Yochai Benkler
Biographic Data
| ID | 264270 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Yochai Benkler |
| GIVEN NAMES | Yochai |
| FAMILY NAME | Benkler |
| SIGNATURE | BENKLER Y |
| AFFILIATIONS | Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, USA |
| VERIFIED | No |
| TOTAL WORKS | 18 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 670 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 18 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2002 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2024 |
| H-INDEX | 8 |
Reconstructing Class Analysis
This article offers a reconceptualization of class-in-capitalism and its articulation with racialization and gender that builds on critical strands of Marxian thought and integrates insights from Black radical and feminist socialist traditions. Rather than a transhistorical materialist conception of class simpliciter , we develop a historically-specific conception of class embedded within an analysis of capitalist social relations . The result is…
Public Good Superstars: A Lab-in-the-Field Study of Wikipedia
Many field public goods are provided by a small number of contributors: the ‘superstars’ of their respective communities. This paper focuses on Wikipedia, one of the largest online volunteering platforms. Over nine consecutive years, we study the relationship between social preferences—reciprocity, altruism and social image—and field cooperation. Wikipedia editors are quite prosocial on average, and superstars even more so. But while reciprocal a…
Network Propaganda: Manipulation, Disinformation, and Radicalization in American Politics
This book examines the shape, composition, and practices of the United States political media landscape. It explores the roots of the current epistemic crisis in political communication with a focus on the remarkable 2016 U.S. president election culminating in the victory of Donald Trump and the first year of his presidency. The authors present a detailed map of the American political media landscape based on the analysis of millions of stories a…
The Wealth of Networks: How Social Production Transforms Markets and Freedom
With the radical changes in information production that the Internet has introduced, we stand at an important moment of transition, says Yochai Benkler in this thought-provoking book. The phenomenon he describes as social production is reshaping markets, while at the same time offering new opportunities to enhance individual freedom, cultural diversity, political discourse, and justice. But these results are by no means inevitable: a systematic c…
Degrees of Freedom, Dimensions of Power
The original Internet design combined technical, organizational, and cultural characteristics that decentralized power along diverse dimensions. Decentralized institutional, technical, and market power maximized freedom to operate and innovate at the expense of control. Market developments have introduced new points of control. Mobile and cloud computing, the Internet of Things, fiber transition, big data, surveillance, and behavioral marketing i…
Social Mobilization and the Networked Public Sphere: Mapping the Sopa-Pipa Debate
This article investigates the public debate over proposed U.S. legislation designed to give prosecutors and copyright holders new tools to pursue suspected online copyright violations. We compiled, mapped, and analyzed a set of 9,757 stories published over 16 months relevant to the Combating Online Infringement and Counterfeits Act (COICA), Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA), and PROTECT IP Act (PIPA). This study applies a mixed-methods approach that …
WikiLeaks and the Networked Fourth Estate
WikiLeaks and the Networked Fourth Estate
This chapter explores how the WikiLeaks case intersects with larger trends in the news industry. It begins by describing the economic challenges faced by traditional media and the emerging pattern of what I call the “networked fourth estate.” This new media landscape will likely combine elements of the traditional news media with new forces in media production. “Professionalism” and “responsibility” can be found on both sides of the divide, as ca…
Practical Anarchism: Peer Mutualism, Market Power, and the Fallible State
The article considers several working anarchies in the networked environment, and whether they offer a model for improving on the persistent imperfections of markets and states. I explore whether these efforts of peer mutualism in fact offer a sufficient range of capabilities to present a meaningful degree of freedom to those who rely on the capabilities it affords, and whether these practices in fact remain sufficiently nonhierarchical to offer …
The Social Media Reader
The first collection to address the collective transformation happening in response to the rise of social media With the rise of web 2.0 and social media platforms taking over vast tracts of territory on the internet, the media landscape has shifted drastically in the past 20 years, transforming previously stable relationships between media creators and consumers. The Social Media Reader is the first collection to address the collective transform…
A Tale of Two Blogospheres: Discursive Practices on the Left and Right
In this article, the authors compare the practices of discursive production among top U.S. political blogs on the left and right during summer 2008. An examination of the top 155 political blogs reveals significant cross-ideological variations along several dimensions. Notably, the authors find evidence of an association between ideological affiliation and the technologies, institutions, and practices of participation. Blogs on the left adopt dif…
WikiLeaks and the protect-ip Act: A New Public-Private Threat to the Internet Commons
The WikiLeaks affair and proposed copyright bills introduced in the Senate are evidence of a new, extralegal path of attack aimed at preventing access and disrupting the payment systems and advertising of targeted sites. In this model, the attacker may be a government agency seeking to circumvent constitutional constraints on its power or a private company trying to enforce its interests beyond those afforded by procedural or substantive safeguar…
Civic Life Online: Learning How Digital Media Can Engage Youth
The relationship of participation in online communities to civic and political engagement.Young people today have grown up living substantial portions of their lives online, seeking entertainment, social relationships, and a place to express themselves. It is clear that participation in online communities is important for many young people, but less clear how this translates into civic or political engagement. This volume examines the relationshi…
Closing the access gap for health innovations: An open licensing proposal for universities
BACKGROUND: This article centers around a proposal outlining how research universities could leverage their intellectual property to help close the access gap for health innovations in poor countries. A recent deal between Emory University, Gilead Sciences, and Royalty Pharma is used as an example to illustrate how 'equitable access licensing' could be put into practice. DISCUSSION: While the crisis of access to medicines in poor countries has mu…
Commons-based Peer Production and Virtue
The wealth of networks: How Social Production Transforms Markets and Freedom
Wealth Of Networks-Benkler
Sharing Nicely: On Shareable Goods and the Emergence of Sharing as a Modality of Economic Production
loosely affiliated individuals who engage in social practices that involve contributions of the capacity of their private goods in patterns that combine to form large-scale and effective systems for provisioning goods, services, and resources.This Essay seeks to do two things.The first three Parts are dedicated to defining a particular class of physical goods as "shareable goods" that systematically have excess capacity and to combining comparati…
"Coase's Penguin, or, Linux and "The Nature of the Firm
For decades our common understanding of the organization of economic production has been that individuals order their productive activities in one of two ways: either as employees in firms, following the directions of managers, or as individuals in markets, following price signals. This dichotomy was first identified in the early work of Ronald Coase and was developed most explicitly in the work of institutional economist Oliver Williamson. In th…
The wealth of networks: How Social Production Transforms Markets and Freedom
Wealth Of Networks-Benkler
"Coase's Penguin, or, Linux and "The Nature of the Firm
For decades our common understanding of the organization of economic production has been that individuals order their productive activities in one of two ways: either as employees in firms, following the directions of managers, or as individuals in markets, following price signals. This dichotomy was first identified in the early work of Ronald Coase and was developed most explicitly in the work of institutional economist Oliver Williamson. In th…
The Wealth of Networks: How Social Production Transforms Markets and Freedom
With the radical changes in information production that the Internet has introduced, we stand at an important moment of transition, says Yochai Benkler in this thought-provoking book. The phenomenon he describes as social production is reshaping markets, while at the same time offering new opportunities to enhance individual freedom, cultural diversity, political discourse, and justice. But these results are by no means inevitable: a systematic c…
Sharing Nicely: On Shareable Goods and the Emergence of Sharing as a Modality of Economic Production
loosely affiliated individuals who engage in social practices that involve contributions of the capacity of their private goods in patterns that combine to form large-scale and effective systems for provisioning goods, services, and resources.This Essay seeks to do two things.The first three Parts are dedicated to defining a particular class of physical goods as "shareable goods" that systematically have excess capacity and to combining comparati…
Commons-based Peer Production and Virtue
Social Mobilization and the Networked Public Sphere: Mapping the Sopa-Pipa Debate
This article investigates the public debate over proposed U.S. legislation designed to give prosecutors and copyright holders new tools to pursue suspected online copyright violations. We compiled, mapped, and analyzed a set of 9,757 stories published over 16 months relevant to the Combating Online Infringement and Counterfeits Act (COICA), Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA), and PROTECT IP Act (PIPA). This study applies a mixed-methods approach that …
Practical Anarchism: Peer Mutualism, Market Power, and the Fallible State
The article considers several working anarchies in the networked environment, and whether they offer a model for improving on the persistent imperfections of markets and states. I explore whether these efforts of peer mutualism in fact offer a sufficient range of capabilities to present a meaningful degree of freedom to those who rely on the capabilities it affords, and whether these practices in fact remain sufficiently nonhierarchical to offer …
A Tale of Two Blogospheres: Discursive Practices on the Left and Right
In this article, the authors compare the practices of discursive production among top U.S. political blogs on the left and right during summer 2008. An examination of the top 155 political blogs reveals significant cross-ideological variations along several dimensions. Notably, the authors find evidence of an association between ideological affiliation and the technologies, institutions, and practices of participation. Blogs on the left adopt dif…
WikiLeaks and the protect-ip Act: A New Public-Private Threat to the Internet Commons
The WikiLeaks affair and proposed copyright bills introduced in the Senate are evidence of a new, extralegal path of attack aimed at preventing access and disrupting the payment systems and advertising of targeted sites. In this model, the attacker may be a government agency seeking to circumvent constitutional constraints on its power or a private company trying to enforce its interests beyond those afforded by procedural or substantive safeguar…
Degrees of Freedom, Dimensions of Power
The original Internet design combined technical, organizational, and cultural characteristics that decentralized power along diverse dimensions. Decentralized institutional, technical, and market power maximized freedom to operate and innovate at the expense of control. Market developments have introduced new points of control. Mobile and cloud computing, the Internet of Things, fiber transition, big data, surveillance, and behavioral marketing i…
Public Good Superstars: A Lab-in-the-Field Study of Wikipedia
Many field public goods are provided by a small number of contributors: the ‘superstars’ of their respective communities. This paper focuses on Wikipedia, one of the largest online volunteering platforms. Over nine consecutive years, we study the relationship between social preferences—reciprocity, altruism and social image—and field cooperation. Wikipedia editors are quite prosocial on average, and superstars even more so. But while reciprocal a…
"Coase's Penguin, or, Linux and "The Nature of the Firm
For decades our common understanding of the organization of economic production has been that individuals order their productive activities in one of two ways: either as employees in firms, following the directions of managers, or as individuals in markets, following price signals. This dichotomy was first identified in the early work of Ronald Coase and was developed most explicitly in the work of institutional economist Oliver Williamson. In th…
Sharing Nicely: On Shareable Goods and the Emergence of Sharing as a Modality of Economic Production
loosely affiliated individuals who engage in social practices that involve contributions of the capacity of their private goods in patterns that combine to form large-scale and effective systems for provisioning goods, services, and resources.This Essay seeks to do two things.The first three Parts are dedicated to defining a particular class of physical goods as "shareable goods" that systematically have excess capacity and to combining comparati…
Commons-based Peer Production and Virtue
The wealth of networks: How Social Production Transforms Markets and Freedom
Wealth Of Networks-Benkler
Closing the access gap for health innovations: An open licensing proposal for universities
BACKGROUND: This article centers around a proposal outlining how research universities could leverage their intellectual property to help close the access gap for health innovations in poor countries. A recent deal between Emory University, Gilead Sciences, and Royalty Pharma is used as an example to illustrate how 'equitable access licensing' could be put into practice. DISCUSSION: While the crisis of access to medicines in poor countries has mu…
Civic Life Online: Learning How Digital Media Can Engage Youth
The relationship of participation in online communities to civic and political engagement.Young people today have grown up living substantial portions of their lives online, seeking entertainment, social relationships, and a place to express themselves. It is clear that participation in online communities is important for many young people, but less clear how this translates into civic or political engagement. This volume examines the relationshi…
WikiLeaks and the protect-ip Act: A New Public-Private Threat to the Internet Commons
The WikiLeaks affair and proposed copyright bills introduced in the Senate are evidence of a new, extralegal path of attack aimed at preventing access and disrupting the payment systems and advertising of targeted sites. In this model, the attacker may be a government agency seeking to circumvent constitutional constraints on its power or a private company trying to enforce its interests beyond those afforded by procedural or substantive safeguar…
The Social Media Reader
The first collection to address the collective transformation happening in response to the rise of social media With the rise of web 2.0 and social media platforms taking over vast tracts of territory on the internet, the media landscape has shifted drastically in the past 20 years, transforming previously stable relationships between media creators and consumers. The Social Media Reader is the first collection to address the collective transform…
A Tale of Two Blogospheres: Discursive Practices on the Left and Right
In this article, the authors compare the practices of discursive production among top U.S. political blogs on the left and right during summer 2008. An examination of the top 155 political blogs reveals significant cross-ideological variations along several dimensions. Notably, the authors find evidence of an association between ideological affiliation and the technologies, institutions, and practices of participation. Blogs on the left adopt dif…
WikiLeaks and the Networked Fourth Estate
WikiLeaks and the Networked Fourth Estate
This chapter explores how the WikiLeaks case intersects with larger trends in the news industry. It begins by describing the economic challenges faced by traditional media and the emerging pattern of what I call the “networked fourth estate.” This new media landscape will likely combine elements of the traditional news media with new forces in media production. “Professionalism” and “responsibility” can be found on both sides of the divide, as ca…
Practical Anarchism: Peer Mutualism, Market Power, and the Fallible State
The article considers several working anarchies in the networked environment, and whether they offer a model for improving on the persistent imperfections of markets and states. I explore whether these efforts of peer mutualism in fact offer a sufficient range of capabilities to present a meaningful degree of freedom to those who rely on the capabilities it affords, and whether these practices in fact remain sufficiently nonhierarchical to offer …
Social Mobilization and the Networked Public Sphere: Mapping the Sopa-Pipa Debate
This article investigates the public debate over proposed U.S. legislation designed to give prosecutors and copyright holders new tools to pursue suspected online copyright violations. We compiled, mapped, and analyzed a set of 9,757 stories published over 16 months relevant to the Combating Online Infringement and Counterfeits Act (COICA), Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA), and PROTECT IP Act (PIPA). This study applies a mixed-methods approach that …
Degrees of Freedom, Dimensions of Power
The original Internet design combined technical, organizational, and cultural characteristics that decentralized power along diverse dimensions. Decentralized institutional, technical, and market power maximized freedom to operate and innovate at the expense of control. Market developments have introduced new points of control. Mobile and cloud computing, the Internet of Things, fiber transition, big data, surveillance, and behavioral marketing i…
The Wealth of Networks: How Social Production Transforms Markets and Freedom
With the radical changes in information production that the Internet has introduced, we stand at an important moment of transition, says Yochai Benkler in this thought-provoking book. The phenomenon he describes as social production is reshaping markets, while at the same time offering new opportunities to enhance individual freedom, cultural diversity, political discourse, and justice. But these results are by no means inevitable: a systematic c…
Network Propaganda: Manipulation, Disinformation, and Radicalization in American Politics
This book examines the shape, composition, and practices of the United States political media landscape. It explores the roots of the current epistemic crisis in political communication with a focus on the remarkable 2016 U.S. president election culminating in the victory of Donald Trump and the first year of his presidency. The authors present a detailed map of the American political media landscape based on the analysis of millions of stories a…
Reconstructing Class Analysis
This article offers a reconceptualization of class-in-capitalism and its articulation with racialization and gender that builds on critical strands of Marxian thought and integrates insights from Black radical and feminist socialist traditions. Rather than a transhistorical materialist conception of class simpliciter , we develop a historically-specific conception of class embedded within an analysis of capitalist social relations . The result is…
Public Good Superstars: A Lab-in-the-Field Study of Wikipedia
Many field public goods are provided by a small number of contributors: the ‘superstars’ of their respective communities. This paper focuses on Wikipedia, one of the largest online volunteering platforms. Over nine consecutive years, we study the relationship between social preferences—reciprocity, altruism and social image—and field cooperation. Wikipedia editors are quite prosocial on average, and superstars even more so. But while reciprocal a…
Political science (9 works) · Sociology (9 works) · Computer Science (8 works) · Law (8 works) · Social Media and Politics (8 works) · Business (6 works) · Politics (5 works) · Public relations (5 works) · Economics (4 works) · Social media (4 works)