Wiki journalism is a form of participatory journalism or crowdsourcing, which uses wiki technology to facilitate collaboration between users. It is a kind of collaborative journalism. The largest example of wiki journalism is Wikinews and WikiTribune. According to Paul Bradshaw, there are five broad types of wiki journalism: second draft wiki journalism, a 'second stage' piece of journalism, during which readers can edit an article produced in-house; crowdsourcing wiki journalism, a means of covering material which could not have been produced in-house (probably for logistical reasons), but which becomes possible through wiki technology; supplementary wiki journalism, creating a supplement to a piece of original journalism, e.g. a tab to a story that says "Create a wiki for related stories"; open wiki journalism, in which a wiki is created as an open space, whose subject matter is decided by the user, and where material may be produced that would not otherwise have been commissioned; and logistical wiki journalism, involving a wiki limited to in-house contributors which enables multiple authorship, and may also facilitate transparency, and/or an ongoing nature.[1]
Wikinews was launched in 2004 as an attempt to build an entire news operation on wiki technology. Where Wikinews – and indeed Wikipedia – has been most successful, however, is in covering large news events involving large numbers of people, such as Hurricane Katrina and the Virginia Tech Shootings, where first hand experience, or the availability of first hand accounts, forms a larger part of the entry, and where the wealth of reportage makes a central 'clearing house' valuable. Thelwall & Stuart[2] identify Wikinews and Wikipedia as becoming particularly important during crises such as Hurricane Katrina, which "precipitate discussions or mentions of new technology in blogspace."
Mike Yamamoto notes that "In times of emergency, wikis are quickly being recognized as important gathering spots not only for news accounts but also for the exchange of resources, safety bulletins, missing-person reports and other vital information, as well as a meeting place for virtual support groups." He sees the need for community as the driving force behind this.[3]
In June 2005 the Los Angeles Times decided to experiment with a 'wikitorial' on the Iraq War, publishing their own editorial online but inviting readers to "rewrite" it using wiki technology. The experiment received broad coverage both before and after launch in both the mainstream media and the blogosphere. In editorial terms the experiment was generally recognised as a failure.[4]
In September 2005 Esquire used Wikipedia itself to 'wiki' an article about Wikipedia by AJ Jacobs.[clarification needed] The draft called on users to help Jacobs improve the article, with the intention of printing a 'before' and 'after' version of the piece in the printed magazine. He included some intentional mistakes to make the experiment "a little more interesting".[full citation needed] The article received 224 edits in the first 24 hours, rising to 373 by 48 hours, and over 500 before the article was 'frozen' in order to be printed.
In 2006 Wired also experimented with an article about wikis. When writer Ryan Singel submitted the 1,000 word draft to his editor, "instead of paring the story down to a readable 800 words, we posted it as-is to a SocialText-hosted wiki on August 29, and announced it was open to editing by anyone willing to register."[5] When the experiment closed, Singel noted that "there were 348 edits of the main story, 21 suggested headlines and 39 edits of the discussion pages. Thirty hyperlinks were added to the 20 in the original story." He continued that "one user didn't like the quotes I used from Ward Cunningham, the father of wiki software, so I instead posted a large portion of my notes from my interview on the site, so the community could choose a better one."[5] Singel felt that the final story was "more accurate and more representative of how wikis are used" but not a better story than would have otherwise been produced:
"The edits over the week lack some of the narrative flow that a Wired News piece usually contains. The transitions seem a bit choppy, there are too many mentions of companies, and too much dry explication of how wikis work.
"It feels more like a primer than a story to me."
However, continued Singel, that didn't make the experiment a failure, and he felt the story "clearly tapped into a community that wants to make news stories better ... Hopefully, we'll continue to experiment to find ways to involve that community more."
In April 2010, the Wahoo Newspaper partnered with WikiCity Guides to extend its audience and local reach. "With this partnership, the Wahoo Newspaper provides a useful tool to connect with our readers, and for our readers to connect with one another to promote and spotlight everything Wahoo has to offer," said Wahoo Newspaper Publisher Shon Barenklau.[6] Despite relatively little traffic as compared to its large scale, WikiCity Guides is recognized as the largest wiki in the world with over 13 million active pages.
Literature on wiki journalism
Andrew Lih places wikis within the larger category of participatory journalism, which also includes blogs, citizen journalism models such as OhMyNews and peer-to-peer publishing models such as Slashdot, and which, he argues "uniquely addresses an historic 'knowledge gap' – the general lack of content sources for the period between when the news is published and the history books are written."[7]
Participatory journalism, he argues, "has recast online journalism not as simply reporting or publishing, but as a lifecycle, where software is crafted, users are empowered, journalistic content is created and the process repeats improves upon itself."[8]
Francisco[9] identifies wikis as a 'next step' in participatory journalism: "Blogs helped individuals publish and express themselves. Social networks allowed those disparate bloggers to be found and connected. Wikis are the platforms to help those who found one another be able to collaborate and build together."
Advantages
A Wiki can serve as the collective truth of the event, portraying the hundreds of viewpoints and without taxing any one journalist with uncovering whatever represents the objective truth in the circumstance.
Wikis allow news operations to effectively cover issues on which there is a range of opinion so broad that it would be difficult, if not impossible, to summarise effectively in one article alone. Examples might include local transport problems, experiences of a large event such as a music festival or protest march, guides to local restaurants or shops, or advice. The Wikivoyage site is one such example, "A worldwide travel guide written entirely by contributors who either live in the place they're covering or have spent enough time there to post relevant information."[10]
Organisations willing to open up wikis to their audience completely may also find a way of identifying their communities' concerns: Wikipedia, for instance, notes Eva Dominguez[11] "reflects which knowledge is most shared, given that both the content and the proposals for entries are made by the users themselves."
Internally, wikis also allow news operations to coordinate and manage a complex story which involves a number of reporters: journalists are able to collaborate by editing a single webpage that all have access to. News organisations interested in transparency might also publish the wiki 'live' as it develops, while the discussion space which accompanies each entry also has the potential to create a productive dialogue with users.
There are also clear economic and competitive advantages to allowing users to create articles. With the growth of low-cost micropublishing facilitated by the internet and blogging software in particular, and the convergence-fuelled entry into the online news market by both broadcasters and publishers, news organisations face increased competition from all sides. At the same time, print and broadcast advertising revenue is falling while competition for online advertising revenue is fierce and concentrated on a few major players: in the US, for instance, according to Jeffrey Rayport[12] 99 percent of gross advertising money 2006 went to the top 10 websites.
Wikis offer a way for news websites to increase their reach, while also increasing the time that users spend on their website, a key factor in attracting advertisers. And, according to Dan Gillmor, "When [a wiki] works right, it engenders a community – and a community that has the right tools can take care of itself".[13] A useful side-effect of community for a news organisation is reader loyalty.
Andrew Lih notes the importance of the "spirit of the open source movement" (2004b p6) in its development, and the way that wikis function primarily as "social software – acting to foster communication and collaboration with other users."[14] Specifically, Lih attributes the success of the wiki model to four basic features: user friendly formatting; structure by convention, not enforced by software; "soft" security and ubiquitous access; and wikis transparency and edit history feature.
Student-run wikis provide opportunities to integrate learning by doing into a journalism education program.[15]
Disadvantages
Shane Richmond[16] identifies two obstacles that could slow down the adoption of news wikis – inaccuracy and vandalism:
"vandalism remains the biggest obstacle I can see to mainstream media's adoption of wikis, particularly in the UK, where one libellous remark could lead to the publisher of the wiki being sued, rather than the author of the libel."
"Meanwhile, the question of authority is the biggest obstacle to acceptance by a mainstream audience."
Writing in 2004 Lih[17] also identified authority as an issue for Wikipedia: "While Wikipedia has recorded impressive accomplishments in three years, its articles have a mixed degree of quality because they are, by design, always in flux, and always editable. That reason alone makes people wary of its content."
Security is a common problem in wiki technology. Wikipedia's own entry on wikis notes: "Wikis, because of their open nature, are susceptible to intentional disruption, known as 'trolling'. Wikis tend to take a soft-security approach to the problem of vandalism, making damage easy to undo rather than attempting to prevent damage."[18]
Dan Gillmor puts it another way: "When vandals learn than someone will repair their damage within minutes, and therefore prevent the damage from being visible to the world, the bad guys tend to give up and move along to more vulnerable places." (2004, p.149)
Attempts to address the security issue vary. Wikipedia's own entry on wikis again explains:
"For instance, some wikis allow unregistered users known as "IP addresses" to edit content, whilst others limit this function to just registered users. What most wikis do is allow IP editing, but privilege registered users with some extra functions to lend them a hand in editing; on most wikis, becoming a registered user is very simple and can be done in seconds, but detains the user from using the new editing functions until either some time passes, as in the English Wikipedia, where registered users must wait for three days after creating an account in order to gain access to the new tool, or until several constructive edits have been made in order to prove the user's trustworthiness and usefulness on the system, as in the Portuguese Wikipedia, where users require at least 15 constructive edits before authorization to use the added tools. Basically, "closed up" wikis are more secure and reliable but grow slowly, whilst more open wikis grow at a steady rate but result in being an easy target for vandalism."
Walsh (2007) quotes online media consultant Nico Macdonald on the importance of asking people to identify themselves:
"The key is the user's identity within the space – a picture of a person next to their post, their full name, a short bio and a link to their space online."
"A real community has, as New Labour would say, rights and responsibilities. You have to be accountable for yourself. Online, you only have the 'right' to express yourself. Online communities are not communities in a real sense – they're slightly delinquent. They allow or encourage delinquency."
Walsh (2007) argues that "Even if you don't plan on moderating a community, it's a good idea to have an editorial presence, to pop in and respond to users' questions and complaints. Apart from giving users the sense that they matter – and they really should – it also means that if you do have to take drastic measures and curtail (or even remove) a discussion or thread, it won't seem quite so much like the egregious action of some deus ex machina."
Ryan Singel of Wired also feels there is a need for an editorial presence, but for narrative reasons: "in storytelling, there's still a place for a mediator who knows when to subsume a detail for the sake of the story, and is accustomed to balancing the competing claims and interests of companies and people represented in a story."[19]
'Edit wars' are another problem in wikis, where contributors continually overwrite each other's contributions due to a difference of opinion. The worst cases, notes Lih, "may require intervention by other community members to help mediate and arbitrate".
Eva Dominguez[11] recognises the potential of wikis, but also the legal responsibilities that publishers must answer to: "The greater potential of the Internet to carry out better journalism stems from this collaboration, in which the users share and correct data, sources and facts that the journalist may not have easy access to or knowledge of. But the media, which have the ultimate responsibility for what is published, must always be able to verify everything. For example, in the case of third-party quotes included by collaborating users, the journalist must also check that they are true."
One of the biggest disadvantages may be readers' lack of awareness of what a wiki even is: only 2% of Internet users even know what a wiki is, according to a Harris Interactive poll (Francisco, 2006).
American columnist Bambi Francisco[9] argues that it is only a matter of time before more professional publishers and producers begin to experiment with using "wiki-styled ways of creating content" in the same way as they have picked up on blogs.
The Telegraph's Web News Editor, Shane Richmond, wrote: "Unusually, it may be business people who bring wikis into the mainstream. That will prepare the ground for media experiments with wikis [and] I think it's a safe bet that a British media company will try a wiki before the end of the year."[20]
Richmond added that The Telegraph was planning an internal wiki as a precursor to public experiments with the technology. "Once we have a feel for the technology, we will look into a public wiki, perhaps towards the end of the year."[21]
A wiki is a hypertext publication collaboratively edited and managed by its own audience directly using a web browser. A typical wiki contains multiple pages for the subjects or scope of the project and may be either open to the public or limited to use within an organization for maintaining its internal knowledge base.
Open publishing is a term used by Matthew Arnison in March 2001 to describe the online process of creating text, audio and video news by methods that are fully transparent to the readers. In the early 2000s, the term was widely associated with the online Indymedia network.
The English Wikipedia is the English-language edition of the free online encyclopedia Wikipedia. Founded on 15 January 2001, it is the first edition of Wikipedia and, as of April 2019, has the most articles of any of the editions. As of May 2020, 11% of articles in all Wikipedias belong to the English-language edition. This share has gradually declined from more than 50 percent in 2003, due to the growth of Wikipedias in other languages. As of 13 May 2020, there are 6,076,905 articles on the site, having surpassed the 5 million mark on 1 November 2015. In October 2015, the total volume of the compressed texts of the English Wikipedia's articles amounted to 11.5 gigabytes.
Citizen journalism is based upon public citizens "playing an active role in the process of collecting, reporting, analyzing, and disseminating news and information." Similarly, Courtney C. Radsch defines citizen journalism "as an alternative and activist form of news gathering and reporting that functions outside mainstream media institutions, often as a response to shortcomings in the professional journalistic field, that uses similar journalistic practices but is driven by different objectives and ideals and relies on alternative sources of legitimacy than traditional or mainstream journalism". Jay Rosen offers a simpler definition: "When the people formerly known as the audience employ the press tools they have in their possession to inform one another." The underlying principle of citizen journalism is that ordinary people, not professional journalists, can be the main creators and distributors or news. Citizen journalism should not be confused with: community journalism or civic journalism, both of which are practiced by professional journalists; collaborative journalism, which is the practice of professional and non-professional journalists working together; and social journalism, which denotes a digital publication with a hybrid of professional and non-professional journalism.
We the Media is a book written by Dan Gillmor, published in 2004 by O'Reilly (ISBN 0596007337).
Wikinews is a free-content news source wiki and a project of the Wikimedia Foundation. The site works through collaborative journalism. Wikipedia co-founder Jimmy Wales has distinguished Wikinews from Wikipedia by saying "on Wikinews, each story is to be written as a news story as opposed to an encyclopedia article." The neutral point of view policy espoused in Wikinews distinguishes it from other citizen journalism efforts such as Indymedia and OhmyNews. In contrast to most projects of the Wikimedia Foundation, Wikinews allows original work under the form of original reporting and interviews.
The German Wikipedia is the German-language edition of Wikipedia, a free and publicly editable online encyclopedia.
Citizen media is content produced by private citizens who are not professional journalists. Citizen journalism, participatory media and democratic media are related principles.
Wikipedia is a multilingual online encyclopedia created and maintained as an open collaboration project by a community of volunteer editors, using a wiki-based editing system. It is the largest and most popular general reference work on the World Wide Web, and is one of the 20 most popular websites ranked by Alexa, as of March 2020. It features exclusively free content and no commercial ads and is owned and supported by the Wikimedia Foundation, a non-profit organization funded primarily through donations.
Citizendium is an English-language wiki-based free encyclopedia project launched by Larry Sanger, who co-founded Nupedia and Wikipedia.
Participatory media is media where the audience can play an active role in the process of collecting, reporting, analyzing and disseminating content. Citizen / Participatory journalism, citizen media and democratic media are related principles.
The Essjay controversy centered on a Wikipedia editor named Ryan Jordan, who fabricated a largely false profile under which he worked for two years and rose to levels of administrative trust within the organization. Under the username "Essjay", Jordan was presented as a university professor of religion by The New Yorker, which later acknowledged it did not know his real name. The controversy came to involve Wikipedia co-founder Jimmy Wales who, after initially defending Jordan, eventually asked for his resignation.
Erik Möller is a German freelance journalist, software developer, author, and former deputy director of the Wikimedia Foundation (WMF), based in San Francisco. Möller additionally works as a web designer and previously managed his own web hosting service, myoo.de.
Collaborative journalism is a growing practice in the field of journalism. One definition is "a cooperative arrangement between two or more news and information organizations, which aims to supplement each organization’s resources and maximize the impact of the content produced." It is practiced by both professional and amateur reporters. It is not to be confused with citizen journalism.
Andrew Lih is an American new media researcher, consultant and writer, as well as an authority on both Wikipedia and internet censorship in the People's Republic of China. In 2013 he was appointed an associate professor of journalism at American University in Washington, D.C.
Lawrence Mark Sanger is an American internet project developer and co-founder of the internet encyclopedia Wikipedia, for which he coined the name and wrote much of its original governing policy. Sanger has worked on other online educational websites such as Nupedia, Citizendium, Everipedia, and the Encyclosphere.
On Wikipedia, vandalism is the act of editing the project in a malicious manner that is intentionally disruptive. Vandalism includes the addition, removal, or modification of the text or other material that is either humorous, nonsensical, a hoax, or that is of an offensive, humiliating, or otherwise degrading nature.
The Wikipedia community is the community of contributors who create and maintain the online encyclopedia Wikipedia. Individual contributors are known as "Wikipedians". OxfordDictionaries.com added the word "Wikipedian" in August 2012.
The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to Wikipedia:
WikiTribune was a news wiki where volunteers wrote and curated articles about widely publicised news by proofreading, fact-checking, suggesting possible changes, and adding sources from other, usually long established outlets. Jimmy Wales, co-founder of Wikipedia, announced the site in April 2017 as a for-profit site, not affiliated with Wikipedia or its support organisation, the Wikimedia Foundation. Until October 2018, WikiTribune employed journalists with established backgrounds in the profession who researched, syndicated, and reported news.
References
Gillmor, Dan (2004) "We The Media", O'Reilly Media
Thelwall, Mike and Stuart, David. "RUOK? Blogging Communication Technologies During Crises". Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, 2007, p523–548
Walsh, Jason. "Build the perfect web community". .net Magazine, p39–43, no.165, August 2007
↑ Will Wai Kit Ma & Allan Hoi Kau Yuen (2008), "A Qualitative Analysis on Collaborative Learning Experience of Student Journalists Using Wiki", Hybrid Learning and Education, Lecture Notes in Computer Science, 5169, pp.103–114, doi:10.1007/978-3-540-85170-7_9, ISBN978-3-540-85169-1, ISSN0302-9743
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