“The right information”: perceptions of information bias among Black Wikipedians
| Pages | 1486-1502 |
| Published date | 26 September 2019 |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/JD-02-2019-0031 |
| Date | 26 September 2019 |
| Author | Boryung Ju,Brenton Stewart |
| Subject Matter | Library & information science |
“The right information”:
perceptions of information bias
among Black Wikipedians
Boryung Ju and Brenton Stewart
School of Library and Information Science,
Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge, Louisiana, USA
Abstract
Purpose –The purpose of this paper is to examine motivators that drive Black Wikipedia contribution.
The authors explore motivations around content contribution, effects of gender on motivations and
self-perceptions of Black Wikipedia labor.
Design/methodology/approach –A total of 318 Black American Wikipedia contributors completed an
online survey. The authors employed both quantitative and qualitative methods in the study including
descriptive statistics, multivariate (MANOVA) and univariate (ANOVA) analysis of variance to examine
gender differences in Wikipedia content contribution. In addition, open-ended responses were evaluated,
through content analysis, to make inferences on their perceptions of Wikipedia labor.
Findings –This paper identifies racial identity and perceptions of information quality as strong motivators
in content contribution among Black Wikipedians. Motivators are gender variant; men are more motivated
than women with the lone exception being racial identity. Additionally, the study identifies Wikipedia as a
contested space among Black contributors and is a site of resistance.
Originality/value –Black Wikipedians information activity is a relatively new and understudied
phenomenon. This paper presents new insight and a deeper understanding of Black Wikipedians’
motivations for information sharing behaviors in the most popular encyclopedia on the internet.
Keywords Social media, Gender, Motivations, Peer production, Race, Representation, Encyclopedia
Paper type Research paper
Introduction
Wikipedia is the world’s largest and most popular encyclopedia with over 300 language
editions. Users often interact with the online encyclopedia without even knowing it.
Wikipedia, for example, is one of the data sources that Amazon’s virtual assistant Alexa,
accesses to answer users’queries; and Wikipedia’s entries are also highly indexed by Google
which results in its frequent positioning in the top ten of search results (Silverwood-Cope,
2012). With such widespread reliance on Wikipedia, it is critically important that the
codified information contained within its repository reflects broad and balanced knowledge
bases. One strategy for achieving this is to attract a diverse team of authors and editors.
However, research has shown that Wikipedia’s laborers are overwhelmingly homogenous.
Most are white males residing in Europe and the USA, and just five countries generate
“45 percent of all edits to Wikipedia (comprising) (Italy, France, UK, Germany and the
USA)”; furthermore, Wikipedia’s contribution imbalance is so acute, more editors live in
“The Netherlands than [in] all of Africa combined”(Graham et al., 2015, p. 1174).
A consequence of this uneven distribution of labor is that information content is skewed
toward the interests and whims of a narrow population of free laborers, resulting in
information gaps (Lam et al., 2011; Reagle and Rhue, 2011; Luyt, 2018).
While researchers have begun to study Wikiprojects on Cambodi a and South Africa
(Fordet al., 2018; Lu yt, 2018) very few have considered African American contributors as an
active constituency of Wikipedians. Yet African Americans are some the most active adopters
Journal of Documentation
Vol. 75 No. 6, 2019
pp. 1486-1502
© Emerald PublishingLimited
0022-0418
DOI 10.1108/JD-02-2019-0031
Received 15 February 2019
Revised 18 May 2019
Accepted 30 May 2019
The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available on Emerald Insight at:
www.emeraldinsight.com/0022-0418.htm
The authors share co-first authorship. This study was supported by funding from Brenton Stewart’s
Russell Long Professorship.
1486
JD
75,6
of diverse social media platforms such as Facebook, Instagram and Twitter (Smith and
Anderson, 2018). Recent scholarship on African American digital culture has largely coalesced
around the phenomenon of Black Twitter, a cultural conversation among Black identified
individuals, within the Twitter universe, (Brock, 2012; Florini, 2014; Graham and Smith, 2016;
Jackson and Welles, 2015, 2016; Sharma, 2013; Williams and Gonlin, 2017; Lee-Won et al., 2018)
and Black bloggers (Brock et al., 2010; Pole, 2005; Steele, 2016, 2018). The aforementioned
research stream has done much to advance our understanding of how African Americans have
leveraged social media as a means to not only extend Black cultural expression into digital
spaces but also as a counterpublic that challenges narratives articulated by the dominant
culture. Therefore, the current study broadens research literature around Black social media
information activity by examining a distinctive community of Wikipedians, which are rarely
studied, while simultaneously exploring racial identity and users’perceptions of information
quality as new constructsthat motivate Wikipedia content contribution. Ourstudy is oriented
around the following research questions:
RQ1. What are the baseline levels of Black Wikipedians’motivations for content contr ibution?
RQ2. Are there any gender differences in Black Wikipedians’s motivations for content
contribution?
RQ3a. How do Black Wikipedians perceive their participation in Wikipedia content
contribution?
RQ3b. How do Black Wikipedians perceive their participation in Wikipedia as helpful to
the Black community?
Background
Motivations in social media contribution
Researchers have studied numerous factors that motivate individuals to contribute
information content to a cross-section of open-source platforms and repositories.
An early study by Wasko and Faraj (2000) of Usenet newsgroups found that community
interest and desire for intellectual exchange, with fellow contributors, rather than
self-interest were the strongest motivations for content participation. Nov et al. (2010)
found that entertainment was an important factor in content sharing in an online image
sharing repository. Similar results were found in Hamari et al.’s (2016) study where
entertainment along with sustainability and economic gains motivated participation.
In their study high school students in Hong Kong, Ma and Chan (2014) found that
contributors’perception of online attachment, online relationship commitment and
altruism were the catalyst for social media sharing. Other studies have shown that
contributor’s reputations within open-source communities are an important driving factor
(Parameswaran and Whinston, 2007).
Studies on motivations behind Wikipedia content contribution have revealed similar
catalysts identified in other social media platforms. Fun and ideology were identified as the
most influential factors in user contribution in an early study by Nov (2007). Although
Sundin’s (2011)study emphasized knowledge claimsamong Wikipedia editors, it also echoed
similar findings on motivations; Wikipedian’s want to give back to the repository that they
also utilized, and enjoyed the feeling of “accomplishment”having contributed and were
therefore expan ding “knowledge.”Reputation and a commitment to Wikipedia were motives
driving contributors to the French and Dutch editions (Anthony et al., 2009). However,
Cho et al.’s (2010) study found that attitudes, knowledge self-efficacy and reciprocity
were significant motivators in user contribution. In a similar study, Yang and Lai (2010)
explored self-concept and intrinsic and extrinsic motivators in Wikipedia contribution.
1487
Black
Wikipedians
To continue reading
Request your trial