Cover page

Series page

For Etty

Title page

Copyright page

Preface

Parts of this book have been published before, but none of those publications about sharing are reproduced here in toto. Parts of my article, ‘Sharing and Web 2.0: The Emergence of a Keyword’ (John, 2013a), appear in Chapter 3, and parts of ‘File sharing and the History of Computing: Or, Why File Sharing is Called “File Sharing” ’ (John, 2014) appear in Chapter 6. Some of my first efforts at a theoretical analysis of sharing today (John, 2013b) appear throughout. The original research carried out for Chapters 2 and 4 and the second part of Chapter 6 has not been previously published.

Before their inclusion here, various ideas in this book had been presented at conferences, especially those of the Association of Internet Researchers and the International Communication Association.

This research was supported by The Israel Science Foundation (grant No. 38/14).

Acknowledgements

I arrived at the Department of Communication and Journalism at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem in 2010 to carry out postdoctoral research into globalization and multi-channel television, but was soon diverted by the observation that the word ‘sharing’ seemed to be all over the internet, and that this seemed vaguely interesting. I laid out some of my preliminary thoughts to Paul Frosh and Limor Shifman and they immediately started encouraging me to develop them and helped me to do so. Paul helped me with the process of finding a publisher, and Limor's input to my first publication about sharing was invaluable. You would not be reading these words if not for their support, advice and intellectual contributions. A number of other people were remarkably supportive and helpful as this project got off the ground, nudging me in new and interesting directions, and listening to my efforts to formulate and formalize my thoughts: Menahem Blondheim, Elihu Katz, Tamar Leibes, Amit Pinchevski and Keren Tenenboim-Weinblatt. For a year I shared an office with Benjamin Peters, which was both fun (obviously) and intellectually rewarding. Ben and I had many terrific conversations about sharing, and I'm grateful to him for them. While doing the research for this book, I was lucky enough to be appointed to the faculty of the Department of Communication and Journalism at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. I thank my colleagues for the fantastic intellectual environment that they provide. Thanks also to Tzlil Sharon, my research assistant, for her dedicated assistance. For his unceasing encouragement and support, I particularly want to acknowledge the role played by Zohar Kampf as my sharing project took off and this book started to take form. His belief in my work was contagious, and I doubt whether the project would have got this far without it. I am extremely grateful to him.

Outside of my department, many other people have provided feedback, comments and suggestions. I would like to single out Russell Belk, whose intellectual generosity is inspirational. Russ's influence is felt throughout the book, perhaps most strongly at those points where my views diverge from his. I would also like to acknowledge my erstwhile supervisor, Eva Illouz, who helped me to sharpen the contribution of the book as a whole before I started writing it, and provided the impetus to the questions discussed in Chapter 6. The time I spent at the Department of Media and Communications at the LSE was invaluable, and I thank Robin Mansell, Bart Cammaerts, Shani Orgad and Alison Powell for their thoughts and wisdom. Finally, I wish to thank Fred Turner, Jenny Kennedy, Michal Hamo and also the attendees at Benjamin Peters’ digital keywords retreat for their comments, input and discussions about the issues and work presented in this book.

I am indebted to the institutions that hosted me while I got this project under way as a postdoctoral researcher at the Department of Communication at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and then at the Department of Communication at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, and as a Visiting Scholar at the Department of Media and Communications at the LSE. I am further grateful for the funding I received to support my research, in particular the fellowship from the Lady Davis Fellowship Trust at the Hebrew University and the scholarship from the Kreitman School of Advanced Graduate Studies at Ben-Gurion University. I also deeply thank the Israel Science Foundation for its support.

The people at Polity have been a pleasure to work with. The peerless Andrea Drugan steered me through the proposal stage and set me on my way, while Lauren Mulholland and Elen Griffiths were there to guide me as the text was being written. I thank Elen, Ellen MacDonald-Kramer, Helen Gray and all at Polity for bringing this book into being.

Aram Sinnreich tutted and shook his head when I told him the title I originally had in mind for this book, gave the matter a few moments’ thought, and then pronounced: The Age of Sharing. Thank you, Aram.

This book would never have been written without the support of my family and friends. My parents, Rob and Judi, helped greatly at a crucial time, and my siblings, Zoë and Greg, cheered me on all the way. Mark Godfrey doesn't know quite how inspirational he has been as I have plugged away at this. S. will be thanked elsewhere.

I'm not much fun to be around while writing, so my deepest and most heartfelt gratitude goes to the people who live with me. Maya and Yasmin, who will mostly be excited simply to see their names on this page, have been waiting for this book for a while. We've had some great chats together about what sharing means to them, and their occasional inquiries into when I'm finishing the book motivated me more than almost anything else. But at the centre of it all stands Etty – her sacrifices and willingness to take the strain, alongside her encouragement, belief and support, enabled me not only to produce this text but quite simply make everything possible (the travel, the weekends, the deadlines…). Etty, thank you.