Mathieu O'Neil | University of Canberra (original) (raw)

Books by Mathieu O'Neil

The global dimension of recreational and professional uses of information and communication techn... more The global dimension of recreational and professional uses of information and communication technologies makes them look universal and almost ahistorical. Aiming to reterritorialize globalized issues, this collection interrogates new forms of digital labour as economic facts and as ideological justifications for the social order, both of which emerged in the United States. Digital Labour and Prosumer Capitalism features contributions from some of the leading theorists of value and labour in the digital age, as well as incisive case studies of swiping technologies, collaborative consumption, and convergent media. It explores the two core dynamics at the heart of digital work: tasks, or services, are broken down into components or modularized, and users work for no pay and become 'prosumer'. Placing digital labour and prosumption within the wider political economy, this volume presents a deeply contextualized critical account of the forces which shape contemporary subjects, networks, and work practices. The enrolment of consumers into production attempts to undermine labour rights, benefiting US digital corporations. Yet digital labour may ultimately challenge the capitalist logic, as user disregard for property rights extends from bits to atoms.

A selection of articles from the Journal of Peer Production produced for the FSCONS conference, G... more A selection of articles from the Journal of Peer Production produced for the FSCONS conference, Goteborg, October 2014.

People are inventing new ways of working together on the internet. Decentralized production thriv... more People are inventing new ways of working together on the internet. Decentralized production thrives on weblogs, wikis and free software projects. In Cyberchiefs, Mathieu O'Neil focuses on the regulation of these working relationships. He examines the transformation of leadership and expertise in online networks, and the emergence of innovative forms of participatory politics. What are the costs and benefits of alternatives to hierarchical organization? Using case studies of online projects or "tribes" such as the radical Primitivism archive, the Daily Kos political blog, the Debian free software project and Wikipedia, O’Neil shows that leaders must support maximum autonomy for participants and analyses the tensions generated by this distribution of authority.

Papers by Mathieu O'Neil

Organization Studies

Digitally networked voluntary associations such as Free Software projects and Wikipedia can be di... more Digitally networked voluntary associations such as Free Software projects and Wikipedia can be distinguished from capitalist firms in two respects. First, their predominant logic is ‘ethical’. Participation is primarily motivated by self-fulfillment and validated by a community of peers, rather than by earning wages. Second, their governance is ‘modular’, understood in a design sense (decomposable blocks sharing a common interface), but also in political-economy terms: participants oppose restricted ownership and control by individually socializing their works into commons. In recent years capitalist-centralized firms have increasingly engaged with ethical-modular organizations, in some cases paying wages to participants (such labour is thus both ‘alienated’ or sold, and ‘communal’, as workers freely cooperate to produce commons). This article reviews the literature dealing with the relationship of these two organizational types. It argues that the manner in which scholars approach a central characteristic of ethical-modular organizations – participants relinquish exclusive property rights over the resource they have created – leads to highly diverse interpretations. Four hypotheses are presented. A ‘panoptic’ view overlooks the abjuration of exclusive property rights, so that ethical-modular organizations can be defined as a variant of the evolution of capitalist firms into post-bureaucratic networks. ‘Skeptics’ view this abjuration as irrelevant, and ethical-modular organizations as increasing worker exploitation. In contrast, ‘activists’ celebrate the abjuration of exclusive property rights, and present ethical-modular organizations as key actors in a historical process leading to the disappearance of capitalism and hierarchy. Finally ‘reformists’ suggest that the co-optation of communal labour by firms will benefit business practices and society. The article examines each hypothesis’ analytical focus in terms of labour, loss of control by firms over workers, and societal impact. Where appropriate, it raises questions and objections. The conclusion addresses communal labour’s effective dependence on capitalist-centralized firms and suggests factors which may contribute to its emancipation.

This article examines the acceptance of control in antiauthoritarian environments. It argues tha... more This article examines the acceptance of control in antiauthoritarian environments. It argues that the use of the Weberian notion of legitimate domination or authority is appropriate in the context of collaborative online projects. The central argument is that legitimacy in collaborative projects constitutes itself in response to critique. In the realm of knowledge, the critique of external expertise forms the basis for the individualised, charismatic authority of founders who know the project inside out. In the realm of justice, the critique of opaque deliberations and decisions forms the basis for the collective, procedural authority of administrators who implement community decisions. These critiques can be generalised, challenging the social order, but their effectiveness is affected by how much is known about the identity of participants.

Online projects are communities of practice which attempt to bypass the hierarchies of everyday l... more Online projects are communities of practice which attempt to bypass the hierarchies of everyday life and to create autonomous institutions and forms of organisation. A wealth of theoretical frameworks have been put forward to account for these networked actors' capacity to communicate and self-organise. This article reviews terminology used in Internet research and assesses what it implies for the understanding of regulatory-oriented collective action. In terms of the environment in which interpersonal communication occurs, what differences does it make to speak of “public spheres” or of “public spaces”? In terms of social formations, of “organisations” or “networks”? And in terms of the diffusion of information over the global network, of “contagion” or “trajectories”? Selecting theoretical frames is a momentous decision for researchers, as it authorises or forbids the perception and analysis of different types of behaviour and practices.

Les personnes qui s’investissent dans des projets collaboratifs en ligne font preuve d'une attitu... more Les personnes qui s’investissent dans des projets collaboratifs en ligne font preuve d'une attitude morale, visant à éliminer toute forme d'exploitation et de domination. Comment dans ces conditions leur faire accepter des décisions contraignantes, pourtant nécessaires à la bonne administration des projets? Dans cet article, la domination légitime dans ces projets est définie comme une résistance à de nouvelles formes de critique. Dans le domaine du savoir, l'autorité individualisante et charismatique des fondateurs, qui connaissent le projet mieux que personne, résiste à la critique de l'expertise externe. Dans le domaine de la justice, l'autorité collective et procédurale des administrateurs, qui appliquent les décisions de la communauté, résiste à la critique des délibérations et décisions opaques. Ces critiques pourraient être généralisées, remettant en question l'ordre social, mais leur efficacité dépend de ce que l'on connait de l'identité des participants.

This article presents a comparative analysis in terms of background, organisation and ideology of... more This article presents a comparative analysis in terms of background, organisation and ideology of two landmark Internet Studies conferences: the First Berlin Symposium on Internet and Society: Exploring the Digital Future (25-28 October 2011, Humboldt University, Berlin) and the Fourth ICTs and Society-Conference: Critique, Democracy, and Philosophy in 21st Century Information Society. Towards Critical Theories of Social Media (2-4 May 2012, Uppsala University).

Journal of Peer Production No. 0, Jul 1, 2011

This article constitutes the third part of a debate articulated around the theme of “ANT and Powe... more This article constitutes the third part of a debate articulated around the theme of “ANT and Power”. In the first part, “ANT and Hegelian Marxism”, Johan Söderberg suggested that many of the attractive features within Actor-Network Theory (ANT) can be found elsewhere, in the more politically effective tradition of Marxism. Nathaniel Tkacz's response to Söderberg, “In defence of ANT”, argued that the political insights afforded by ANT are not reducible to the Marxist tradition, and that ANT is especially well suited to describe how force flows through peer-production projects - projects which already perform their own critique of Capital. In reply to Tkacz, this article argues that ANT and Foucault's network conception of power does not account for how domination is reproduced over time, or for people's inner sense of justice, preventing ANT from constituting a credible alternative.

Social movements are making extensive communicative and organizational use of the Internet in ord... more Social movements are making extensive communicative and organizational use of the Internet in order to identify social problems and bring about change. We present a model of an online social movement, where actors exchange practical and symbolic resources through hyperlink and online frame networks. Our positioning of these exchanges within a continuum of conscious and unconscious expressive behavior informs our framework for the empirical analysis of online collectives. An application using data collected from the websites of over 160 environmental activist organizations reveals significant fragmentation in this field of contentious activity, which we suggest reflects offline social divisions.

NOTICE: this is the author’s version of a work that was accepted for publication in Social Networks. Changes resulting from the publishing process, such as peer review, editing, corrections, structural formatting, and other quality control mechanisms may not be reflected in this document. Changes may have been made to this work since it was submitted for publication. A definitive version was subsequently published in Social Networks, Vol.33 (2011).

This paper has been awarded the 2012 Communication and Information Technologies Section of the American Sociological Association (CITASA) Paper Award. The Award recognises an outstanding published paper or book chapter related to the sociology of communications or the sociology of information technology.

This paper presents a new conceptual framework for the analysis of authority in anti-authoritaria... more This paper presents a new conceptual framework for the analysis of authority in anti-authoritarian environments. Legitimate domination in commons-based peer production projects such as Wikipedia rests on two main principles: the extraordinary qualities of charismatic individuals and collectively formulated norms and rules. Self-governed authority is in turn based on a critique of separated power in the realms of expertise and justice. It thereby constitutes a prefigurative response to widespread democratic aspirations in technologically-advanced societies. However this conceptual framework also raises analytical and practical questions. In the first instance, critiques of separation on Wikipedia are hindered by the persistent regard for outside expertise, and by perceptions that justice is unfairly applied because of the ever-increasing power of the administrative caste as well as the anonymity of some participants. Second, the proposed sociology of critical actions in Wikipedia requires discussions of specific decisions by project officers and may thus contradict traditional ethical prohibitions regarding the identifications of online research subjects, suggesting the need for a clarification of the aims of research into peer production projects.

Wikipedia has taken on many features of the hacker universe, starting with the notion that power ... more Wikipedia has taken on many features of the hacker universe, starting with the notion that power should detach from corporate hierarchies so that participants are free to create their own management structures. Hacker-inspired peer projects are also characterised by the tension between openness and elitism; what distinguishes Wikipedians from outsiders is their familiarity with project language and rules. Domination in Web 2.0 projects such as Wikipedia is distributed: this means that new entrants can rapidly attain powerful positions, resulting in a multiplicity of autonomous leaders. This paper argues that a good way to understand this distribution of power is to examine the roles of people within the Wikipedia organisational structure. Occupying a recognised role means that people can operate as authorities who legitimately exercise restraining actions over other participants.

Online knowledge production sites do not rely on isolated experts but on collaborative processes,... more Online knowledge production sites do not rely on isolated experts but on collaborative processes, on the wisdom of the group or “crowd”. Some authors have argued that it is possible to combine traditional or credentialled expertise with collective production; others believe that traditional expertise's focus on correctness has been superseded by the affordances of digital networking, such as re-use and verifiability. This paper examines the costs of two kinds of “crowdsourced” encyclopedic projects: Citizendium, based on the work of credentialled and identified experts, faces a recruitment deficit; in contrast Wikipedia has proved wildly popular, but anti-credentialism and anonymity result in uncertainty, irresponsibility, the development of cliques and the growing importance of pseudo-legal competencies for conflict resolution. Finally the paper reflects on the wider social implications of focusing on what experts are rather than on what they are for.

The loose ties evoked so far seem would seem appropriate to describe online tribes, which appear ... more The loose ties evoked so far seem would seem appropriate to describe online tribes, which appear at first to be transient gatherings of disembodied voices from around the world. I want to consider the opposite premise: that the tribal impulse originates with the affirmation of group boundaries; that there can be no inclusion and belonging without exclusion and differentiation; that tribes are vehicles for radical thought. In Cohen’s words, “boundaries are marked because communities interact in some way or other with entities from which they are, or wish to be, distinguished.” An extreme case of boundary-building is groups which unconditionally reject everything that is not themselves: anarcho-primitivists fit that description.

Focas. Focus on Contemporary Art and Society., Jun 2007

Alvin Tan, Mathieu O’Neil and Lucy Davis discuss the role of the Singapore Artscommunity e-group ... more Alvin Tan, Mathieu O’Neil and Lucy Davis discuss the role of the Singapore Artscommunity e-group (‘artscom’). With over 2,000 members, the ‘artscom’ has been the site of sometimes passionate debates at the intersection of Singapore art and society. It constitutes a valuable forum for the free exchange of information and opinion in a Singaporean public sphere where the influence of the government can often be felt.

Continuum, Jan 1, 2006

Contemporary capitalism's cycles of production and consumption are fuelled by the development of ... more Contemporary capitalism's cycles of production and consumption are fuelled by the development of information and communication technology (ICT). Technoscientific progress depends on cooperatively produced knowledge, which Marx called `general intellect'. It would be tempting to portray hackers - highly specialized knowledge workers who rebel against state and corporate authority - as a progressive general intellect, opposed to the economic and social order. This reading would mesh nicely with an understanding, popular amongst contemporary intellectuals, of legitimate hackers as a positive social force, who have been unfairly lumped together with computer vandals in order to disqualify threats to the dominant system, such as free software. My own understanding of hackers, however, is quite different. I do not mean to imply that individual hackers do not feel that they are genuinely resisting dominant norms and values; but I am interested in defining how the economic and social order can accommodate, and, perhaps, coopt this resistance. I start with the premise that hacking is indeed a gesture of defiance. Popular perceptions of hackers as `rebels' have been shaped by many sources, but few have proven as influential as William Gibson's 1980s cyberpunk fiction. Reviewing cyberpunk's economic positioning of hackers - how Gibson's `computer cowboys' fit into the labour market - will inform a reassessment of the socio-economic impact of real-world virus writers and hackers in globalised capitalism.

Proceedings of the Second …, Jan 1, 2006

The Virtual Observatory for the Study of Online Networks (VOSON) is providing a web-based environ... more The Virtual Observatory for the Study of Online Networks (VOSON) is providing a web-based environment facilitating research into networks. While the initial focus of the VOSON Project is on empirical analysis of online networks by social scientists, we aim to eventually facilitate network research in other disciplines such as biology and applied physics. Via a VOSON web portal, researchers can access various storage and computational resources such as existing network data sets, tools for creating and storing new data sets, network analytical methods and network visualisation tools. While these resources are currently provided “in-house”, we envisage the involvement of third-party resource providers (primarily, other researchers) who wish to share their data and methods to promote scientificendeavour in their particular areas of network research. Thus, VOSON is an example of using emerging e-Research technologies to promote “open-source” research practice and we see the web services model as a means of bringing together of disparate network research resources, many of which are already well-established. In this paper, we describe VOSON System and our plans (and progress) for incorporating web services into the system. New VOSON facilitatedresearch into online environmental activists is also presented.

Organization Studies

Journal of Peer Production No. 0, Jul 1, 2011

Focas. Focus on Contemporary Art and Society., Jun 2007

Continuum, Jan 1, 2006

Proceedings of the Second …, Jan 1, 2006

This text was written, edited and peer reviewed for a collection called Image(ining) Resistance, ... more This text was written, edited and peer reviewed for a collection called Image(ining) Resistance, to be published by Wilfrid Laurier University Press, in 2005. At some point the editors ceased writing to me and I later found out that the book had come out, albeit dealing only with Canadian political art. Over the years I sometimes entertained the thought of revising it but have now decided to leave it as it is, with the exception of one updated reference. It is part of my personal journey from the underground / zine culture of the last century, to what was in 2005 called “new media art”, to peer production. In the context of the mid-2000s political contestation and revolt seemed out of the question; this text should be read as a snapshot of that period. Yet the events of 2011 showed that my introduction, which connected revolution and artistic engagement, was not so far-fetched after all.

In this paper, I analyse authoritative statements and actions in blogspace. According to the soci... more In this paper, I analyse authoritative statements and actions in blogspace. According to the social network analytical model, power and authority on networks derive from centrality or ‘prominence’, the density of ties to other more or less centrally located individuals. Sites such as Technorati make success statistically measurable, by identifying the most authoritative blogs (those that are most linked to). Social network researchers assert that the apparently highly unequal distribution of links on the web and in blogspace constitutes a ‘power law’ distribution model: deterministic network forces are said to favour early entrants on the blog market; linking patterns are portrayed as inherently conservative, constraining new entrants and leading to the reinforcement of authoritative actors. The ‘power law’ takes on the immutable qualities of natural phenomena which cannot be questioned. These analyses, which focus on network morphology and mechanisms, suffer from an inadequate conceptualization of human agency and culture, as well as from a tendency to consider online networks as isolated from offline social structures. What processes of differentiation and exclusion structure the social dynamics of blogspace? The antagonism between issue-based blogs and personal journals (epitomized by LiveJournal) reveals oppositions as to how authority is produced and reproduced, as well as diverging conceptions of virtual space. The relatively open space of issue-blogs is based on ‘quality’, where authoritative statements form the basis of the bartering of prestigious links, and of mainstream media recognition. The relatively closed space of LiveJournal is based on ‘intimacy’, where authoritative actions (such as the inclusions and inclusions of other users into journals) constitute the subtext of many conversations. Could the scorn poured on LiveJournal by issue-bloggers be attributed to gender (LiveJournal is predominantly peopled by females whilst the influential political blog subgroup – for example – is predominantly male)? Another explanation would relate to the relationship of actors to authority. Blogging signifies the extension of networking and linking, but also that of controlling and excluding; however the second part of the equation is not usually acknowledged in issue-based blogspace. LiveJournal reveals what lies behind blogging’s ‘participatory’ and ‘democratic’ rhetoric, and must, accordingly, be ostracized

In Annick Foucrier et Antoine Coppolani (eds.) La Californie: péripherie ou laboratoire? Paris: L... more In Annick Foucrier et Antoine Coppolani (eds.) La Californie: péripherie ou laboratoire? Paris: L'Harmattan, pp. 47-59.