The rise of expert amateurs in the realm of knowledge production: The case of Wikipedia’s newsworkers

• In Event: Dialogues in Journalism Studies: The New Gatekeepers

Abstract

Wikipedia has become an authoritative source about breaking news stories as they happen in many parts of the world. Although anyone can technically edit a Wikipedia article, recent evidence suggests that some have significantly more power than others when it comes to being able to have edits sustained over time. In this paper, I suggest that the theory of co-production, elaborated upon by Sheila Jasanoff, is a useful way of framing how, rather than a removal of the gatekeepers of the past, Wikipedia demonstrates two key trends. The first is the rise of a new set of gatekeepers in the form of experienced Wikipedians who are able to deploy coded objects effectively in order to stabilize or destabilize an article, and the second is a reconfiguration in the power of traditional sources of news and information in the choices that Wikipedia editors make when writing about breaking news events.

Author

• Heather Ford, University of Leeds