Center for Activity Theory and Developmental Work Research

Stephanie Freeman, M.A., Doctoral Student

Email: stephanie.freeman@helsinki.fi
Tel.: +358 191 44170
Mobile: +358 40 522 4889

Postal address:
Center for Activity Theory and Developmental Work Research
P.O. Box 23
FIN-00014 University of Helsinki, Finland

Current Activities

How are new forms of Internet-mediated peer-production (such as is Free/Libre/Open Source Software (FLOSS) changing the relation between developer and user, author and reader, expert and lay person? What motivates people to contribute? What kind of ‘virtual community’ is being built and enacted? To whom is participation open? Finding answers to the question of the possibilities and problems of participating and acting in one's computer- mediated world is at the heart of my dissertation research.

FLOSS development has been attributed various positive qualities like openness, sharing, democracy, transparency, freedom and voluntarism. Likewise the notion of ‘community’ tends to evoke properties such as togetherness, connectedness, collaboration, shared goals, motives or interests, socialization, and collective ownership, to name a few. While FLOSS projects may to some extent live up to these ideals, it seems that a critical viewpoint is missing. Since volunteers can basically come and go as they please, identifying organizational and community- boundaries can be very difficult. The purpose of this thesis- in -progress is to scrutinize the above ideals through three complementary articles and a summary. I am now in the stage of finalizing my PhD thesis.

Articles 1 and 2 are based on ‘virtual’ ethnographic data collected from the hybrid corporate sponsored FLOSS project OpenOffice.org, which develops a complete set of Free/Open Source Software Office end-user applications. Article 3 is based on interview data collected from four public sector organizations who considered using FLOSS tools: The Finnish Meteorological Institute; The Justice Department, The Ministry of Finance and Turku town. The use of multiple theoretical and methodological tools from traditions such as Cultural-Historical Activity Theory (CHAT), Cultural Psychology, Social Psychology, Discursive Psychology and Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) enables me to grasp the FLOSS phenomenon in its dynamic richness. Further, by examining the relationship between the individual and the collective, I wish to contribute to the development of CHAT.

Short Biography

In May 2009 I started as the Assistant Editor of the Science Studies -journal. Since 2004 I have been a doctoral student at the CRADLE (previously called the Center for Activity Theory and Developmental Work research). I received a position in the government-funded Finnish Post-Graduate School in Science and Technology Studies (Tieteen ja Teknologian valtakunnallinen tohtorikoulu) for a four year period (2005-2009). My background is in Adult Education (with Psychology, Speech Communication and Management as minor subjects).

I was born in Savonlinna 21.2 1973 to a Finnish-English bilingual family.I spent my childhood and early adulthood in Jyväskylä.