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RESEARCH PRODUCT

Thinking collaborative empowerment as a communication dispositive : the case of collaborative consumption’s online community services in a sustainable development age

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This thesis propounds an info-communicational approach of empowerment phenomenon in a market oriented context. In order to do so, we focus on discourses and communicational processes that refer to this very concept in “collaborative consumption” platforms’ framework. Massification of this type of services is accompanied by discourses emphasizing a socioecological “power” they would be carrying for consumers (as a more social and sustainable economy). We underline the gap between this utopia and the organizational reality of empowerment. First part of this thesis proposes to highlight this polysemic concept. The point is to problematize empowerment in tension between political communication and organizational communication, then to relocate collaborative empowerment ideology in relation to dynamics of incorporation of critique inside capitalism. Second part is dedicated to an empirical approach of this phenomenon. Then, it starts with methodology presentation ; a study of four exemplary cases (Airbnb, Blablacar, Couchsurfing and La Ruche qui dit Oui !) taken from a research project co-financed by Burgundy Franche-Comté council and Deloitte Sustainable Development. Result’s analysis interrogates communal devices and community managers' role in setting up consumers’ empowerment processes. We ultimately discuss emancipatory dimension of these latter and open research tracks about sustainable virtues of “collaborative” technologies.