Merci Pierre

Pierre Levy offers us an intriguing insight into what might emerge as citizens more fully realise the potential of the new media environment. Levy primarily explores the theory of collective intelligence and how the web’s fragmentation of knowledge may enable “greater participation in decision making, new models of citizenship and community, and the reciprocal exchange of information” (Jenkins 2002, 158). An interesting aspect of Levy’s philosophy is that he draws an important distinction between “organic social groups” (family), “organised social groups” (institutions), and “self-organised groups” such as virtual communities. He links the emergence of the new knowledge space to the evolutionary changes in communication, the breakdown of geographic constraints and the accumulation of ‘cultural memory’.

According to Levy (2000), the future for knowledge communities will be voluntary and defined by “intellectual enterprises and emotional investments”. Levy’s theories are particularly useful as an example of how members may shift from one community to another as interests and needs change. At the same time, he also tells us increasing amounts of people belong to more than one community at the same time. As such, these individuals are held together through a mutual production and exchange of knowledge (Jenkins 2002, 159). Levy’s book Collective Intelligence: Mankind's Emerging World in Cyberspace is also relevant resource in relation to participatory cultures; this is due to the fact that he simplistically highlights the transformation that is continuing to occur throughout the world across online cultural platforms.