The Handbook of Peer Production

The definitive reference work with comprehensive analysis and review of peer production

Peer production is no longer the sole domain of small groups of technical or academic elites. The internet has enabled millions of people to collectively produce, revise, and distribute everything from computer operating systems and applications to encyclopedia articles and film and television databases. Today, peer production has branched out to include wireless networks, online currencies, biohacking, and peer-to-peer urbanism, amongst others. The Handbook of Peer Production outlines central concepts, examines current and emerging areas of application, and analyzes the forms and principles of cooperation that continue to impact multiple areas of production and sociality.

Featuring contributions from an international team of experts in the field, this landmark work maps the origins and manifestations of peer production, discusses the factors and conditions that are enabling, advancing, and co-opting peer production, and considers its current impact and potential consequences for the social order. Detailed chapters address the governance, political economy, and cultures of peer production, user motivations, social rules and norms, the role of peer production in social change and activism, and much more. Filling a gap in available literature as the only extensive overview of peer production’s modes of generating informational goods and services, this groundbreaking volume:

• Offers accessible, up-to-date information to both specialists and non-specialists across academia, industry, journalism, and public advocacy
• Includes interviews with leading practitioners discussing the future of peer production Discusses the history, traditions, key debates, and pioneers of peer production
• Explores technologies for peer production, openness and licensing, peer learning, open design and manufacturing, and free and open-source software

The Handbook of Peer Production is an indispensable resource for students, instructors, researchers, and professionals working in fields including communication studies, science and technology studies, sociology, and management studies, as well as those interested in the network information economy, the public domain, and new forms of organization and networking.

Mathieu O'Neil is Associate Professor of Communication at the University of Canberra's News & Media Research Centre where he researches the political economy of peer production and conducts network and content analyses of online controversies. He is also Honorary Associate Professor of Sociology at the Australian National University, where he contributed to the creation of the Virtual Observatory for the Study of Online Networks. He previously held academic appointments at the Université Stendhal - Grenoble 3, the Australian National University and the Université Paris Sorbonne. He has also worked as a magazine editor and exhibition curator in Singapore, and as a researcher for the Australian Department of Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy. He is the founder of the Journal of Peer Production. His work has been published in Social Networks, Journal of Peer Production, Réseaux, Information, Communication & Society, Organization Studies, New Media and Society, and the International Journal of Communication, among others.

Christian Pentzold is Professor of Media and Communication at the Department for Communication and Media Studies, Leipzig University, Germany. Before that, he worked in the Centre for Media, Communication and Information Research at the University of Bremen and the Institute for Media Research at Chemnitz University of Technology. He is broadly interested in the construction and appropriation of digital media and the roles, information and communication technologies play in modern society. His work in communication research and media analysis links to insights coming from cultural sociology, linguistics as well as science and technology studies. In current projects, he looks at the public understanding of big data, the organization and governance of peer production, as well as the interplay of time, data, and media. His work has come out with Media, Culture & Society, New Media and Society, Communication, Culture and Critique, and the International Journal of Communication.

Sophie Toupin is a Fonds de recherche du Québec – Société et culture (FRQSC) postdoctoral fellow at the University of Amsterdam where she explores the linkages between feminism, data, and infrastructure. She completed her Ph.D. in the Department of Art History and Communication Studies at McGill University, Montreal, Canada. Her doctoral research examined the relationship between technology and anti-colonialism during the South African anti-apartheid struggle. Her work has been published in New Media and Society, Feminist Media Studies, Canadian Journal of Communication, Ada: A Journal of Gender, New Media, and Technology, and Journal of Peer Production, among others.