Emergent Relational Structures at a “Sharing Economy” Festival

Abstract

How do participants to an event engage with others ? This paper examines the emergent relational structure at a "sharing economy" festival, the 2016 OuiShare Fest. A multi-level network analysis design explores the linkages between participation patterns of the "elite" (speakers) and other participants, to unveil the social processes through which status hierarchies emerge and actors manage ensuing tensions. Newly developed specifications for exponential random graph models reveal a tension between cooperation (among actors with shared thematic interests) and competition for audience, whereby conformism and differential use of reciprocity in attendance relationships generate an informal pecking order.