Fidel Alejandro Rodríguez Fernández

Networks of circulation of common information goods in pursuit of a shared construction of the public

The creation of common information assets is part of a problematizing agenda of the current order of capitalism. The progressive commodification and accumulation of practices, knowledge and goods shared by users in digital environments, becomes a transnational axis of the forms of social relations, exercise of power, and creation of capital, increasingly expanded and at the same time excluding. 

The identification of scenarios and positions of construction of shared forms of knowledge and development, from the collaboration in networks of diverse cultural actors, can provide possible archetypes for exploration by achieving an equitable and creative social model. These are particularly recognizable in emerging countries in the global capitalist environment, whose development contrasts appear as tectonic faults of that order, and where potential transformation and risk of deepening their challenges are propped up. From this perspective, technology is not understood as an instrument, but also as a creator of meaning, not independent of the conditions of production of the social, which implies processes of mutual and simultaneous transformation between subjects and objects. 

At the same time, it assumes networks, in their sociotechnical dimension, as a paradigm of relations between discourses, subjects and institutions, in articulations between equals and cooperatives. It recognizes the existence of these networks in digital technological environments, with an ecosystemic character, which connect multidimensional processes of infocommunication, actors -human and institutional-, values, socio-political forces, media and ICT, which (re) configure each other. In these interactions, individual, collective, citizen, organizational, and local-global practices acquire meaning.

In response to this, this research project proposes the following objectives:

• Identify practices of social articulation in networks based on the construction of common information and communication goods.
• Characterize the ways in which such practices enable ways of transforming the public and social relations. 
• Develop experimental forms of social intervention based on the construction of forms of articulation in networks based on the production of common information and communication goods. 
• Design replicable instruments based on these experiences.