedom. New Haven [Conn.: Yale University Press.
Boltanski, L., Chiapello, E., & Elliott, G. (2005). The new spirit of capitalism. London: Verso.
Brabham, D. C. (2013). Using crowdsourcing in government. University of South California. https://www.cbs.dk/files/cbs.dk/using_crowdsourcing_in_government.pdf.
Brown, J. S., & Duguid, P. (2000). The social life of information. Massachussets: Harvard Business School Press.
Bruton, G., Khavul, S., Siegel, D., & Wright, M. (2014). New financial alternatives in seeding entrepreneurship: Microfinance, crowdfunding, and peer-to-peer innovations, Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice 39. https://doi.org/10.1111/etap.12143.
Coleman, E. G. (2013). Coding freedom: The ethics and aesthetics of hacking. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Copiˇc, V., Inkei, P., Kangas, A., & Srakar, A. (2013). Trends in public funding for culture in the EU. European Union, Brussels: EENC Report.
Dickel, S., & Schrape, J.-F. (2017). The renaissance of techno-utopianism as a challenge for responsible innovation. Journal of Responsible Innovation, 4(2), 289–294.
European Commission (2017). Crowdfunding: Reshaping the crowd’s engagement in culture. https://europa.eu/capacity4dev/crowdfunding/documents/new-report-crowdfunding-reshaping-crowds-engagement-culture. Accessed 10 Jan 2018.
Felstiner, A. (2001). Working the crowd: Employment and labor law in the crowdsourcing industry (August 16). Berkeley Journal of Employment and Labor Law, 32(1), 2011. Available at SSRN https://ssrn.com/abstract=1593853.
Frischmann, B. (2007). Infrastructure Commons in Economic Perspective. First Monday, 12(6), June, available at: https://firstmonday.org/issues/issue12_6/frischmann/index.html
Hardin, G., & American Association for the Advancement of Science. (1968). The tragedy of the commons. Washington, D.C.: American Association for the Advancement of Science.
Hess, C. (2008). Mapping the New Commons. In 12th Biennial Conference of the International Association for the Study of the Commons, University of Gloucestershire, Cheltenham, England, July 14–18. Available at http://dlc.dlib.indiana.edu/dlc/bitstream/handle/10535/304/Mapping_the_NewCommons.pdf.
Himanen, P. (2001). The hacker ethic, and the spirit of the information age. New York: Random House.
Howe, J. (2006). The rise of crowdsourcing. Wired 14 (6).
Khavul, S., Chavez, H., Bruton, G. D. (2013). When institutional change outruns the change agent: The contested terrain of entrepreneurial microfinance for those in poverty. Journal of Business Venturing, 30–50.
Klamer, A. (2003). Gift economy. In A Handbook of Cultural Economics, Edward Elgar Publishing.
Lee, T. (2019). The global rise of “fake news” and the threat to democratic elections in the USA. Public Administration and Policy: An Asia-Pacific Journal, 22(1), 15–24.
Lessig, L. (2005). Free culture: The nature and future of creativity. New York: Penguin Books.
Lévy, P. (1997). Collective intelligence: Mankind’s emerging world in cyberspace. New York: Plenum Trade.
Madison, M. J., Frischmann, B. M., Strandburg, K. J. (2010). Constructing commons in the cultural environment. Cornell Law Review 4, May.
Mager, A. (2012). Algorithmic ideology. Information, Communication & Society, 15(5), 769–787.
Merrin, W. (2001). To Play with Phantoms: Jean Baudrillard and the Evil Demon of The Simulacrum. Economy and Society, 30(1).
McLuhan, M., & Powers, B. R. (1986). The Global village: Transformations in world life and media in the 21st century. New York: Oxford University Press.
Mollick, E. (2014). The dynamics of crowdfunding: Determinants of success and failure. Journal of Business Venturing, 29, 1–16.
Nunes, M. (1995). From possible worlds to virtual realities: Approaches to postmodernism. Style., 29(2), 314–327.
Ostrom, E. (1990). Governing the commons: The evolution of institutions for collective action. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
Ostrom, E. (2010). The institutional analysis and development framework and the commons: Response. Cornell Law Review. Issue 4, May.
Rochet, J., & Tirole, J. (2003). Platform competition in two-sided markets. Journal of the European Economic Association, 1(4), 990–1029.
Schenk, E., & Guittard, C. (2011). Towards a characterization of crowdsourcing practices. Journal of Innovation Economics & Management, 7(1), 93–107.
Schlagwein, D. & Bjorn-Andersen, N. (2014). Organizational learning with crowdsourcing: The revelatory case of LEGO. Journal of the Association for Information Systems 15(11), 3.
Sennett, R. (2012). Together: The rituals, pleasures, and politics of cooperation. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.
Viotto da Cruz, J. (2015). Competition and regulation of crowdfunding platforms: A two-sided market approach. Communications & Strategies 99, 33–50. Available at SSRN https://ssrn.com/abstract=2741883.
William, M. (2001). To play with phantoms: Jean Baudrillard and the evildemon of the simulacrum. Economy and Society, 30(1), 85–111.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2020 The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Dalla Chiesa, C. (2020). From Digitalisation to Crowdfunding Platforms: Fomenting the Cultural Commons. In: Macrì, E., Morea, V., Trimarchi, M. (eds) Cultural Commons and Urban Dynamics. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-54418-8_11
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-54418-8_11
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-030-54417-1
Online ISBN: 978-3-030-54418-8
eBook Packages: Economics and FinanceEconomics and Finance (R0)