Distinction and Status Production on User-Generated Content Platforms: Using Bourdieu’s Theory of Cultural Production to Understand Social Dynamics in Online Fields
Authors: Levina, Natalia; Arriaga, Manuel
Journal: Information Systems Research (2014)
<jats:p> In this paper, we propose an analytical lens for studying social status production processes across a wide variety of user-generated content (UGC) platforms. Various streams of research, including those focused on social network analysis in social media, online communities, reputation systems, blogs, and multiplayer games, have discussed social status production online in ways that are diverse and incompatible. Drawing on Bourdieu’s theory of fields of cultural production, we introduce the notion of an online field and associated sociological concepts to help explain how diverse types of producers and consumers of content jointly generate unique power relations online. We elaborate on what role external resources and status markers may play in shaping social dynamics in online fields. Using this unifying theory we are able to integrate previous research findings and propose an explanation of social processes behind both the similarity across UGC platforms, which all offer multiple ways of pursuing distinction through content production, as well as the differences across such platforms in terms of which distinctions matter. We elaborate what role platform design choices pl…