- Dipartimento di Scienze Sociali, Università degli Studi di Napoli: Federico II, Vico Monte della Pietà 1, 80138, Napoli
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In Italia si è ormai consolidata l'idea che l'innovazione digitale debba passare per il modello startup/venture capital di origine Californiana. È dalla metà degli anni Novanta che il termine startup circola nelle... more
In Italia si è ormai consolidata l'idea che l'innovazione digitale debba passare per il modello startup/venture capital di origine Californiana. È dalla metà degli anni Novanta che il termine startup circola nelle discussioni sull'innovazione nel nostro paese, e nel ultimo decennio è diventato il modello dominante in assoluto. Da visioni per 'l'industria 4.0' al decreto crescita del governo Conte, passando per iniziative per valorizzare quartieri in degrado e contrastare la disoccupazione giovanile, 'investire in start-up' è diventato parte del senso comune di gramsciana memoria. Ma ha senso investire in startup? Quanto funziona l'ecosistema startup in Italia? Quanto è in grado di generare ricchezza e crescita? Quanto corrisponde il senso comune alla realtà?
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This paper summarizes three years of ethnographic work on Commons Based Peer Production communities within the research project P2PValue, funded by the European Commission. Key insights are: • CBPP is part of a broader transformation in... more
This paper summarizes three years of ethnographic work on Commons Based Peer Production communities within the research project P2PValue, funded by the European Commission. Key insights are: • CBPP is part of a broader transformation in the information economy whereby collaboration and common knowledge have come to play an ever more important part in value creation. This development has roots that go back to the industrial revolution in the 19th century and it has been greatly accelerated by the diffusion of digital media. CBPP or CBPP like modes of production have become a core component to the contemporary information economy as a whole. • CBPP occurs in highly particular kinds of communities. They are not kept together by frequent interaction or a tight web of social relations. Instead they are kept together by sharing a common imaginary that posits a transformative potential on the part of the particular practice to which these communities are dedicated. • Contributions to this potential through technical skills and/or virtuous conduct is rewarded with reputation. Reputation is the form of that exchange value takes in CBPP communities, it is the 'fictious commodity' typical to CBPP. • Reputation is also the most important value form that structures transactions between CBPP and other institutional logics, such as that of markets, capitalism and the state. • The value of reputation lies in its ability to give a proximate measure to risk. • The fact that value is principally related to risk means that CBPP communities operate a value logic that mirror that of financial markets. • Most CBPP communities envision commons based markets as alternatives to capitalism. Such commons-based markets build on the construction of imaginaries that are able to transform insecurity into risk in ways that mirror communitarian principles.
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In this chapter we draw on our ongoing research on freelance knowledge workers in London and Milan to discuss how “public brands” operate within self-organized productive networks and how self-branding in its current usage points toward a... more
In this chapter we draw on our ongoing research on freelance knowledge workers in London and Milan to discuss how “public brands” operate within self-organized productive networks and how self-branding in its current usage points toward a different conception of value proper to such emerging networked models of organization.1 We suggest that since their origin as superficial symbols— perhaps the antithesis of ethics—brands, and in particular personal brands, are now becoming foundational devices for the realization of a new kind of ethics proper to the emerging modes of productive organization that knowledge workers promote.
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Audience research is undergoing substantial transformation. The old ‘eyeballs’ paradigm has been losing adequacy since, at least, the 1980s. At the same time, social media platforms like Twitter and Facebook provide data that allow a far... more
Audience research is undergoing substantial transformation. The old ‘eyeballs’ paradigm has been losing adequacy since, at least, the 1980s. At the same time, social media platforms like Twitter and Facebook provide data that allow a far deeper and more intrusive view into the everyday life of media consumers. As a result, many companies are now developing systems based on social media data in order to represent, measure and value audience dynamics in new ways. This transformation of audience research has been paralleled by the rise of concepts like influence, clout or passion as a way of conceiving of audience value. But how are such affective values created? And how can the new semantics of value as passion be critiqued? In this article, we will address that question by thinking through two theoretical models of audience value. Dallas Smythe’s theory of the audience commodity and Gabriel Tarde’s theory of public value. We will suggest that present developments in the media economy...
Research Interests: Cultural Studies, Media Studies, New Media, Digital Media, Audience Studies, and 15 moreMass Communication, Audience and Reception Studies, Digital Culture, Consumer Research, Netnography, Audience, Audience Measurement, Affect, Audience Research, Digital Marketing, Attention Economy, Broadcast, Communication and media Studies, European Cultural Studies, and Commercial Services
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The concept of brand community has been used to understand how consumers create value around brands online. Recently consumer researchers have begun to debate the relevance of this concept for understanding brand-related communication on... more
The concept of brand community has been used to understand how consumers create value around brands online. Recently consumer researchers have begun to debate the relevance of this concept for understanding brand-related communication on social media. Based on a data set of 8949 tweets about Louis Vuitton gathered on Italian Twitter in 2013, this article addresses these discussions by developing the alternative concept of brand publics that differ from brand communities in three important ways. First, brand publics are social formations that are not based on interaction but on a continuous focus of interest and mediation. Second, participation in brand publics is not structured by discussion or deliberation but by individual or collective affect. Third, in brand publics consumers do not develop a collective identity around the focal brand; rather the brand is valuable as a medium that can offer publicity to a multitude of diverse situations of identity. The conclusion suggests that ...
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This article highlights advertising agencies as marketplace icons. The role of ad agencies in creating iconic brands can sometimes be obscured, yet ad agencies are central to how the contemporary marketplace works. While ad agencies are... more
This article highlights advertising agencies as marketplace icons. The role of ad agencies in creating iconic brands can sometimes be obscured, yet ad agencies are central to how the contemporary marketplace works. While ad agencies are no longer the hegemonic instance of consumer culture that they were from the 1950s to the 1990s, they have adapted to today's democratic advertisingscape by shepherding cultural content produced elsewhere to market. Ad agencies have remained the engine behind significant shifts in consumer culture, such as the warming of relations between music and advertising, by acting as the ‘midwife’ between art and commerce, facilitating new cultural practices in the process.
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This paper addresses crowd-based dynamics of value creation in participatory culture. Based on a corpus of 114,931 tweets associated with One Direction and similar boy bands, we draw on recent theories of crowd-based organization in... more
This paper addresses crowd-based dynamics of value creation in participatory culture. Based on a corpus of 114,931 tweets associated with One Direction and similar boy bands, we draw on recent theories of crowd-based organization in digital media as well as classical crowd theory to build a theoretical model of collective value creation. In our model, the achievement of value in the form of trending and individual microcelebrity is based on affectively driven processes of imitation, rather than on rational evaluation and deliberation. We contrast this model with established accounts of microcelebrity and draw out implications for theories of crowd-based organization in digital media and for theories of participatory culture and collaborative value creation in general.
Research Interests: Sociology, Social Theory, Political Economy, Media Studies, New Media, and 15 moreDigital Humanities, Citizen Journalism, Participatory Culture, Social Media, Consumer Culture, Twitter, Digital methods, Deliberation, Communication Studies, Crowds, Library and Information Studies, Crowd Behaviour and Psychology, Imitation, Digital Marketing, and Communication and media Studies
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Research Interests: Psychology, Computer Science, Physics, Communication, New Media, and 15 moreData Mining, Social Media, Quantitative analysis, Negative Affect, Big Data, Information Diffusion, Microblogging, Information and Network Security, Social Relation, Positive Affect, Random sampling, Quantitative Analysis, Information network, arXiv, and Springer Ebooks
Abstract: This chapter will attempt to address historicize forms of customer co-production: Drawing on the development of Italian fashion, we will present two historical ideal types of how customers have been integrated within the value... more
Abstract: This chapter will attempt to address historicize forms of customer co-production: Drawing on the development of Italian fashion, we will present two historical ideal types of how customers have been integrated within the value chains of the culture and creative ...
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We engage with recent applications of the Marxist “labor theory of value” to online prosumer practices, and offer an alternative framework for theorizing value creation in such practices. We argue that the labor theory of value is... more
We engage with recent applications of the Marxist “labor theory of value” to online prosumer practices, and offer an alternative framework for theorizing value creation in such practices. We argue that the labor theory of value is difficult to apply to online prosumer practices for ...
Research Interests: Information Systems, Computer Science, Economics, Social Sciences, Data Mining, and 13 moreSocial Media, Capitalism, Marxist philosophy, Prosumer, Reputation, Library and Information Studies, The Information Society, Value Creation, Financial Market, Communication and media Studies, Use Value, Exchange Value, and Commodity
This article uses the case of social entrepreneurs or “Changemakers” to investigate the phenomenon of self-branding among knowledge workers. We argue that self-branding is not only the effect of a neoliberal regime of governmentality, but... more
This article uses the case of social entrepreneurs or “Changemakers” to investigate the phenomenon of self-branding among knowledge workers. We argue that self-branding is not only the effect of a neoliberal regime of governmentality, but that this phenomenon could also represent the seed of a new and more rational value regime that could provide the basis for a more adequate institutional framework for an emerging economy of immaterial labor. We explore the political and ethical implications of this suggestion.
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... 200820. Hearn, A. 2008. 'Meat, Mask, Burden: Probing the Contours of the Branded Self'. Journal of Consumer Culture , 8(2): 197217. [CrossRef], [Web of Science ®] View all references; Illouz 200722.... more
... 200820. Hearn, A. 2008. 'Meat, Mask, Burden: Probing the Contours of the Branded Self'. Journal of Consumer Culture , 8(2): 197217. [CrossRef], [Web of Science ®] View all references; Illouz 200722. Illouz, E. 2007. Cold ...
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This article argues that the information economy is split in two. On the one hand, there is the traditional capitalist economy that works with monetary incentives. This economy still handles the main part of material production: the... more
This article argues that the information economy is split in two. On the one hand, there is the traditional capitalist economy that works with monetary incentives. This economy still handles the main part of material production: the production of cars, shoes, computer chips, and ...
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This article draws on fieldwork form Delhi’s garment and electronics bazaars to articulate an alternative perspective on the role of brands in the global bazaar economy. Knockoffs and counterfeit brands have mostly been viewed as... more
This article draws on fieldwork form Delhi’s garment and electronics bazaars to articulate an alternative perspective on the role of brands in the global bazaar economy. Knockoffs and counterfeit brands have mostly been viewed as problematic manifestations of counterfeiting and piracy, or framed in terms of authenticity or marginal practices of imitation. In this article, we suggest that bazaar brands also function as central to a growing popular innovation system able to provide material goods as well as immaterial experiences to the world’s poorer consumers in ways that stay in close contacts with the mediated fluctuations of popular affects. Bazaar brands develop a unique relationship with consumers based on an ability to seize the moment rather than the creation of enduring loyalties. We suggest that bazaar brands can be understood as central to an emerging postcapitalist consumer economy that has been substantially empowered by the spread of digital technologies.
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In Italia si è ormai consolidata l'idea che l'innovazione digitale debba passare per il modello startup/venture capital di origine Californiana. È dalla metà degli anni Novanta che il termine startup circola nelle discussioni... more
In Italia si è ormai consolidata l'idea che l'innovazione digitale debba passare per il modello startup/venture capital di origine Californiana. È dalla metà degli anni Novanta che il termine startup circola nelle discussioni sull'innovazione nel nostro paese, e nel ultimo decennio è diventato il modello dominante in assoluto. Da visioni per 'l'industria 4.0' al decreto crescita del governo Conte, passando per iniziative per valorizzare quartieri in degrado e contrastare la disoccupazione giovanile, 'investire in start-up' è diventato parte del senso comune di gramsciana memoria. Ma ha senso investire in startup? Quanto funziona l'ecosistema startup in Italia? Quanto è in grado di generare ricchezza e crescita? Quanto corrisponde il senso comune alla realtà?
Research Interests:
This article investigates the potential role of the commons in the future transformation of digital capitalism by comparing it to the role of the commons in the transition to capitalism. In medieval and early modern Europe the commons... more
This article investigates the potential role of the commons in the future transformation of digital capitalism by comparing it to the role of the commons in the transition to capitalism. In medieval and early modern Europe the commons supported gradual social and technological innovation as well as a new civil society organized around the combination of commons-based petty production and new ideals of freedom and equality. Today the new commons generated by the global real subsumption of ordinary life processes are supporting similar forms of commons-based petty production. After positioning the new petty producers within the framework of the crisis of digital capitalism, the article concludes by extrapolating a number of hypothetical scenarios for their role in its future transformation.
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Giordano, Alex, Vincenzo Luise, and Adam Arvidsson. "The coming community. The politics of alternative food networks in Southern Italy." Journal of Marketing Management 34, no. 7-8 (2018): 620-638.
This paper summarizes three years of ethnographic work on Commons Based Peer Production communities within the research project P2PValue, funded by the European Commission. Key insights are: • CBPP is part of a broader transformation in... more
This paper summarizes three years of ethnographic work on Commons Based Peer Production communities within the research project P2PValue, funded by the European Commission. Key insights are:
• CBPP is part of a broader transformation in the information economy whereby collaboration and common knowledge have come to play an ever more important part in value creation. This development has roots that go back to the industrial revolution in the 19th century and it has been greatly accelerated by the diffusion of digital media. CBPP or CBPP like modes of production have become a core component to the contemporary information economy as a whole.
• CBPP occurs in highly particular kinds of communities. They are not kept together by frequent interaction or a tight web of social relations. Instead they are kept together by sharing a common imaginary that posits a transformative potential on the part of the particular practice to which these communities are dedicated.
• Contributions to this potential through technical skills and/or virtuous conduct is rewarded with reputation. Reputation is the form of that exchange value takes in CBPP communities, it is the 'fictious commodity' typical to CBPP.
• Reputation is also the most important value form that structures transactions between CBPP and other institutional logics, such as that of markets, capitalism and the state.
• The value of reputation lies in its ability to give a proximate measure to risk.
• The fact that value is principally related to risk means that CBPP communities operate a value logic that mirror that of financial markets.
• Most CBPP communities envision commons based markets as alternatives to capitalism. Such commons-based markets build on the construction of imaginaries that are able to transform insecurity into risk in ways that mirror communitarian principles.
• CBPP is part of a broader transformation in the information economy whereby collaboration and common knowledge have come to play an ever more important part in value creation. This development has roots that go back to the industrial revolution in the 19th century and it has been greatly accelerated by the diffusion of digital media. CBPP or CBPP like modes of production have become a core component to the contemporary information economy as a whole.
• CBPP occurs in highly particular kinds of communities. They are not kept together by frequent interaction or a tight web of social relations. Instead they are kept together by sharing a common imaginary that posits a transformative potential on the part of the particular practice to which these communities are dedicated.
• Contributions to this potential through technical skills and/or virtuous conduct is rewarded with reputation. Reputation is the form of that exchange value takes in CBPP communities, it is the 'fictious commodity' typical to CBPP.
• Reputation is also the most important value form that structures transactions between CBPP and other institutional logics, such as that of markets, capitalism and the state.
• The value of reputation lies in its ability to give a proximate measure to risk.
• The fact that value is principally related to risk means that CBPP communities operate a value logic that mirror that of financial markets.
• Most CBPP communities envision commons based markets as alternatives to capitalism. Such commons-based markets build on the construction of imaginaries that are able to transform insecurity into risk in ways that mirror communitarian principles.
Research Interests:
This paper develops the concept of “brand public” as an alternative way to conceptualize how consumers create value around brands on social media. Based on an analysis of Twitter traffic around the French luxury brand Louis Vuitton we... more
This paper develops the concept of “brand public” as an alternative way to conceptualize how
consumers create value around brands on social media. Based on an analysis of Twitter traffic
around the French luxury brand Louis Vuitton we develop an empirically grounded model of brand
publics. We discuss how publics differ from communities as social forms, how consumers
participate and how value is created.
consumers create value around brands on social media. Based on an analysis of Twitter traffic
around the French luxury brand Louis Vuitton we develop an empirically grounded model of brand
publics. We discuss how publics differ from communities as social forms, how consumers
participate and how value is created.
Research Interests:
This article analyses labour conditions among creative workers in the Milan fashion industry. Employing both qualitative and quantitative methods, the article shows how workers in the Milan fashion industry are generally underpaid and... more
This article analyses labour conditions among creative workers in the Milan fashion industry. Employing both qualitative and quantitative methods, the article shows how workers in the Milan fashion industry are generally underpaid and overworked. Despite such dire conditions, fashion work is generally considered gratifying and workers express high levels of satisfaction. The second part of the article attempts to unravel this paradox, departing from McRobbie’s conception of passionate work. It suggests that the promotion of creativity as a desired form of life in the contemporary metropolis has shaped new forms of identity related to symbolic remuneration for work.
This chapter attempts to address historicize forms of customer co-production. Drawing on the development of Italian fashion, it presents two historical ideal types of how customers have been integrated within the value chains of the... more
This chapter attempts to address historicize forms of customer co-production. Drawing on the development of Italian fashion, it presents two historical ideal types of how customers have been integrated within the value chains of the culture and creative industries — “social factory” and “brand.” In the “social factory” model, customers (and other external actors) are mainly used to supply input for product innovation. In the “brand” phase the productive contribution of customers becomes not primarily that of developing new products, but of co-creating an environment in which certain kinds of value conventions can operate. This entails different strategies of governance, such as the marketing of a generic form of “creativity” as a social ideal, which can easily be confused with emancipatory developments.
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Research Interests:
We engage with recent applications of the Marxist “labor theory of value” to online prosumer practices, and offer an alternative framework for theorizing value creation in such practices. We argue that the labor theory of value is... more
We engage with recent applications of the Marxist “labor theory of value” to online prosumer practices, and offer an alternative framework for theorizing value creation in such practices. We argue that the labor theory of value is difficult to apply to online prosumer practices for two reasons. One, value creation in such practices is poorly related to time. Two, the realization of the value accumulated by social media companies generally occurs in financial markets, rather than in direct commodity exchange. In an alternative framework, we offer an understanding of value creation as based primarily on the capacity to initiate and sustain webs of affective relations, and value realization as linked to a reputation based financial economy. We argue that this model describes the process of value creation and appropriation in the context of online prosumer platforms better than an approach based on the Marxist labor theory of value. We also suggest that our approach can cast new light on value creation within informational capitalism in general.
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Research Interests:
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The becoming productive of consumer culture has been an important theme for social research. Within neoliberal discourse, the link between consumer culture and new forms of immaterial production has been conceptualized as “creativity.”... more
The becoming productive of consumer culture has been an important theme for social research. Within neoliberal discourse, the link between consumer culture and new forms of immaterial production has been conceptualized as “creativity.” This paper uses the experience of Bangkok’s fashion markets to begin to articulate an alternative understanding of the relation between consumer culture and immater- ial production, a different kind of “creativity.” We suggest that Bangkok’s fashion markets manifest a kind of creativity where innovation is highly socialized, as opposed to being oriented around the notion of individual genius and individual intellectual property; where participation is popular as opposed to elite-based and where the ambiguous relation between creation and commercial success that is intrinsic to Western notions of creativity is replaced by an embrace of markets and commerce as vehicles for self-expression. Bangkok’s fashion markets represent an example of a market-based commons centered innovation economy.
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Audience research is undergoing substantial transformation. The old ‘eyeballs’ paradigm has been losing adequacy since, at least, the 1980s. At the same time, social media platforms like Twitter and Facebook provide data that allow a far... more
Audience research is undergoing substantial transformation. The old ‘eyeballs’ paradigm has been losing adequacy since, at least, the 1980s. At the same time, social media platforms like Twitter and Facebook provide data that allow a far deeper and more intrusive view into the everyday life of media consumers. As a result, many companies are now developing systems based on social media data in order to represent, measure and value audience dynamics in new ways. This transformation of audience research has been paralleled by the rise of concepts like influence, clout or passion as a way of conceiving of audience value. But how are such affective values created? And how can the new semantics of value as passion be critiqued? In this article, we will address that question by thinking through two theoretical models of audience value. Dallas Smythe’s theory of the audience commodity and Gabriel Tarde’s theory of public value. We will suggest that present developments in the media economy make Tarde’s model more relevant for understanding the value of contemporary audience activity. We suggest that this might lead to a redirection of critical theories of audience value toward a focus on constructing the kinds of devices that are able to represent audience value in ways that take a broader range of interests into consideration.
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This paper addresses crowd based dynamics of value creation in participatory culture. Based on a corpus of 114.931 tweets associated with One Direction and similar boy bands we draw on recent theories of crowd based organization in... more
This paper addresses crowd based dynamics of value creation in participatory culture. Based on a corpus of 114.931 tweets associated with One Direction and similar boy bands we draw on recent theories of crowd based organization in digital media as well as classical crowd theory to build a theoretical model of collective value creation. In our model the achievement of value in the form of trending and individual micro-celebrity is based on affectively driven processes of imitation, rather than on rational evaluation and deliberation. We contrast this model with established accounts of micro-celebrity and draw out implications for theories of crowd based organization in digital media and for theories of participatory culture and collaborative value creation in general.
Research Interests:
From the phenomenological point of view of the everyday lifeworld, climate change, and the condition of Anthropocene more generally, are often discussed as what Timothy Morton calls ‘hyperobjects’- objects that are ‘too big’ to be fully... more
From the phenomenological point of view of the everyday lifeworld, climate change, and the condition of Anthropocene more generally, are often discussed as what Timothy Morton calls ‘hyperobjects’- objects that are ‘too big’ to be fully understood and acted on; that exceed the forms of rationality that our established habits and horizons permit. In this situation a common reaction is perplexity, a situation where established cognitive frames and forms of practice are unable to incorporate, comprehend and deal with the phenomenon in a coherent way and formulate rational, future-oriented horizons for action. In this article we use the case of Italian rural changemakers to investigate the features of such climate perplexity. Our conclusions problematize the future visions inherent in the changemaker ideology that stress the possibility of confronting phenomena related to the overall condition of the Anthropocene through value-oriented entrepreneurship.
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Introduction to Changemakers. The Industrious future of the Digital Economy, forthcoming with Polity Press.
The Sharing economy combines value with Virtue. There is the economic logic of value expressed on markets and in exchange. And there is the communal logic of virtue, based in social relations and expressed in civicness and progressive... more
The Sharing economy combines value with Virtue. There is the economic logic of value expressed on markets and in exchange. And there is the communal logic of virtue, based in social relations and expressed in civicness and progressive action. The great paradox of the Sharing Economy is that it combines the two logics of action that have been understood to be not only diametrically opposed but also fundamentally conflicting throughout the history of modern social theory, and arguable ever since its classical origins. In this paper I will suggest that the Sharing Economy rather showcases how, in the contemporary information economy, virtue and value can instead be mutually constitutive. That is, adherence to virtue is what makes economic exchange possible and, conversely, market oriented practice is understood, by most participants, to be a pragmatic instrument to be deployed in the advancement of virtuous goals. This new relation requires a rethinking, in turn, of its constituent parts, value and virtue.
This article suggests that Facebook embodies a new logic of corporate governance, what has been termed the ‘social logic of the derivative’. The logic of the derivative is rooted in the now dominant financial level of the capitalist... more
This article suggests that Facebook embodies a new logic of corporate governance, what has been termed the ‘social logic of the derivative’. The logic of the derivative is rooted in the now dominant financial level of the capitalist economy, and is mediated by social media and the algorithmic
processing of large digital data sets. This article makes three precise claims: First, that the modus operandi of Facebook mirrors the operations of derivative financial instruments. Second, that the algorithms that Facebook uses share a genealogy with those of derivative financial instruments- both are outcomes of the influence of the ‘cyber sciences’ on managerial practice in the post-War years. Third, that the future potential of Facebook lies its ability to apply the logic of derivatives to the financial valuation of ordinary social relations, thus further extending the process of
financialization of everyday
processing of large digital data sets. This article makes three precise claims: First, that the modus operandi of Facebook mirrors the operations of derivative financial instruments. Second, that the algorithms that Facebook uses share a genealogy with those of derivative financial instruments- both are outcomes of the influence of the ‘cyber sciences’ on managerial practice in the post-War years. Third, that the future potential of Facebook lies its ability to apply the logic of derivatives to the financial valuation of ordinary social relations, thus further extending the process of
financialization of everyday