research

research ideas

Wikipedia and the Public Understanding of the Current Economic Crisis and its Social Impacts

I would like to focus on examining the public understanding of the current economic crisis as reflected on the website that most of them (us) turn to for such information: Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia.

Wikipedia serves the as the primary source of information on many topics for majority of Internet users, in USA and abroad. As recent studies have shown, people have turned overwhelmingly to Wikipedia to learn about people (Sarah Palin), as well as short and long term events (death of Michael Jackson, global influenza pandemics, Arab Spring, Occupy protests, and others). Wikipedia's article on “Late-2000s financial crisis” has a daily readership of about 3,000; on “Late-2000s recession”, of about 2,000, on “Subprime mortgage crisis”, of about 4,000, on “American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009“, of about 1,500 – and they form only a tip o the iceberg of more than a hundred related articles (in English-language Wikipedia alone). Even assuming overlapping and repeated readership, the numbers suggest that over the past several years those articles have been accessed by a significant proportion of the world's English speakers. Furthermore, on Wikipedia, the public is not limited to passive consumption of information – it can take an active role in shaping the information present there. As such, Wikipedia is not only the source of information for the public; it is at the same time the reflection of what the public knows. I would therefore hypothesize that by looking at how Wikipedia's coverage the economic downturn has evolved over the past few years, we can get a very helpful picture of the public's understanding of the current economic crisis.

Countering Systematic Bias: How International is the English Wikipedia? =

English-language Wikipedia has often been called “the international Wikipedia”, as it is much more often used by non-native English speakers than non-English Wikipedia's are used by speakers of languages not native to that particular edition. At the same time, a number of published papers as well other media have criticized the English Wikipedia for being focused primarily on the English-speaking (Western) topics.

This study would attempt to analyze to what degree English Wikipedia coverage is biased towards the English (Western) topics, and compare it with non-English Wikipedia's, in the attempt to analyze the extent of the bias on those projects. It would also attempt to answer which topics are more likely to be covered (ex. history), and which are less likely (ex. politics), and try to determine whether there are any regional or global patterns influencing this coverage.

Why is Wikipedia not popular in Korea?

This paper focuses on answering why Korean Wikipedia is smaller than we would expect, and contributes to our understanding of peer / collective culture / volunteering communities / Korean Internet. I call this RQ1 paper. A related RQ1beta concerns motivations of people: why Koreans contribute more to Naver KiN or Korean wikis, but most Westerns, to Wikipedia?

Korean students, Internet use and digital literacy

This paper focuses on comparing Korean students to American (and Polish?) ones, focusing on their skills. In the recent year, a number of papers have been published showing how American (and European) students are using Wikipedia as their primary research tool. I think this is not the case here; in Korea, most students probably use different tools. Showing this, and analyzing this, would add to our understanding of how modern student digital literacy and research skills are impacted by regional characteristics.

in progress

policies

(doesn't look at when did the editor gain adminship)

Teaching with wikis

Books

Specific research questions

publication

style

OA journals

Not OA journals

Rankings

Praca

fellow, grants, awards

Szukaj

To read

Presentations

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