The nature of historical representation on Wikipedia: Dominant or alterative historiography?

Luyt, Brendan

doi:10.1002/asi.21531

Cited by 16 publications

(17 citation statements)

References 15 publications

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“…These geographic differences in the coverage of different language versions of Wikipedia matter, because, as have demonstrated, fundamentally different narratives can be (and are) created about places and topics in different languages. Others have found that Wikipedia offers an uneven view of the world not just in terms of geography, but also gendered content (Lam et al, 2011), and history (Luyt, 2011).…”

Section: Promises Of Changing Connectivitymentioning

confidence: 99%

Uneven Geographies of User-Generated Information: Patterns of Increasing Informational Poverty

Graham

Hogan

Straumann

et al. 2014

Annals of the Association of American Geographers

182

142

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Geographies of codified knowledge have always been characterized by stark core-periphery patterns: with some parts of the world at the center of global voice and representation, and many others invisible or unheard. However, many have pointed to the potential for radical change as digital divides are bridged and 2.5 billion people are now online. With a focus on Wikipedia, which is one of the world's most visible, most used, and most powerful repositories of user-generated content, we investigate whether we are now seeing fundamentally different patterns of knowledge production. Even though Wikipedia consists of a massive cloud of geographic information about millions of events and places around the globe put together by millions of hours of human labor, it remains that the encyclopedia is characterized by uneven and clustered geographies: there is simply not a lot of content about much of the world. The paper then moves to describe the factors that explain these patterns, showing that while just a few conditions can explain much of the variance in geographies of information some parts of the world remain well below their expected values. These findings indicate that better connectivity is only a necessary, but not a sufficient condition for the presence of volunteered geographic information about a place. We conclude by discussing the remaining social, economic, political, regulatory, and infrastructural barriers that continue to disadvantage many of the world's informational peripheries. The paper ultimately shows that, despite many hopes that a democratization of connectivity will spur a concomitant democratization of information production, internet connectivity is not a panacea, and can only ever be one part of a broader strategy to deepen the informational layers of places.

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Section: Promises Of Changing Connectivitymentioning

confidence: 99%

Uneven Geographies of User-Generated Information: Patterns of Increasing Informational Poverty

Graham

Hogan

Straumann

et al. 2014

Annals of the Association of American Geographers

182

142

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…The argument in the present article-to be illuminated later-is, however, that given sources need to be evaluated against knowledge at the research front and that it is dangerous to claim that there is one true answer rather than evaluate the source in relation to how it covers controversies and different points of view. An approach much more in line with the ideas of the present author's domain-analytic approach was used by Luyt (2011), who presented an analysis of the Wikipedia accounts of Singaporean and Philippine history. For Singapore, alternative historical visions are not as developed as those of the Philippines, and this is reflected in the nature of the respective Wikipedia accounts.…”

Section: Also Found Thatmentioning

confidence: 98%

Evaluation of an information source illustrated by a case study: Effect of screening for breast cancer

Hjørland

2011

J. Am. Soc. Inf. Sci.

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It is argued that to evaluate an information source (e.g., a Wikipedia article), it is necessary to relate the content of that source to an interpretation of the state of knowledge at the research front (which is typically developing dynamically). In the research literature, there is a controversy about the effect of screening programs for breast cancer. This controversy is used to compare the value of Wikipedia with Encyclopedia Britannica and two Danish encyclopedias as information sources. It is argued that this method of examining information sources is preferable to other methods which have been suggested in the literature.

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“…Among their findings was that negative topics in 2010 tended to involve legal issues, whereas positive topics involved corporate social responsibility or performance issues. Examining Wikipedia's articles on the histories of Singapore and the Philippines, Luyt () compared their reports with the dominant historiographic records of these two nations. He found that the record of Singapore, like the dominant historiography, was fairly straightforward in reflecting the well‐accepted history.…”

Section: Other Content Topicsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“The sum of all human knowledge”: A systematic review of scholarly research on the content ofWikipedia

Mesgari

Okoli

Mehdi

et al. 2014

Asso for Info Science & Tech

156

115

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Wikipedia might possibly be the best-developed attempt thus far of the enduring quest to gather all human knowledge in one place. Its accomplishments in this regard have made it an irresistible point of inquiry for researchers from various fields of knowledge. A decade of research has thrown light on many aspects of the Wikipedia community, its processes, and content. However, due to the variety of the fields inquiring about Wikipedia and the limited synthesis of the extensive research, there is little consensus on many aspects of Wikipedia's content as an encyclopedic collection of human knowledge. This study addresses the issue by systematically reviewing 110 peer-reviewed publications on Wikipedia content, summarizing the current findings, and highlighting the major research trends. Two major streams of research are identified: the quality of Wikipedia content (including comprehensiveness, currency, readability and reliability) and the size of Wikipedia. Moreover, we present the key research trends in terms of the domains of inquiry, research design, data source, and data gathering methods. This review synthesizes scholarly understanding of Wikipedia content and paves the way for future studies.2

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The nature of historical representation on Wikipedia: Dominant or alterative historiography?

Cited by 16 publications

References 15 publications

Uneven Geographies of User-Generated Information: Patterns of Increasing Informational Poverty

Uneven Geographies of User-Generated Information: Patterns of Increasing Informational Poverty

Evaluation of an information source illustrated by a case study: Effect of screening for breast cancer

“The sum of all human knowledge”: A systematic review of scholarly research on the content ofWikipedia

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