Journal
ENVIRONMENTAL INNOVATION AND SOCIETAL TRANSITIONS
Volume 31, Issue -, Pages 96-109Publisher
ELSEVIER SCIENCE BV
DOI: 10.1016/j.eist.2019.01.002
Keywords
Electric vehicles; Users; Internet communities; Sustainability transitions; Upscaling; User innovation
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Funding
- Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research (NWO) Onderzoekstalent Grant [406-14-043]
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Users are increasingly acknowledged as important actors fostering those fundamental socio-technical innovations needed to achieve a sustainable society. In the literature, users have so far been portrayed mostly to play a role in early phases of technology formation. However, more recently users have become important players in the upscaling of various innovations. With the advent of new social media, users may interact effortlessly across large distances, exchange knowledge and so increase their contribution to upscaling. We investigate the new potential of virtual user communities. Conceptually, we build on recent insights from socio-technical transition studies to identify different upscaling dimensions. We conduct an internet ethnography of a large virtual community that formed around the Electric Vehicle (EV). Based on these data, we present virtual community characteristics and core mechanisms of participation in upscaling. We find that the community plays an important and distinctive role in fostering electric vehicle use.
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