In collaboration with a multidisciplinary group of researchers from the Oxford and Minnesota, this project aims to build a series of visualizations to investigate the geographical scope of Wikipedia. The key research question for the project is to understand to what extent Wikipedia reflects different narratives of the world in its different language versions by analysing the provenance of Wikipedia’s sources and citations. Instead of merely presenting the analyses as clean, closed visualizations, the team will document the process as it evolves, highlighting the decisions made to select particular data for each dataset. The goals of the project are twofold: to produce rigorous analyses that bring Wikipedia’s geographical scope to the forefront, and to experiment with a method and model for researchers to produce rigorous analyses that can be replicated and/or interrogated in the future.
Professor of Internet Geography
Mark Graham is an economic geographer. His research focuses on digital labour, the gig economy, and digital inequalities. He is the author, most recently, of The Gig Economy: A Critical Introduction.
Former DPhil Student
Heather Ford is a DPhil alumna who studies how Wikipedians write history as it happens. Her research covers online collaboration, conflict, historiography, alternative media, the Arab Spring and intellectual property rights.
University of Minnesota
Carleton College
Macalester College
With Dr Heather Ford
Presentation on Heather Ford's Wikipedia research, on the occasion of Wikipedia's 15th Birthday.
Mail Online, 22 September 2014
Following reports there are now more than a billion websites, Mark Graham and Stefano de Sabbata have created an interactive map that reveals just how far and wide these sites penetrate the globe.
The Conversation, 08 September 2014
Mark Graham authors an article explaining why the unequal global representation in Wikipedia matters and why it impedes Wikiepedia's aim to be the 'sum of all human knowledge'.
New Statesman, 18 August 2014
Wikipedia may be reproducing an equal, established world view. Mark Graham writes about his work on inequalities in Wikipedia. For example, he says, the Middle East is massively underrepresented.
