Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882)
The past tense of “I give” is “I take” a professor from last semester candidly mentioned. In reality, the rule of reciprocation and obligation are two trump cards marketers wield as persuasion tactics. The rise of the Internet soon followed the birth of the concept of "virtual community." From the beginning, the concept of virtual community gained wide currency in part because of its utopian resonance. Given that online interaction is relatively anonymous, that there is no central authority, and that it is difficult or impossible to impose monetary or physical sanctions on someone, it is striking that the Internet is not literally a war of all against all. (Kollock, 1999) Many observers were struck by the voluntary and democratic nature of virtual communities. The online practice of strangers helping other strangers with advice and information spoke forcefully to long-standing images of idealized community life of generous mutual aid.
Why do some individuals invest so much time and effort in posting free advice and information online while others do so rarely, if at all? Research suggests that a powerful motivation for disproportionate gift giving in virtual communities can be traced to rational calculation- individuals may expect reciprocity in the not-too-distant future, individuals wish to contribute to the general welfare or they wish to repay past generosity. (Curien, Fauchart, Laffond, & Moreau, 2004)
The Gift Economy offers us a means to learn, to understand, to take charge and to change our world. It is a natural economy, steeped in millions of years of pre-civilization human culture and the culture of all life on Earth. If enough of us embraced it, the modern 'market' economy built on the faulty and inhuman foundations of inequality, scarcity, false quantification of value and acquisition could not survive. In a 'market' economy, the highest status belongs to those who have acquired the most. More generally, in hunter-gatherer societies the hunter's status was not determined by how much of the kill he ate but rather by what he brought back for others.
In a Gift Economy, the highest status belongs to those who have given the most. But what is most important is that the gift must always move. This idea was recently popularized by the terrific little movie called Pay it Forward. Every gift is its own reward but that reward is multiplied without limit, when the gift is passed along to others. A story is a gift. Blogs are gifts. Ideas and insights and teaching and counsel are gifts. Conversations and advice are gifts. (Hyde, 1983)
The Photographers’ Network is one such local online community I belong to. This site aims to be a "photography learning community", in which more experienced photographers, both avid amateurs and professional, provide mutual support, as well as being a resource for those interested in learning about photography. The most prominent sections of the site are forums and galleries featuring member-contributed photos and writing. Volunteer moderators and editors are responsible for most of this content. Almost all the content on the site can be commented upon by members and the comments become a significant part of the content.
The audience consists of photography enthusiasts and would-be enthusiasts but with a significant number of semi-professionals and professionals. Due to the growth in digital photography, there has been a substantial increase in novices visiting the site to use it as a learning resource. Although the audience is predominantly 80% male, female budding photographers feel no reservations to contributing freely thanks to online interaction being relatively anonymous. When people pass on free advice or offer useful information, the recipient is often unknown to them and the giver may never encounter the recipient again. (Kollock, 1999)
Online communities are for all intents and purpose communities made up of strangers who remain strangers so the question that inevitably arises is what could motivate strangers to give gifts to other strangers? Status and status seeking sustain gift giving in virtual consumer communities. However, because status seeking online cannot be done by display or by asserting rank, it takes a different form of identity enactment: The gift comes with a message about the gift giver, a message that contains the identity that the giver wants to establish as a way of communicating status. The power of this process and the reason that it can sustain gift giving resides in the fact that the persuasiveness of the message as a way of seeking status does not depend on direct interaction with the receiver of this information. The dual investment that gift givers make- in the gift and in the accompanying message- is in principle enough to sustain further gift giving.
References:
Kollock, P. (1999) The Economies of Online Cooperation: Gifts and Public Goods in Cyberspace, Communities in Cyberspace. Retrieved on February 9, 2007 from < http://www.sscnet.ucla.edu/soc/faculty/kollock/papers/economies.htm>
Curien, N., Fauchart, E., Laffond, G., & Moreau, F. (2004). Online consumer communities. Working paper, Laboratoire d' econometrie, Paris. Retrieved on February 9, 2007 from <http://www.cnam-econometrie.com/upload/OLC-CUP.pdf>
Hyde, L. (1983) The Gift: Imagination and the Erotic Life of Property. Vintage Books
1 comment:
Yes, photography communities make up an excellent example of a gift economy at work. Full grades awarded. :)
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