Steve Jankowski, Claudio Celis Bueno, Ouejdane Sabbah, Jakko Kemper
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引用次数: 0
Abstract
This article examines how Wikipedians embed their sovereign authority within the development of the site’s multilingual policy environment. By drawing on the concepts of cultural techniques, imagined affordances, and online authority, the edits and comments of editors were examined through a discourse analysis of 15 rules across 15 years. With a focus on the English and Spanish-language Wikipedias and additional comparisons with the Arabic, Dutch, and French-language editions, our analysis presents a new perspective on Wikipedian self-governance. By paying attention to how Wikipedians designate the authority of rules through templates, we observed that an incredibly small number of editors use techniques to designate the sovereign authority of policies in ways that determine community consensus, rather than reflect it. This research provides further understanding of the democratic limitations of online peer production and self-governing communities dedicated to equal and diverse forms of participation.
期刊介绍:
New Media & Society engages in critical discussions of the key issues arising from the scale and speed of new media development, drawing on a wide range of disciplinary perspectives and on both theoretical and empirical research. The journal includes contributions on: -the individual and the social, the cultural and the political dimensions of new media -the global and local dimensions of the relationship between media and social change -contemporary as well as historical developments -the implications and impacts of, as well as the determinants and obstacles to, media change the relationship between theory, policy and practice.