The Penguin and the Leviathan: How Cooperation Triumphs over Self-Interest

Yochai Benkler draws on cutting-edge findings from neuroscience, economics, sociology, evolutionary biology, political science, and a wealth of real world examples to reveal how we can harness the power of human cooperation to improve business processes, design smarter technology, reform our economic systems, maximize volunteer contributions to science, reduce crime, improve the efficacy of civic movements, and more.

Designing Incentives for Inexpert Human Raters

This paper presents the results of an experiment comparing the effects of social, financial, and hybrid incentive schemes on worker performance in an online labor market (Amazon's Mechanical Turk).

A Tale of Two Blogospheres: Discursive Practices on the Left and Right

This paper compares the practices of discursive production and participation among top U.S. political blogs on the left, right, and center during the summer of 2008 and finds evidence of an association between ideological affiliation and the technologies, institutions, and practices of participation across political blogs.

Dynamic remodeling of in-group bias during the 2008 presidential election

People often favor members of their own group, while discriminating against members of other groups. Such in-group favoritism has been shown to play an important role in human cooperation. However, in the face of changing conflicts and shifting alliances, it is essential for group identities to be flexible. This experimental study illustrates a dynamic change in bias, tracking the realignment of real world conflict lines and public efforts to reconstitute group identity.

The Wealth of Networks

How Social Production Transforms Markets and Freedom

In this comprehensive social theory of the Internet and the networked information economy, Benkler describes how patterns of information, knowledge, and cultural production are changing -- and shows that the way information and knowledge are made available can either limit or enlarge the ways people can create and express themselves.