PhD research poster presented at WikiSym & OpenSym 2013.

1. Wikipedia as a new media institution: Issues of diversity, regulation
and sustainability in an open encyclopaedia
Kim Osman │ PhD Candidate │ ARC Centre of Excellence for Creative Industries and Innovation│ Queensland University of Technology
Abstract
Research Problem
Wikipedia is an important institution and part of
the new media landscape having evolved from
the collaborative efforts of millions of distributed
users. This ongoing doctoral research examines
how the issues that have been highlighted by
conflict within the community have shaped the
evolution of Wikipedia from an open wiki
experiment to a global knowledge producer.
Bringing together the concepts of interpretive
flexibility and generative friction with existing
theories on the evolution of institutions, the
research aims to present possible futures for
Wikipedia as part of not only the larger
Wikimedia movement, but of an open and
accessible web.
Wikipedia appears to be facing the danger that it has become so rule-bound and entrenched in its processes and the enforcement of policies and guidelines that it has become increasingly difficult for the community
to respond reflexively to changes. Evidently it is also facing challenges in creating a culture that attracts and retains new editors to ensure its viability as an open and collaboratively produced encyclopaedia.
Indeed, there is a popular perception that the multitude of rules and policies that the Wikipedia community has created in order to coordinate the contributions of its globally distributed volunteers has created a
culture that is difficult for new editors to navigate and is hostile to existing editors who deviate from the community’s strictly enforced norms. Consequently it has recently been the subject of debate about its future
as it struggles to recruit and retain active editors.
Theoretical
Framework
Interpretive flexibility
Generative friction
Institutionalism
Expected contributions
Controversies
The research is expected to contribute to growing scholarship in
digital media theory and adds to comprehensive quantitative
analysis of online collaboration by presenting a theoretical and
historical understanding of online communities. It will provide
and alternate perspective from existing utopian/dystopian
accounts of the internet, contribute to our understanding of how
online platforms experience change, and how open communities
have evolved and are institutionalised.
Using ‘controversy’ as a heuristic device and historiography as a method, I will use
the concept of controversy to bring together STS and institutionalism – where a
controversy highlights the issues important to the community and opens the black
box (STS), renegotiates, and moves things forward (institutionalism).
I will be conducting a historical discourse analysis of selected events in
Wikipedia’s history (for example paid editing, the perceived participation crisis) to
see how conversations contribute to the construction of Wikipedia by a variety of
actors in the sociotechnical system.
Commercialisation
Beyond Versions
Wikipedia too often gets conflated with
commercial platforms in narratives about Web
2.0. This research will provide a critique of these
dominant discourses on mass collaboration, usergenerated content and online participation. It will
move past the idea of internet histories as
versions, and instead investigate the history
Wikipedia from its early DIY and counter-culture
roots, to its possible futures as an open and nonprofit institution.
From early Listserv musings on
advertising by the project’s founders to
recent press about the involvement of
BP employees in the editorial process of
BP-related articles, the tension between
the free and the proprietary has always
been present in the encyclopaedia. It is
useful therefore to examine knowledge
as a common resource and the
relationship this has with Wikipedia’s
construction and sustainability. By
applying theories from economics
around commons management, we can
begin to see how ideology and a
commitment to norms and ideals has
shaped Wikipedia and influenced its
sustainability as a non-profit platform.
Diversity
Current discourse suggests that the creation
and enforcement of rules and norms are
creating barriers to entry for new users. For it
is not the case that the open hacker ethos that
created Wikipedia precludes it from being
subject to processes of institutionalism – it is
not an either/or scenario. Initial research
shows that the process of creating rules by the
Wikipedia community, both for content
production and community behaviour, reflect
the processes of institutionalisation in
traditional organisations.
As found in the 2011 editor survey by the
Wikimedia Foundation, and the more recent
controversy around #categorygate, a significant
gender disparity exists in Wikipedia’s editorial
base. Initial research suggests that the uneven
demographics of editors contributes to how
Wikipedia is perceived, both as a space for
volunteering and creating content, and as a site
of legitimate encyclopaedic knowledge. Further
research in this area will consider the role of
conflict in relation to participation, and how
claims about the democratising potential of the
internet have played out in reality.
free as in speech AND as in beer
Future Work
I am in the process of gathering mainstream press accounts of
controversies in Wikipedia’s history and from these I will
choose specific controversies to trace. I will also identify key
participants in the controversies, who will be approached to
conduct interviews with to both ground and feedback on my
research. It is estimated that this stage of data collection will
occur late 2013 to early 2014.
I will also evaluate Wikipedia’s strategies for increasing
participation in light of popular press coverage, and draw
lessons about how diversity and inclusivity play out in open
communities online. I will continue to engage with
scholarship on Wikipedia, internet histories, institutions and
literature from sociotechnical studies to write this history. I
estimate that my thesis will be completed by the end of 2014.
If one wants to make the case for nonprofit institutional
structures, the internet is a valuable rhetorical tool, a starting
point for discussion, if not an ending point.
CC BY SA freebeer.org
Contact
kim.osman@qut.edu.au
@kimosman
Regulation
CC BY SA London Student Feminists
Supervised by
Principal Supervisor: Associate Professor Jean Burgess, Deputy Director, ARC Centre of Excellence for Creative Industries and Innovation, QUT
Associate Supervisor: Distinguished Professor Stuart Cunningham, Director, ARC Centre of Excellence for Creative Industries and Innovation, QUT
Thomas Streeter, 2011: The Net Effect. New York: New York University Press