Internal:Speakers/CM1
CM1: Cathy Ma, et al
Title: Wikipedia – Anonymous Users as Good Users (ID CM1)
- Language: English | License: ?
- Room size: medium
- Category: Research
- type: presentation
- Budget requirements: {{{budgetrequire}}}
- Budget priority: {{{budget}}}
Author[s]: Cathy Ma.
- Contact: cathyma@gmail.com [OTRS]
- Contacted by: ?
- (From: Hong Kong, China | available days: ?)
The Wikipedia has allowed an unconventional and powerful way of information dissemination in the building a knowledge archive for everyone. From a socio-psychological point of view - who are the Wikipedians? Contrary to what most social psychologists believe, anonymity could actually be an important feature of the Wikipedia that made it so successful as an online collaborative project. This paper employs the theory of Social Dilemmas in analyzing the participatory nature of the anonymous users. The theory of Social Dilemmas is the study of the social conditions under which a dense network helps a group to solve the conflicts between collective goals and individual interests. I will focus more on the contributions by anonymous users so as to illustrate the potential benefits of allowing anonymous participations given the unique social ecology of the Wikipedia. Economic and cultural implications would be discussed with reference to Lawrence Lessig's idea of free culture and Benklers's idea of Commons-based Peer Production in order to understand the social and cultural context of the developing Wikipedia.
The paper is still in a very primitive stage and any feedback is more than welcome, as I am not sure about what are the best ways to study this new medium as a sociology students. Thanks for your time and good luck for the preparation!
About the author[s]: MPhil Student, Department of Sociology, The University of Hong Kong
Status information in the templates is not up to date. Please see Internal:Speakers/Categories for final status information.
- accept: JV, SJ, PD
- reject: AB (sounds unfinished. Is this just an idea for a study, not an actual study that has been done yet?)
- status: acceptet as short presentation
(same as CM2)