Grappling with polarization on Wikipedia: the case of the biography of Ferdinand E. Marcos
| Date | 28 September 2023 |
| Pages | 320-336 |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/JD-04-2023-0078 |
| Published date | 28 September 2023 |
| Subject Matter | Library & information science,Records management & preservation,Document management,Classification & cataloguing,Information behaviour & retrieval,Collection building & management,Scholarly communications/publishing,Information & knowledge management,Information management & governance,Information management,Information & communications technology,Internet |
| Author | Brendan Luyt,Karryl Sagun-Trajano |
Grappling with polarization on
Wikipedia: the case of the
biography of Ferdinand E. Marcos
Brendan Luyt
Division of Information Studies,
Wee Kim Wee School of Communication and Information,
Nanyang Technological University, Singapore, Singapore, and
Karryl Sagun-Trajano
S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, Nanyang Technological University,
Singapore, Singapore
Abstract
Purpose –In this study, the authors look at the case of Ferdinand Marcos, President of the Philippines
between 1965 and 1986. Documenting the life and career of Marcos on Wikipedia provides an excellent example
of the pitfalls confronting those seeking to addressdisinformation without first reflecting deeply on the reasons
why people subscribe to views deemed outlandish by the intellectual or cultural mainstream.
Design/methodology/approach –The authors sampled the version of the Marcos article on Wikipedia as it
existed after the first edit of each year since its inception (2002). This resulted in 22 texts for analysis. Content
and thematic analyses were conducted on these texts as well as on the entire body of talk page comments for the
article.
Findings –The authors’work suggests that the basic elements of responsible encyclopedic writing have
prevailed in the case of Wikipedia’s biography of Marcos. However, this is not an unalloyed victory, as issues of
polarization remain unaddressed.
Originality/value –Underlying revisionist or distorted claims about Ferdinand Marcos (and other
controversial topics) lie very real grievances that give these claims traction for many people. Hence, it is not
enough to “just present the facts”to readers. Rather, the authors argue that what is needed is a synthesis of
positions that would allow for common ground to be found between them. This could be done in the case of
Wikipedia by cultivating editors who are capable and willing to engage with the subject literature in a deeper
and richer fashion.
Keywords Information literacy, Asia, Reading, Wikipedia, Philippines, Misinformation, Ferdinand Marcos
Paper type Article
Introduction
In recent years, much attention has been paid to the issue of disinformation and its corollary,
misinformation. Much of this focus is, quite naturally, on the major social media platforms,
but an understudied yet potentially equally relevant part of this digital knowledge ecosystem
is Wikipedia. Wikipedia is a key component of the world’s information infrastructure, and
examining how it handles misinformation and disinformation is, therefore, an important task.
In this study, we look at the case of Ferdinand Marcos, President of the Philippines between
1965 and 1986. Documenting the life and career of Marcos on Wikipedia provides an excellent
example of the pitfalls confronting those seeking to address disinformation without first
reflecting deeply on the reasons why people subscribe to views deemed outlandish by the
intellectual or cultural mainstream.
The dominant image of Marcos, built up over the years since his removal from power in
1986 in a non-violent social uprising, is that he was a kleptocrat and dictator. It is an image
that is well supported in the academic literature (Aquino, 1987;Wurfel, 1988;Boyce, 2003;
McCoy, 2009). In recent years, however, there has been a growing movement to reassess both
JD
80,2
320
The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available on Emerald Insight at:
https://www.emerald.com/insight/0022-0418.htm
Received 28 April 2023
Revised 16 August 2023
Accepted 6 September 2023
Journal of Documentation
Vol. 80 No. 2, 2024
pp. 320-336
© Emerald Publishing Limited
0022-0418
DOI 10.1108/JD-04-2023-0078
the man himself and his regime. Many of the claims made by this movement are not well
supported by academic and serious journalistic communities, and it thrives, in no little part,
due to the desire of the Marcos family and their supporters to enhance their own political
power, but this is not the end of the story. The revisionist discourse finds support on the
margins of the country’s public sphere, where it touches a raw nerve of feeling in many
Filipinos who have not seen life get better in the decades following his rule.
Not surprisingly, given Wikipedia’s importance as an information source, there have been
attempts to include elements of this discourse in the content of Wikipedia’s biography of
Ferdinand Marcos, the tempo of which has proven troublesome to many editors interested in
the subject.
In an interview for the Guardian, one Filipino editor of the Marcos page described his own
experience of managing revisionist-inspired edits as “basically like playing in the sandbox.
You build a sandcastle and then another kid comes along and just kicks it over”(Lamb, 2017).
Revisionist claims that seek to portray Marcos positively are countered by others that
attempt to reassert the status quo. However, although exhausting for individual editors
caught up in this intellectual work, the instability of the article reflects the wider promise of
Wikipedia that it is open to anyone to edit and capable of accommodating multiple
perspectives on an issue.
The Guardian story brings to the fore the question of how Wikipedia should handle claims
that fall outside the mainstream. Much depends on how we view the creators and, more
particularly, the disseminators of alternative discourses. If we merely see them as a kind,
ignorant rabble, a digital hoi polloi being led astray by various demagogues, then the correct
response would be to clamp down hard on their attempts to infiltrate Wikipedia.
Furthermore, it could be argued that much of the revisionist narrative on Wikipedia as
well as on other forms of social media is produced and disseminated centrally, i.e. it is the
output of troll farms. If this is the case, there would seem to be little point in perceiving it other
than as a more pernicious form of vandalism with the aim, once again, to eliminate it from
view. However, there are reasons not to agree with this view.
Wikipedia editors are anonymous. They do not have to identify themselves, and this is,
rightly or wrongly, a long-standing policy. Tracking whether an edit is from a troll farm is,
therefore, difficult. But more importantly, by engaging in such an exercise, one falls into the
polarized mindset that pits pro- and anti-Marcos individuals against each other, while
ignoring the larger structural issues that underpin the reasons why many Filipinos feel
disenfranchised and hence are receptive to alternative political discourse in the first place.
Furthermore, we also need to consider that many Wikipedia editors fighting what they
consider pernicious and fake news may have epistemological blind spots that make them
unaware of the limitations of mainstream discourse and of alternatives to this discourse. If we
instead, right from the start, try to identify “good”and “bad”in these debates, we risk
overlooking both of these points.
In fact, Wikipedia may be missing an opportunity to transcend the polarity of building
and destroying the “sandcastle,”by engaging in a deeper analysis of the subject matter –in
this case, the checkered career of Ferdinand Marcos. We argue that instead of remaining
trapped within a binary opposition between Marcos as bad and Marcos as good, Wikipedia
editors engaging in debates over potential additions or subtractions to the article need to
think in a dialectical fashion that aims to neutralize conflict by developing deeper insights
based on both sides of that same conflict. By developing such a synthesis, it becomes possible
not only to obtain a more nuanced understanding of the subject, but also to defuse at least
some of the tension created by the polarization of debate.
While the focus here is on Wikipedia, the recommendation applies to other informational
and educational institutions as well. When we consider that the power of disinformation not
only lies in persuading people to adopt a particular point of view but also in weakening
Polarization on
Wikipedia
321
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