Principles of Institutional Design in the Digital Commons: Evidence from the WeChat Social Platform

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Date

2024

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Workshop on the Ostrom Workshop – WOW7 Conference

Abstract

With the digital age coming, the governance of digital commons has become a new research hotspot. WeChat group chat is a frequent digital space in China, which can be regarded as an example of digital commons. Its characters may change the traditional commons theory. Elinor Ostrom once proposed eight principles of institutional design in common pool resources. In the digital commons, however, technological conditions replace natural conditions, and the rules are limited by the digital space itself, meanwhile the identities of collective actors have changed a lot. These changes may provide some opportunity to challenge Ostrom’s eight principles for traditional commons, and then build new theory of institutional design for digital commons. This paper explores the differences and connections between the digital commons and the traditional commons. By quantitative and qualitative analysis on WeChat group chats, we aim to develop new institutional design principles for digital space. The contribution of this study is to expand the theories of institutional design and to provide support for digital collective action.

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institutional design

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