A Comparative Analysis of Authority in Sociological Textbooks and Wikipedia: A ten-year update

• In Event: 1555 - Section on Science, Knowledge, and Technology Refereed Roundtables (1 hour)
  In Refereed Roundtable 60min: 2. "Click Publish": Peers, Review, and the Creation of Knowledge

Abstract

In this study, I aim to examine (1) how authority is established and (2) how it is displayed in two different sources: Introductory-level sociology textbooks and Wikipedia articles on sociological topics. Through the use of mixed methods, I will investigate how a variety of major sociological topics within a selection of popular introductory sociology textbooks compare and contrast with those found in corresponding Wikipedia articles. More specifically, I will focus on how the quality, quantity, and recency of the sources are used to establish legitimacy and authority within each medium. To this end, I will examine the number of citations found in each topic, the publishing date of each reference and the location from which a citation emanated. This study will be an update to a previous study that I conducted ten years ago in 2009 on the same subject. When I first conducted this study, I found that authority was established differently between the two sources as each medium differed considerably in the number of citations presented, the average publishing date and the medium from which their resources were taken. The textbook featured a large number of citations predominantly from peer-reviewed, social scientific sources as is common within the academic world, while Wikipedia featured a large number of citations that drew from a wide range of locations, mainly from mainstream media. This distinction highlights the idea that while knowledge may be viewed by the general public as objective and unchanging there are in fact significant differences in how knowledge is presented and legitimated depending on its originating source. The goal of the present study is to highlight how the presentation of knowledge has changed in the past decade. This is especially important today as teachers, politicians, and the media battle over the meaning of truth, fairness, and credibility in regards to knowledge.

Author

• Alexander A Hernandez, Texas A&M University