A New Paradigm for Production and Cultural Value?
This book is therefore situated at the centre of debates over potential shifts in the production, promotion and financing of culture. Is reliance on these platforms, and the corresponding use of social networks7, really something entirely new which has been made possible by the collaborative web? Blurring the lines between producers, consumers, and financial backers, these platforms see themselves as instruments of ‘liberation’ and ‘value-sharing’ (Lemoine 2014) which try to bring about technological and socio-economic innovation (Kuppuswamy and Bayus 2013). But do these mechanisms of monetized fundraising and exchange enable the promotion of marginal projects otherwise side-tracked by the cultural and creative industries (Cassella and D’Amato 2014; Bannerman 2012)? We might also ask whether, as suggested in the work of Boyer et al. (2016: 6), crowdfunding really participates in ‘the spirit of sharing and permanent innovation’, and whether it constitutes a true ‘alternative’ to existing financial institutions (banks, equity, business angels, and other venture capitalists)—or whether it instead heralds the emergence of new intermediaries in the cultural and creative industries (Matthews 2017).
More broadly, we want to ask how far these platforms are ‘opportunities’ (Kirzner 1973) for the emergence of new forms of ‘creative’ liberation and emancipation, and new forms of disintermediation for creative work (Bubendorf 2014). Are we seeing a democratization and diversification of cultural contents? Or do these systems just reinforce internationalized industrial logics under the cover of ‘empowering’ users and citizens (Bouquillon and Matthews 2010; Matthews, Rouzé and Vachet 2014)? Finally, following suggestions by Daren C. Brabham (2013: 39), we wish to consider the attitude of state and local authorities, who may see these modes of funding as an opportunity to disengage themselves, leaving the financing of culture and heritage solely in the hands of citizen-backers.
As illustrated by the work already cited, there is a vast literature on crowdfunding. It generates more interest today than research on crowdsourcing, which was dominant until the end of the 2000s. Hundreds of articles have been written on the subject. But this academic literature gives only incomplete responses to the questions set out above. This is because researchers have not taken an equivalent interest in the cultural and sociopolitical dimension, in issues surrounding the democratization of creative work, and in the politics and ethics of crowdfunding—although this final point is addressed by Scott (2015). They have tended to focus more on the platforms themselves, the way they work, and the moral and strategic added value that they contribute. This existing literature can be classified into at least three categories.
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Cultural Crowdfunding: Platform Capitalism, Labour and Globalization