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Crowdsourcing (The MIT Press Essential Knowledge series) (Paperback)

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Description


A concise introduction to crowdsourcing that goes beyond social media buzzwords to explain what crowdsourcing really is and how it works.

Ever since the term “crowdsourcing” was coined in 2006 by Wired writer Jeff Howe, group activities ranging from the creation of the Oxford English Dictionary to the choosing of new colors for M&Ms have been labeled with this most buzz-generating of media buzzwords. In this accessible but authoritative account, grounded in the empirical literature, Daren Brabham explains what crowdsourcing is, what it is not, and how it works.

Crowdsourcing, Brabham tells us, is an online, distributed problem solving and production model that leverages the collective intelligence of online communities for specific purposes set forth by a crowdsourcing organization—corporate, government, or volunteer. Uniquely, it combines a bottom-up, open, creative process with top-down organizational goals. Crowdsourcing is not open source production, which lacks the top-down component; it is not a market research survey that offers participants a short list of choices; and it is qualitatively different from predigital open innovation and collaborative production processes, which lacked the speed, reach, rich capability, and lowered barriers to entry enabled by the Internet.

Brabham describes the intellectual roots of the idea of crowdsourcing in such concepts as collective intelligence, the wisdom of crowds, and distributed computing. He surveys the major issues in crowdsourcing, including crowd motivation, the misconception of the amateur participant, crowdfunding, and the danger of “crowdsploitation” of volunteer labor, citing real-world examples from Threadless, InnoCentive, and other organizations. And he considers the future of crowdsourcing in both theory and practice, describing its possible roles in journalism, governance, national security, and science and health.

About the Author


Daren C. Brabham is Assistant Professor in the Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism at the University of Southern California.

Praise For…


By spending a few hours reading Crowdsourcing, one can develop a solid understanding of crowdsourcing's origin, its current status and its future applications and potential research paths, making the book well worth its price.—Genetic Programming and Evolvable Machines

For me—as someone infinitely interested in online human and computer interaction—Crowdsourcing is an essential addition to the body of knowledge in this field.

Angela Anima-Korang, International Journal of Communication

Product Details
ISBN: 9780262518475
ISBN-10: 0262518473
Publisher: The MIT Press
Publication Date: May 10th, 2013
Pages: 168
Language: English
Series: The MIT Press Essential Knowledge series