%0 Journal Article
%T WIKIPEDIA AND THE POLITICS OF MASS COLLABORATION
%A Nathaniel Tkacz
%J PLATFORM : Journal of Media and Communication
%D 2010
%I University of Melbourne
%X Working together to produce socio-technological objects, based on emergent platforms of economic production, is of great importance in the task of political transformation and the creation of new subjectivities. Increasingly, ˇ°collaborationˇ± has become a veritable buzzword used to describe the human associations that create such new media objects. In the language of ˇ°Web 2.0ˇ±, ˇ°participatory cultureˇ±, ˇ°user-generated contentˇ±, ˇ°peer productionˇ± and the ˇ°produserˇ±, first and foremost we are all collaborators. In this paper I investigate recent literature that stresses the collaborative nature of Web 2.0, and in particular, works that address the nascent processes of peer production. I contend that this material positions such projects as what Chantal Mouffe has described as the ˇ°post-politicalˇ±; a fictitious space far divorced from the clamour of the everyday. I analyse one Wikipedia entry to demonstrate the distance between this post-political discourse of collaboration and the realities it describes, and finish by arguing for a more politicised notion of collaboration.
%U http://journals.culture-communication.unimelb.edu.au/platform/v2i2_tkacz.html