Week Three: Wikipedia
Following on from the previous discussion of Citizen Journalism (Week 2 blog), another main area of current concern is the globally recognized website, Wikipedia. Wikipedia is a free online encyclopedia that anyone can add to or edit. Famous for using the new produsage model discussed in Produsage (Week 1 blog), this site favors a continuing process of production, recognition of produsage as common property, open participation, communal evaluation and heterarchical governance; Wikipedia has been named as the most successful online encyclopedia to date. The site was launched in early 2001 and has since grown to include millions of articles in dozens of languages.
Despite concerns about the quality of openly editable information, Wikipedia has become one of the most popular online resources, statistics put Wikipedia as the eighth most-visited Web site in the United States, behind sites such as Yahoo, Google, MySpace, and eBay. Each article contains any number of links to other Wikipedia articles or to external resources. Unlike traditional encyclopedias which endeavor to present the current state of accepted knowledge, Wikipedia presents current representations of knowledge based on the perspectives of contributors (Bruns 2008, 114). However, this does not mean that contributors are able to publish anything they wish. Wikipedia content must adhere to three principles. These principles state that the author must have a neutral point of view, the article must be verifiable and no original, unpublished research may be used (Bruns 2008, 113).
Use of the site is pervasive, both within and outside the academic community. Wikipedia has become a primary research tool of college students; many students begin researching a topic at Google, and Wikipedia. Traditional encyclopedias undergo stringent review. Wikipedia forgoes the review requirement in favor of timeliness and the ability to include anyone who wants to contribute. Topic selection and coverage more accurately reflect community interest than academic value. Although Wikipedia’s ability to evolve as information changes is beneficial on one level, it also means that even if an article is deemed reliable, citing it as a source is problematic because it could change at any time.
Wikipedia puts control into the hands of users, who decide what topics are covered and at what depth. An emergent term or an obscure idea not found in a dictionary or a traditional encyclopedia can easily show up in Wikipedia, and the length of an article indicates community interest in the topic. For any wiki to be worthwhile the community of participants must work on a foundation of trust and openness; Wikipedia is an example of what can be accomplished by a disparate group of individuals, with a shared interest in a topic, working on such a foundation. Wikipedia offers extremely timely and always changing information, the site can reflect the current scholarship on a topic or, as in the case of the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami, can present a nearly up-to-the-minute account of an unfolding event (discussed in Citizen Journalism, Week 2 blog). Wikipedia blurs the line between consumption and creation of knowledge, giving motivated students the opportunity not only to use but also to generate knowledge and see themselves as members of a community of learners. Wikipedia offers students an opportunity to hone their research skills, by evaluating its content against other information sources, and to engage in a global community of collaborative content development.
