ABSTRACT

This chapter examines mediated practices of sharing through three methods: semi-structured interviews, sharing diaries and participatory social maps. Platform-based enterprises leverage the collaborative culture of sharing into a sharing economy, mobilising resources and goods through an ethics of sharing and through social relations rather than through market infrastructures. Sharing is a distinct form of communication championed in digital cultures. Some participants were intense users of social media and digital devices, while others were active non-users of particular devices or platforms. Relationships with technologies and digital culture are idiosyncratic and burdened with tensions, which contradict social imaginaries of sharing. The chapter explores how individual perceptions and experiences are situated in relation to these competing imaginaries. It considers why defining sharing is so problematic, examining the difficulties and limitations of assuming a common understanding of sharing. The chapter also presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in this book.