The justification of co-creation practices on crowdsourcing platforms

Ideas crowdsourcing platforms promote co-creation work. For Internet users, they present as spaces of expression reflecting their power to act. Paradoxically, they can also be considered as working spaces, as the publicization of the idea implies a transfer of ownership to the organizing entity. The objective of this research, based on the empirical analysis of a platform, is to better understand the value systems and the arrangements implemented by the actors to justify their practices. Using Boltanski and Thevenot’s conventionalist model of the “economies of worth”, we highlight the juxtaposition of different cities. While the principle of rivalry constitutes a powerful lever for capturing Internet users, the register of justification of the city by projects has clearly become a reference model among the core actors.