Before
reading the articles for this module, I did not believe that Wikipedia was a
reliable and valid source, specifically for university-level assignments. Since
high school, I have been discouraged from using Wikipedia as it is not credible
due its' democratic nature in producing knowledge through peer-to-peer
relations. Since essentially anyone can contribute to the knowledge produced
through Wikipedia, I have always believed that the information produced on
Wikipedia was not reliable. Following the readings for this module, I have a
new appreciation for the knowledge that is produced through Wikipedia and the
method in which this knowledge is produced.
Wikipedia is an informational
website with a social aspect as participants are able to add information,
comment on the information and knowledge that is already been provided, and
provide suggestions for how the accuracy and reliability of the information can
be improved. As Duguid and Brown (1996) state, the new forms of documents that
exist allow for new forms of community, or "social worlds". Wikipedia
is an example of such a "social world" where participants gather to
expand on Van Dijk and Nieborg's (2009) concept of mass creativity. Within mass creativity, anonymous users are
able to define their own informational, expressive and communicational needs,
expanding on the concept of "produsage" as we previously discussed. Wikipedia allows for this through their 'talk'
application, where readers and participants of the website are able to comment on
the knowledge that is provided and how this knowledge can be made more reliable
and accurate. Through users and participants contributing knowledge, they are made to be produsers of
the Internet, contributing information to the Internet, rather than passively
absorbing it. By associating mass creativity with the difference in statistics
of accuracy errors between Encyclopaedia Britanica and Wikipedia, my
perspective of Wikipedia has greatly altered. As provided by Giles (2005), the difference
in errors in accuracy of information between the two knowledge producers (one
being produced by educated professionals, the other by online participants who
can virtually be anyone) is a approximately a mere 40 errors. This statistic
shows the potential benefit for encouraging consistent conversations about
knowledge and sharing knowledge based on education and experience across
various peoples.
The obvious benefit to
"crowdsourced" knowledge is that multiple individuals can contribute
knowledge that may not otherwise be known due to location, cultural or
educational differences. By allowing various individuals and groups to
contribute knowledge, as well as provide feedback regarding knowledge already provided,
the information provided can be specified to the needs of the participants and
the knowledge they believe important to know. This exact concept can also be viewed as a disadvantage of "crowdsourced" knowledge. As Royal and Kapila (2009)
discuss, Wikipedia can potentially be viewed as biased in that it reflects the
knowledge and interests of those who choose to participate in the ongoing
conversation regarding such knowledge. Certain topics are covered more
comprehensively due to the interest and knowledge base of participants
contributing to the conversation. Rather than reflecting a general knowledge
base, the knowledge provided through websites such as Wikipedia is dependent on
who is interested in the topic and how much knowledge they have in regards to
this topic. Although the errors in accuracy are close between Encyclopaedia
Britanica and Wikipedia, the difference in areas could easily be accounted for
due to the participants who are providing information and their areas of
interest. In regards to areas such as help forums, I believe ideas and concepts
that arise from such forums should be take with a bit of apprehension as
you do not know who is providing this information, their credentials, or if
they are who they even say they are. As discussed in the previous module and exemplified through Sherry Turkle, it is
quite easy for someone to create an anonymous identity Online that does not
resemble their real identity in the least. For example, someone could go on a
medical forum and begin giving advice in regards to stomach pains that someone
is having, saying that they are a trained doctor. However, this person may
actually just be a couch potato with no education at all who knows completely
nothing about the medical field or stomach pains at all. This is why we must be
apprehensive about the information we receive on the Internet and who we
receive it from.
Photo from: http://www.fotopedia.com/items/flickr-3605597056
References:
Brown, J. S. & P. Duguid. (1996). The Social Life of Documents. First Monday. 1, 1.
Giles. J. (2005). Special Report: Internet encyclopaedias go head to head. Nature. 438, pp 900-901.
Van Dijk, J. & Nieborg, D. (2009). Wikinomics and its discontents: a critical analysis of Web 2.0
business manifestos. New Media & Society. 11, 5. pp 855-874.
I like the take you have on Wikipedia. I feel like you took a different view as opposed to just saying that it is not a good source. I was in the same boat as you in that I first did not think Wikipedia was that great of a source for information, but after reading the articles, I changed my mind.
ReplyDeleteOne point I wanted to touch on was by Royal and Kapila (2009), on how they say that the content on Wikipedia is biased. While I do agree that more popular content is going to be available in abundance on Wikipedia, scholarly journal articles are not so perfect themselves. I think it is important to remember that scholars conducting research have a goal in mind and usually conduct research on a certain topic because it is of particular interest to them and because they want to benefit from the research...is this not biased? Additionally, researchers can choose how and what results of their research are released in the manuscript (although leaving things out can be a serious issue). Moreover, I can tell you from my academic experience, that null results are not usually published. However, null results could be important because they may contradict published results which claim to have found significant results. Additionally, conflicting results could lead to more research and greater understanding of the topic. Personally, when I think of these conflicts, I believe this is biased as well. Thus, I think we should think twice when blaming Wikipedia for being biased.
I think Wikipedia is great because it can allow people to produce content however I think people need to be careful and take time and effort when posting information so readers are not misinformed. There is substantial evidence that people turn to the internet and use it as their bible so there is a problem if producers of content are not careful about what they post. Your example about a person posing as a doctor and giving medical advice is why people should be leery about what they find on Wikipedia. I would also hope that people would not use Wikipedia as an end all be all for medical advice. Although, I think Wikipedia is okay for certain contexts and for trivial information. I think Wikipedia has the potential to be a great source if there is more robust information that is monitored more thoroughly.
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