Dear colleagues,
My paper "Wikipedia. Between lay participation and elite knowledge representation" has just been published at Information, Communication & Society. I´d be interested in your thoughts. Contact me if you don´t have access to that journal. Best,
René
Abstract
The decentralized participatory architecture of the Internet challenges traditional knowledge authorities and hierarchies. Questions arise about whether lay inclusion helps to ‘democratize’ knowledge formation or if existing hierarchies are re-enacted online. This article focuses on Wikipedia, a much-celebrated example which gives an in-depth picture of the process of knowledge production in an open environment. Drawing on insights from the sociology of knowledge, Wikipedia's talk pages are conceptualized as an arena where reality is socially constructed. Using grounded theory, this article examines the entry for the September 11 attacks and its related talk pages in the German Wikipedia. Numerous alternative interpretations (labeled as ‘conspiracy theories’) that fundamentally contradict the account of established knowledge authorities regarding this event have emerged. On the talk pages, these views collide, thereby serving as a useful case study to examine the role of experts and lay participants in the process of knowledge construction on Wikipedia. The study asks how the parties negotiate ‘what actually happened’ and which knowledges should be represented in the Wikipedia entry. The conflicting points of view overload the discursive capacity of the contributors. The community reacts by marginalizing opposing knowledge and protecting or immunizing the article against these disparate views. This is achieved by rigorously excluding knowledge which is not verified by external expert authorities. Therefore, in this case, lay participation did not lead to a ‘democratization’ of knowledge production, but rather re-enacted established hierarchies.
http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/1369118X.2012.734319
--- René König, Dipl.-Soz. Karlsruhe Institute of Technology Institute for Technology Assessment and Systems Analysis (ITAS)
P.O. Box 3640 76021 Karlsruhe Germany
Tel.: +49 (0) 721 / 608-22209 Web/Skype: renekoenig.eu Twitter: r_koenig
On Wed, Oct 31, 2012 at 10:03 AM, René König kontakt@renekoenig.eu wrote:
Therefore, in this case, lay participation did not lead to a ‘democratization’ of knowledge production, but rather re-enacted established hierarchies.
It feels like you set up a straw man there. I think the typical argument is rather that lay participation in an important cultural artifact is itself the revolutionary characteristic of WIkipedia. Not that amateur authorship leads to some further imagined democratization.
I´m not sure what´s the most typical argument here but there are certainly scholars who argue in this direction. For example, Daniela Pscheida who wrote in regard to Wikipedia:
'The acceptance of societally relevant knowledge is no longer determined a priori, one-sidedly and authoritatively, but rather one that is a posteriori negotiated, collaboratively and democratically'
(my translation; please see the article for references and further discussion of this)
Best,
René
On 31.10.2012 19:25, Steven Walling wrote:
On Wed, Oct 31, 2012 at 10:03 AM, René König <kontakt@renekoenig.eu mailto:kontakt@renekoenig.eu> wrote:
Therefore, in this case, lay participation did not lead to a 'democratization' of knowledge production, but rather re-enacted established hierarchies.It feels like you set up a straw man there. I think the typical argument is rather that lay participation in an important cultural artifact is itself the revolutionary characteristic of WIkipedia. Not that amateur authorship leads to some further imagined democratization.
-- Steven Walling https://wikimediafoundation.org/
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