Wikipedia - community or social movement?

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Wikipedia: community or social movement?
Authors:	Piotr Konieczny [edit item]
Citation:	Interface 1 (2): 212 - 232. 2009 November.
Publication type:	Journal article
Peer-reviewed:	Yes
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Link(s):	Paper link
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Wikipedia: community or social movement? is a publication by Piotr Konieczny.

Abstract

In recent years a new realm for study of political and sociological phenomena has appeared, the Internet, contributing to major changes in our societies during its relatively brief existence. Within cyberspace, organizations whose existence is increasingly tied to this virtual world are of interest to social scientists. This study will analyze the community of one of the largest online organizations, Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia with millions of volunteer members. Wikipedia was never meant to be a community, yet it most certainly has become one. This study asks whether it is something even more –whether it is an expression of online activism, and whether it can be seen as a social movement organization, related to one or more of the Internet-centered social movements industries (in particular, the free and open-source software movement industry).

Research questions

"This study asks whether it is something even more –whether it is an expression of online activism, and whether it can be seen as a social movement organization, related to one or more of the Internet-centered social movements industries (in particular, the free and open-source software movement industry)."

Research details

Topics:	Community building [edit item]
Domains:	Sociology [edit item]
Theory type:	Analysis [edit item]
Wikipedia coverage:	Main topic [edit item]
Theories:	[edit item]
Research design:	Phenomenology [edit item]
Data source:	Websites [edit item]
Collected data time dimension:	N/A [edit item]
Unit of analysis:	N/A [edit item]
Wikipedia data extraction:	N/A [edit item]
Wikipedia page type:	N/A [edit item]
Wikipedia language:	N/A [edit item]

Conclusion

"As I have pointed out in the preceeding sections, the Wikipedia project has evolved beyond “just an encyclopedia”. It has given rise to a vibrant online community, certainly justifing the use of the “Wikipedia community” phrase. Whether we can speak of a “Wikipedia social movement” is less obvious. Although Wikipedia seems to be closely related to the Free/Open Source Software Movement Industry and it shows certain qualities commonly associated with SMOs, it is certainly not a typical one. Current definitions of what a social movement is seem to fit Wikipedia; however a degree to which some of them need to be stretched indicates the need for further discussions, and possibly a need for refining and updating those definitions."