Term Paper on "Participatory Journalism -- "The Act"

Term Paper 10 pages (3501 words) Sources: 5 Style: APA

[EXCERPT] . . . .

Participatory Journalism -- "The act of a citizen, or group of citizens, playing an active role in the process of collecting, reporting, analyzing, and disseminating news and information. The intent of this participation is to provide independent, reliable, accurate, wide-ranging and relevant information that a democracy requires" (Bowman and Willis, 2003).

Wikipedia is a collaboratively written encyclopedia. It is run by the non-profit association called Wikimedia, which is why there is no advertising or pop-up content on the page. The foundation's own definition of the site is a free, web-based, collaborative, multilingual project. The name comes from the words wiki (a technology for creating collaborative websites, from the Hawaiian word meaning "quick") and the Greek word "Encyclopedia" (storage of knowledge). Wikipedia boasts over 14 million articles, 3.1 million in English, with almost all the submissions available for editing by users. It was launched in 2001 and is currently the largest and most popular general reference work on the global internet (Baker, 2008). Usage climbs every year, and one agency executive, Max Kalehoff of Nielsen BuzzMetrics, commented, "It's the seminal collaborative online resource. It's like a living amoeba. It's constantly growing" (Woodson, 2007).

What is Wikipedia -- Wikipedia is a populist driven approach to knowledge dissemination. It operates on the theory that everyday people need a place to find information of all kinds -- from reviews of the newest film, to a detailed and deconstructionist approach to major motion pictures, novels, and literary works. Some articles on the site are excellent -- well researched, documented, and would pass muster within most academic institutions. Some, however, are uncited, opinionated, and lack scholarly depth. This, of course, is intentional when one works in a collaborative style. If we think of the simple numbers surrounding Wikipedia, we find that more people use it daily than Amazon or eBay -- it ranks with the popular social networks of MySpace, Facebook, and YouTube. It is often the first hit in a Google search, and there are no annoying banners or ads (Baker).

The hope, of course, is that the users of Wikipedia will, over time, act as an internal review and scholastic policing committee. Indeed, there are numerous articles currently on the site that indicate "citation needed" or, "consider revising," or even "this article appears to be opinionated, please rework for factual accuracy."

By its very nature, though, Wikipedia is part of the new Internet culture. It departs from the expert-driven style of the traditional encyclopedia building mode of limited topics, and moves to a grander approach -- even though that may be unacademic at times. When Time magazine recognized "You" as its Person of the Year for 2006, acknowledging the accelerating success of online collaboration and interaction by millions of users around the world, it cited Wikipedia as one of several examples of Web 2.0 services, along with YouTube, MySpace, and Facebook (Grossman, 2006). Some have also noted the importance of Wikipedia not only as an encyclopedic reference but also as a frequently updated news resource because of how quickly articles about recent events appear (Lih, 2004). Note in Figure 1 the rapid growth the site is seeing, but still falling a bit short than the projected increase.

Wikipedia is unique as well, in that its structure encourages anyone to participate in the project -- the technical specifications are set up to allow that first and foremost. No proof of identity of qualifications is needed. However, because it is social software, and the information stage of management is handled, a neutral point-of-view from Wikipedia is required (NPOV). According to founder Jimmy Wales, "NPOV is an absolute non-negotiable requirement of everything we do," and also a part of Wikipedia's guidelines ("Wikipedia: Neutral Point-of-View," 2009). The neutral point-of-view attempts to present ideas and facts in such a fashion that both supporters and opponents can agree. Guided by this policy, the grassroots project has implicitly adopted the same types of operational policies facing many modern news publications -- sticking to the facts, attributing sources, and maintaining balance. Additionally, this approach should, in fact, create scholarly inquiry, and allow those interested to devote additional research time to the subject at hand.

Wikipedia also includes sister sites that are somewhat parallel to the mission. These sites, too, are meant to help the lay researcher, or the person who does not have the time, money, or is in a location, to visit a major research library. The top three are:

Wiktionary -- a free, multilingual dictionary with definitions, pronunciations, sample quotes, synonyms, antonyms, and translations. It is designed to be the "go to" dictionary for the person who is searching Wikipedia.

Wikinews -- Wikinews and Wikipedia overlap. A story in the international news, "Earthquake hits Paris," for example, will hit both places. Wikinews has more sourced materials and has had a more difficult time finding editors.

Wikisource -- an archive of "free artistic and intellectual works created throughout history." Essentially, historical documents (fiction as well as non-fiction) that are in the public domain.

What Wikipedia is not -- Wikipedia is not meant to be the depository of all human knowledge saved for posterity with no qualms about sources. It is a reference work on all types of subjects that is constantly evolving, it is not meant to be a final destination, nor a single source for a subject. Simply a way to disseminate knowledge in a practical, real-time manner using everyone everywhere as an expert. Wikipedia was conceived, and is managed, to be the starting place for research. It is a quick review of most topics, and, if the editors are doing what Wikipedia wants, will source and reference their material enough, and update needed citations, that it will provide not only content, but sourcing and additional expertise as well. Wikipedia is also not meant to be the only source users cite -- in fact, that is antithetical to its purpose. Instead, at least one author noted how truly amazed he was at Wikipedia and sister sites, in all languages across the globe, are all being run by a non-profit foundation that has only a handful of employees and a budget of only a couple of million dollars per year. And that even includes developing and distributing -- for free - the wiki software that all these projects run on. It shows what the Internet makes possible, given a good idea, inspired leadership, and the opportunity for everyone to contribute their time and knowledge. (Broughton, 2008).

Strengths- Of course, the major strength of Wikipedia is that is it offered free, available 365 days per year, and is available in most major languages. Because it encourages scholarship of all types, it is strong in encouraging scholarly thought and debate among those who may be experts on a subject, but not a scholar in that field (e.g. The accountant who is passionate about the Civil War and reads every book and reference possible about that subject). Wikipedia works by consensus, with users adding and modifying content while trying to reach common ground. This, too, is very positive, and allows people from all walks of life to gain skills in writing, editing, more research, analysis, and vetting of their own sources. Wikipedia, in a way, acts as a cultural reference point for globalization, and encourages cross-border dialog to the point that would be logistically impossible. The editorial policy of a neutral point-of-view, too, engenders a continual requirement of updating certain subjects and information. As new books and journals are released, Wikipedia keeps up with the times by ensuring contemporary input. As the author of "The World Is Flat: A Brief History of the 21st Century" notes: Part of being global means accessing information globally, "a collaborative encyclopedia sounds like a crazy idea, but it naturally controls itself" for everyone's benefit (Friedman, 2007, 120-21).

Weaknesses - Critics of Wikipedia accuse it five major problems, most of which are endemic for any encyclopedia or, indeed, any publication.

Systematic bias and inconsistency -- Whether an editor is a professional or amateur is unknown to the user, thus causing a public perception of bias. Critics say, for instance, that utilizing untrained and un-peer reviewed authors increases the likelihood of bias, whether that be intentional or not. They also point out that people use sources they think might be unreliable (e.g. simple Google or Yahoo searches) as well. Because Wikipedia relies on content editors, some topics may be undercovered, while others have too many edits. In topics that are not all that popular, then, it is probable that the robustness of sources or critiques will be lagging (Isanger, 2004).

Emphasis on Popular Culture -- Because Wikipedia is driven by the market, many lay persons have a greater interest in contemporary topics, therefore, there is a bias towards popular culture. The mix, then, is considered less than ideal. "It's still a funny mix. Of the two and a half million articles in English, nearly half are in the 'entertainment category,' with science and the arts a miserly 6… READ MORE

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