Legitimacy in Online Collective ActionEnthusiasts and Interest Groups in Wiki Government

Scott A. Golder and Vladimir Barash{sag262, vdb5}@cornell.edu

@redlog , @vlad43210

Producing & Consuming Shared Resources- Helping one another (volunteerism)- Using public resources (land, waterways, highways)- Contributing to fundraising efforts (campaigns, taxes)- Values (religious, patriotic) and incentives- Representation in government

Disaster Outreach

Community & Vocabulary

- Making sure you reach your audience- Don’t assume people speak like you do- Reaching groups: the opposite problem

(images by Marc Smith)

#ashtag

#ashcloud

(CNN poll, Nov. 2000)

Arlen SpecterFollowing: 348 Followers: 8704

Tweets: 580

Joe SestakFollowing: 3845 Followers: 3631

Tweets: 763

Tuesday 18 May4:00pm

Arlen SpecterFollowing: 348 Followers: 8704

Tweets: 580

Joe SestakFollowing: 3845 Followers: 3631

Tweets: 763

Tuesday 18 May4:00pm

What is Legitimate Civic Participation?

"organizing for positive social change" vs.

"illegitimately abusing the system".   

How to think about these things?

"The social construction of corruption“ – two people enter into mutually-beneficial exchange, but under some circumstances, it's "a bribe“ or “extortion”.

“Integrity” – behavior that is according to norms.

One norm of democracy is that everyone should have a fair chance to participate.  

Representatives are non-Representative

- Volunteering, standing up makes you different

 

•Design issues = democratic issues–Who feels welcome here?

-Low cost of participation == a feature and a bug!

-Organization is an emergent phenomenon! -You can’t organize without organizations because when you organize, you get organizations.

Design Issues

Know who your contributors are!

• Referrer Logs– Shows what website visitors arrived from.

• Authentication– Oauth is an IETF-supported open

standard that uses tokens to authenticate.

Design Strategies

Thank you!

Scott A. Golder and Vladimir Barash{sag262, vdb5}@cornell.edu