Start Date
12-16-2013
Description
Crowdfunding is an exciting new phenomenon with the potential to disrupt early-stage capital markets. Enabled through specialized internet websites and social media, entrepreneurs now have a new source for start-up capital (estimated at $2.8 billion in 2012). Currently, entrepreneurs need to network through intermediaries to have access to wealthy investors. Crowdfunding bypasses these intermediaries and brings the ability to raise capital to the crowd. Consequently, decisions to fund an entrepreneurial endeavor are not made through ‘who you know’ and back-room deals, but through the discourse that occurs through the crowdfunding project page. The purpose of this research is to analyze and understand this discourse and the meaning it creates over the course of a crowdfunding campaign. The lens of sociomateriality in conjunction with discourse analysis is used to identify how meaning is created and its influence on the IS artifact.
Recommended Citation
Beaulieu, Tanya and Sarker, Suprateek, "Discursive Meaning Creation in Crowdfunding: A Socio-material Perspective" (2013). ICIS 2013 Proceedings. 80.
https://aisel.aisnet.org/icis2013/proceedings/ResearchInProgress/80
Discursive Meaning Creation in Crowdfunding: A Socio-material Perspective
Crowdfunding is an exciting new phenomenon with the potential to disrupt early-stage capital markets. Enabled through specialized internet websites and social media, entrepreneurs now have a new source for start-up capital (estimated at $2.8 billion in 2012). Currently, entrepreneurs need to network through intermediaries to have access to wealthy investors. Crowdfunding bypasses these intermediaries and brings the ability to raise capital to the crowd. Consequently, decisions to fund an entrepreneurial endeavor are not made through ‘who you know’ and back-room deals, but through the discourse that occurs through the crowdfunding project page. The purpose of this research is to analyze and understand this discourse and the meaning it creates over the course of a crowdfunding campaign. The lens of sociomateriality in conjunction with discourse analysis is used to identify how meaning is created and its influence on the IS artifact.