closely tied to another key concept in Bourdieu’s field theory, namely symbolic capital. Symbolic capital can be thought of as a field‐specific form of reputation, and it is gained informally through recognition from peers and critics and formally through prestigious rewards (e.g., particular roles, jobs, awards, mentions in the trade press, etc.). Think of this, again, in the context of journalism: there is symbolic capital in writing for The New York Times, in receiving a Pulitzer prize, when peers cite your work in other journalistic venues, and so on. Symbolic capital is related to autonomy such that it is often at odds with economic capital. As many of us will recognize from the experience of watching a favorite music artist “sell out,” there is a reputational cost that may come with commercial success. Gaining symbolic capital increases one’s status in a particular field, and combines with other forms of capital (economic, cultural, and social) to generate hierarchies.
Much of the interest around peer production is focused on the “puzzle” of individuals collectively organizing their labor largely independent of firms (e.g., managers with the authority to hire and fire) and price‐based mechanisms, such as wages (Benkler, 2002). Bourdieu would likely argue that such non‐market based production has long existed in semi‐autonomous fields, and is only a puzzle because we remain blind to (1) the ways in which all cultural production is distributed and (2) the different forms of capital that exist beyond economic capital. Wikipedia, open source, and other forms of peer production are certainly new, but they also extend the logics of existing cultural fields.
If autonomy is defined as the capacity to act in ways that resist pressures from other fields, then what comes in the place of that pressure? What guides action within, say, the art world, if it is not the market, state, or other external power? Field theory assumes that the competition for symbolic capital is what motivates actors, and that this circulation of symbolic capital is in turn geared toward reinforcing core values and principles that, while not immutable, are at the heart of what is considered good practice or purpose within a field, and thus what must be protected from outside influence. These values can be as diverse as creative expression and aesthetic innovation (summarized as “art for art’s sake”) in the art world (Bourdieu, 1993) to serving the public interest in the field of journalism (Benson & Neveu, 2005; Deuze, 2005b).
Here, too, we can look to Wikipedia and open source software to see how this interplay of autonomy, values, and symbolic capital is present in peer production projects. For Wikipedia, notions of universal access and the unfettered pursuit of knowledge would be considered important shared values, and participants are recognized (and recognize each other) for their efforts in support of them. Among Wikipedia participants, symbolic capital is gained through “barn stars” and other forms of peer recognition, as well as through appointments to positions within Wikipedia’s bureaucratic hierarchy. Less formally, symbolic capital is gained by being a visible contributor to the overall project, whether through providing expertise for certain topics, productively engaging in backend discussion, building software tools to help editors work more efficiently, and so on. As participants gain symbolic capital, this esteem will give them a better chance of mobilizing peers when it comes to conflicts and key decisions relating to the project.
The values enacted by Wikipedia and open source software communities are notable for how they are related to process as much as end product. As Kelty (2008) argues, open source software communities can be understood as “recursive publics.” That is, the identity of these communities are built on a kind of meta‐level: if publics normally form around a shared interest (e.g., fans of the same musician or citizens engaging with a particular political issue), what is remarkable in the geek cultures of Wikipedia and open source software production is that identity is largely tied to values and practices related to how communication takes place (including in the technical sense of which tools are used), rather than the content of that communication. As Kelty writes, such publics are “vitally concerned with the material and practical maintenance and modification of the technical, legal, practical, and conceptual means of [their] own existence” (2008, p. 3). For example, what ties the identity of Wikipedians together is less the content of the encyclopedia, and more their shared commitment to their desire for open and transparent processes for writing articles and settling disputes.
Another point that may be extrapolated from the discussion of autonomy above is that the most famous peer production projects can be seen in the context of what Kelty calls geeks’ “reformist” identity. Kelty notes that these communities of software makers often narrate their own identities through implicit and explicit analogies to the Protestant Reformation, where the control of technology and media (religion) is taken away from corporations (the Church) and restored to its original purpose by true believers (the geeks). For Kelty, the implicit analogy can be sensed in how notions of good and evil are deployed by these communities. For example, an open source software producer may find it “evil” when a large software company ignores an open standard and instead pushes a proprietary one onto its users. Likewise, a Wikipedian dedicated to the universal access of information may find it “evil” for companies to copyright or otherwise prevent access to useful knowledge, such as when academic publishers put scholarship behind expensive paywalls. In this way, we can see Wikipedia and open source as relatively autonomous forms of technical and media production, and that this position is narrated and articulated through stories (or “myths”) that echo the story structure of the Reformation (and these stories may be reproduced socially).
In sum, Bourdieu’s concepts of field, semi‐autonomy, and symbolic capital help us to see common threads in (1) how peer production projects are situated within a larger context of cultural production (where for example open source communities provide alternatives to proprietary computing software), (2) how this positioning within a larger field can be seen as enacting a kind of semi‐autonomy, meaning these projects demonstrate some capacity to resist pressures from other fields and in particular market and state power, and (3) how such semi‐autonomy is related to the establishment and protection of core values, of which many are related to the process by which projects are governed, (4) how symbolic capital, or field‐ and project‐specific reputation, is accrued through demonstrating commitment to these core values and is intertwined with formal and informal hierarchies within peer production projects. In the next two sections, I discuss two overarching values that typify peer production: meritocratic rule and openness. Importantly, these values relate to the processes of collaboration and governance rather than the end products.
4 Meritocracy
Although peer production projects are generally open to participation by anyone, there are certainly hierarchical tendencies within them and with this comes forms of closure and exclusion. On the one hand, there are formal hierarchies – project leaders, maintainers, committees, Wikipedia editors, and so on, and these various positions entail different rights and privileges. In Wikipedia’s case, for example, the user class “bots” has more rights than anonymous users, reminding us that such large‐scale peer production also requires socio‐technical forms of government (Niederer & van Dijck, 2010). Proponents of peer production argue that these hierarchies are flexible arrangements that serve a larger goal of ensuring equal participation, rather than serving to sustain themselves (Bauwens, 2005). On the other hand, there are informal hierarchies that can be understood as accumulations of symbolic capital – think for example of a Wikipedia admin who holds particular esteem and is deferred to by other editors and admins. In idealized form, these hierarchies in peer production arise from merit as opposed to credentials, meaning there is no prior separation of experts and non‐experts, qualified persons and unqualified persons. Instead, the aim is that individuals earn their position through demonstrations of their ability and commitment to the project. In practice, both Wikipedia and open source communities display strong beliefs in the importance of rewarding people based on individual merit, and in the possibility of a functioning meritocratic system. I emphasize that the belief also relates to the possibility of meritocracy because this is a contentious position to hold. Before moving to critiques of the belief in meritocracy in peer production and related online communities, however,
