Cultural Differences in Collaborative Authoring of Wikipedia

Abstract

This article explores the relationship between national culture and computer-mediated communication (CMC) in Wikipedia. The articles on the topic game from the French, German, Japanese, and Dutch Wikipedia websites were studied using content analysis methods. Correlations were investigated between patterns of contributions and the four dimensions of cultural influences proposed by Hofstede (Power Distance, Collectivism versus Individualism, Femininity versus Masculinity, and Uncertainty Avoidance). The analysis revealed cultural differences in the style of contributions across the cultures investigated, some of which are correlated with the dimensions identified by Hofstede. These findings suggest that cultural differences that are observed in the physical world also exist in the virtual world.

Can alternative indicators overcome language biases in citation counts? A comparison of Spanish and UK research

“…Wikipedia contributions are presumably influenced by pre-existing cultural differences (Pfeil et al 2006; see also: Alonso-Jiménez 2015) and the existence of different language wikipedias attests to its international and multilingual spread.…”

Web Content Analysis: Expanding the Paradigm

“…For example, an informal examination of CA articles published between 2004 and 2007 in the Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, a leading journal for social science research on internet and web communication, reveals studies in which research questions are indeed grounded in traditional theory, multiple coders are used to establish interrater reliability, and coding schemes are adapted from previous communication research (e.g., Singh & Baack, 2004;Waseleski, 2005). However, most of the studies analyze non-random samples (Dimitrova & Neznanski, 2006;Pfeil, Zaphiris, & Ang, 2006;Singh & Baack, 2004;Waseleski, 2005;Young & Foot, 2005), and many invent new coding schemes (e.g., Dimitrova & Neznanski, 2006;Pfeil et al, 2006;Young & Foot, 2005). This suggests the possibility that the 19 articles surveyed by McMillan (2000) do not simply represent an earlier, methodologically less rigorous, phase of web content analysis research, but rather that web content analysis may be following somewhat different norms from those traditionally prescribed for the analysis of communication content by researchers such as Krippendorf and McMillan, or even evolving new norms.…”

Beyond the Book: Linking Books to Wikipedia

“…One final consideration which must be addressed is the inherent bias in Wikipedia edits: there is a clear gender bias on contributions to Wikipedia as a whole, as well as a technical barrier for new contributors to join [10], [11]; previous studies suggest that different language Wikipedias have different styles of contributing to the encyclopaedia [12] -it is reasonable to deduce that this also holds true for contributions from different countries to the English Wikipedia.…”

“…11 Eugene Delacroix was a french romantic artist of the 19 th century. 12 Leiden is a city in the province of South Holland in the Netherlands. 13 Philipp Franz von Siebold was a German physician of the 19 th century.…”