This is part of the Oxford Digital Ethnography Group Seminar Series; this seminar series gathers leading scholars and practitioners to reflect on how ethnography is adapting to the study of heavily-mediated worlds. In the creative industries, artistic production is formalised through conventions guiding all aspects of the production processes, including the divisions of labour as well as audience and genre expectations. Over the past decade, new production models have begun emerging vis-à-vis networked technologies and online participatory cultures, notably novel ways of crowdsourcing knowledge (e.g. Wikipedia; citizen science projects) and culture. But how do heterogeneous groups of geographically dispersed volunteers (professionals and amateurs) collaborate in a networked fashion without established conventions to guide the cultural production? Drawing on a multiyear digital ethnography of an online filmmaking community, this session provides insights into production cultures enabling crowdsourced films. Specifically, the talk presents five distinct patterns of participant orientations, and account for the implications of these on the circulation and exchange of value (incl. social and symbolic capital) within and beyond the co-creation networks. Please email your name and affiliation to events@oii.ox.ac.uk or telephone +44 (0)1865 287210.
