MATTERS OF PERSPECTIVE/ PERSPECTIVES MATTER

“Who decides which narratives are correct?
In my view, narratives of identity function like tools or instruments for the purpose of enabling individuals to develop strategies for coping with the various factors of nonbeing that threaten to either impoverish the quality of human existence or to corrode habitual ways of thinking and acting that have proven to offer existential comfort.” –Clevis Headley

What constitutes an authoritative source of knowledge?

This is a topic that comes up quite a bit when discussing Wikipedia and the main motivation behind feminist edit-a-thons. There is a general issue of “trust” when it comes to relying on Wikipedia because “anyone can edit it!”. At this point however the editing system has become quite complex and while it is advisable to double check information listed before basing a paper on it, external reports have concluded Wikipedia is almost on par with Encyclopedia Britannica in reliability. The problem Art+Feminism is trying to address, is based on the very narrow demographics represented by the average wiki editor. That is Who edits Wikipedia and how their A/S/L affects what topics are covered and the perspective they are written from. As the majority of editors are white, western men, the content of articles skews (dramatically) toward content that reflects that particular demographic. Women of any field are notoriously under-represented on Wikipedia, and if they are present, their articles often begin by making reference to their sexuality  (she was a lesbian!) or any closely linked male who was also well known (husband, son, father, colleague). Women are also largely categorized differently than their male counterparts (aka: “sub categorized”, with a focus on them being women first, and writers/painters/inventors/etc second.)

Exhibit A: Jane Digby was a fearless adventurer, polyglot, painter  who lived an extraordinary life, but the focus is pretty much on who she slept with.

This is of course not much different than the perspective we get in newspapers, radio,  history books, etc. For centuries, institutions of knowledge dissemination (universities, publishing houses, major media) have been headed by the same demographic as is now seen on Wikipedia, offering a white-supremacist, patriarchal, hetero and usually capitalist view of the world which is dominant in the west and was spread through colonialism. And while these demographics are changing, undoing the structure of beliefs currently in place is slow going, as demonstrated by the majority of high school text books still hailing Christopher Colombus as a hero.

“Any medium has the power of imposing its own assumption on the unwary” McLuhan, The Medium is the Message

Here is what gets interesting with Wikipedia, it can be updated instantly, and there is a much lower barrier to entry for hopeful editors. Now that the interface has a visual option like WordPress, you don’t even need to know code. So while Wikipedia may have a pretty bad gender bias right now (and cultural/socio economic/ableist) there is room for so many more voices.

Exhibit B: Musician and festival organizer Ethel Eugene on being described as a “sexy sexual being on all fours” instead of “lead singer” or “musician”

Much in the same way that platforms like Twitter and Tumblr have given a voice to marginalized communities that can be heard worldwide, Wikipedia has the potential to be a great equalizer in terms of exposing people to information they would never have otherwise had access to.

“Oppressed people resist by identifying themselves as subjects, by defining their reality, shaping their new identity, naming their history, telling their story.” – Jewel Amoah

There are as many sides to a story as there are people involved, and to let one group decide how all others are perceived leaves those in power unchallenged and the rest unheard. There is so much lost and so much hidden in our world history. Historians are too often treated like scientists despite the amount of intuiting involved, and how much of their craft resembles story telling. Every person has a bias that, while it can be reduced, cannot be erased. At least with a more diverse selection of editors on Wikipedia, we can look forward to some variety in the stories they tell.

Exhibit C: the final product of a workshop on Exclusion on Wikipedia at the 2015  Art+Feminism edit-a-thon

Donna Strickland and the erasure of women in science: Case study

There has long been a debate around the catch 22 regarding the absence of women in the field of STEM, in which one side argues that we need more representation of women so girls are inspired to enter these fields, and the other side counters that there are not enough women in the field to justify greater representation. What is less obvious or well documented is the many ways in which women have historically been barred, silenced and erased even when they made notable discoveries despite the odds. The erasure of Rosalind Franklin’s contributions to the creation of a model of DNA and as is Jocelyn Bell Burnell’s discovery of radio pulsars, Hedy Lamarr’s  innovations in spread spectrum and frequency hopping technology, and the subsequent (and ongoing) justifications for why they do not deserve recognition begs the question: why, as a society, are we so resistant to the idea of women as scientists?

Earlier this year when Donna Strickland won a Nobel Prize for physics, Mira Koren at The Atlantic observed that the fight for the creation of Strickland’s Wikipedia page was representative of the struggle for women to be recognized for their work in the sciences at large. The reasoning behind the deletion of Strickland’s page and resistance to its recreation rested on the argument that there was not enough notable media coverage of her to warrant an article. But rather than write her off as lacking in notability, isn’t this the moment to ask how it’s possible that someone who has made such large contributions to physics has been ignored for so long?

“Power and knowledge directly imply one another, being mutually supporting and inevitable elements in games of truth. All knowledge is the effect of a specific regime of power, whereas forms of knowledge constitute a social reality.”

– George Lazaroiu, Besley on Foucault’s Discourse of Education

Here it is interesting to view this story through a Foucauldian perspective, which proposes the theory of a dominant discourse, produced by those in power in order to justify and retain their position. Recognizing that the erasure of women’s contributions in science is a deliberate construction, and one which serves a purpose (eg: justification for men’s continued dominance in the field of STEM and exclusion of women or other non cis male folk) allows the reader to question the authority of false narratives. This is not about contradicting anything that comes from an established source of knowledge, but to be more critical of what knowledge is offered, even if, and sometimes especially if, it fits a comfortable, naturalized narrative. As Graham et al. point out, “the knowledge of how discourse and power operates within daily practices can maintain discourse but also create opportunities to resist and expand those same discourses.” The first step to understanding the implications of a narrative is to determine who gains by its dissemination (not to mention reproduction and naturalization).

Below is a screenshot of the history of Donna Strickland’s Wikipedia page. Almost 200 edits were made to her page on October 2 when she was awarded a Nobel Prize, but first the page had to exist, and as evidenced it struggled to prove this:

The talk pages of Wikipedia articles provide a huge amount of insight into who is editing and what their motivations might be. In this case, i looked up all the contributions by user SteplightJohnson and discovered a long history of contributions to articles in the field of physics, mathematics and engineering. At the same time, their talk page illustrates a failure to conform to certain Wiki protocols, which may have contributed to issues with article creation. The page for user  Ruby Murray was much more varied in the types of articles they contributed to, though tagging articles for deletion makes up a sizeable proportion of their contributions. This is not necessarily a bad thing, it takes all types of users to keep Wikipedia relevant and tagging pages for deletion helps in this process. What is of particular interest to me is that  Ruby Murray deleted their account in 2014 despite being a very active contributor for 3 years.

Digging into the talk pages of articles and contribution histories of editors can provide insight into who is providing information and what their motivations might be. Though far from offering perfect transparency, this meta information should not be overlooked when assessing the validity of an article and can provide context that helps the reader place a single article within a larger narrative.

Values

While Wikipedia, as any encyclopedia, strives to keep its content as neutral as possible, “neutrality” is a concept not easily applied. Editors can remove subjective language but they cannot fully avoid embedding their bias within the texts, whether that be in the order information is placed in, or the amount of detail and focus certain sections of an article receive.  Even the meta-data (categorization) and length of an article provide latent judgements as to the importance of an article.

Practice: Read, Write, Re-Write

Resistance to dominant narratives has been theorized by a number of academics, but here we will focus on Hall’s concept of decoding. Stuart Hall proposed a theory of media consumption in “Encoding/Decoding” in which the audience of a message has far more agency than in previous models of communication, positioning them as active interpreters instead of passive consumers. For a message to reach an audience as it was intended, both the skill and references of the encoder and decoder come into play, as poor construction of the message can lead to misinterpretation,  but the act of interpretation or “decoding” also relies on the audience member’s cultural background, life experience and technical capability. Furthermore, an audience can react in any of threes ways: dominant-hegemonic which follows the intended message, a negotiated understanding which acknowledges the dominant position but chooses to read the meaning more creatively, and finally and oppositional reading which rejects the intended message completely. It is the latter two means of decoding which are of interest here, as they invite potentially subversive ways of reading authoritative texts.

The reason that choosing to decode media is so important to Hall, is that he believed that the messages we consume create what he called “social practices”. In fact, within this theory influencing social practice was the reason for encoding a message in the first place, and so for Hall, if the meaning was not translated into a practice, the message had failed. Perhaps we are more used to thinking of this process in regards to advertising, where a team of marketers carefully craft an ad with the goal of manipulating the audience into buying a specific product, but this can be used to as a metaphor for how those in power create specific discourses to manipulate the general public into “buying in” to narratives that protect their dominant position. Foucault also believed that society is shaped through discourse, arguing that it shaped, rather than reflected, social life. This is why it is so important to be aware of the intent behind the media we consume and to be active and critical in how we interpret them.

 

“Before this message can have an ‘effect’ (however defined), satisfy a ‘need’ or be put to a ‘use’, it must first be appropriated as a meaningful discourse and be meaningfully decoded. It is this set of decoded meanings which ‘have an effect’, influence, entertain, instruct or persuade, with very complex perceptual, cognitive, emotional, ideological or behavioural consequences. In a ‘determinate’ moment the structure employs a code and yields a ‘message’: at another determinate moment the ‘message’, via its decodings, issues into the structure of social practices.” – Stuart Hall, Encoding/Decoding

Of course not all alteration of a message is the result of conscious misinterpretation, it can also be the result of variations in connotative meanings. When the profile of a Wikipedia article reader matches that of the article’s editor(s), the result is a decoding from the dominant-hegemonic position. Unless the reader was specifically approaching the article with the goal to critique, they will likely draw from the text a meaning very close to what the writer intended. This also means that the reader will likely reproduce what they have learned fairly accurately, therefore perpetuating the ideas of the original author(s).

A reader coming from a very different demographic however will likely “misinterpret” what the intended meaning and distort the message due to their diverging cultural references. But while historically media makers would attempt to learn from these distortions in order to ensure the effectiveness of future transmissions, Wikipedia provides us with a new option; for the reader to now become a writer and edit the article to better reflect the content, language and values familiar to them. In this way, a conversation around the topic of the article emerges and the more perspectives that are added, the fuller the understanding of the topic becomes.

Whether an individual is motivated by the desire to subvert dominant discourses or complicate narratives by interjecting more perspectives, Wikipedia, as one of the most referenced websites in the world is an ideal platform for shaping narratives. Becoming an active editor can be seen as both a practice of contesting single perspective knowledge sources (often traditional, institutional sources) and as a way of engaging with and giving back to a wider community of learners.

“Connotative codes are not equal among themselves. Any society/culture tends, with varying degrees of closure, to impose its classifications of the social and cultural and political world. These constitute a dominant cultural order, though it is neither univocal not uncontested.” – Stuart Hall, Encoding/Decoding

Below is an example of a simple edit that can be made in under 5 minutes and does not require specialized knowledge, yet has a subtle but important impact in how we think about the legacy of Charles and Ray Eames and gender. I would invite all readers of Wikipedia to sign up as editors so that they might become a more engaged and proactive user who can both consume, contribute and moderate the content of what has become the largest encyclopedia in the world.

The first paragraph from Charles Eames’ bio.

The first paragraph from ray Eames’ bio. The content is not inaccurate, but by mentioning her husband immediately it redirects our focus.

 

A simple edit to Charles’ bio brings symmetry to the two bio’s reflecting the partnership in their work.

 

Students need not wait to graduate to become teachers, being a reader does not preclude being a writer, and with Web 2.0, being a user also means being a contributor.

Reminder

Every piece of technology was designed with a specific use and specific user in mind, but just like with fashion, too often it is the people who are made to feel inadequate when they don’t fit the product. Don’t be surprised to discover a piece of software was not designed for you, do not fault yourself for not adapting to a machine, and don’t accept this as the status quo: acknowledge the challenge and create technology in your own image.

CONTESTED (INTELLECTUAL) TERRAIN

And as much as Wikipedians like to refer to themselves as a community, there have been many wars fought on the talk pages and edit histories of Wikipedia’s most controversial pages. Some of these seem quite trivial and entertaining, like the thousands of edits reordering the names of The Beatles, or the constant addition and subsequent deletion of an image of a spider on the page for arachnophobia.

The entry on hummus is a site of high traffic and constant edits, namely whether or not hummus should be listed under “Israeli cuisine”. An article about Wikipedia editing wars jokes “ Is it a purely Arab food that the Zionists have illegally occupied?” , but behind the humour lies a history of cultures and physical landscapes which are being torn apart in a very real battle of ownership. The edit history shows the long list of claims from both sides, political ideology is embedded in the talk page, and both sides attempt to carve out the web space they believe mirrors what they deserve in more tangible geography and acknowledgement. While Eyal Weizmann describes the complications of the Israeli- Palestinian conflict played out in 3 dimensions, we must also be aware of the new terrains being fought over digitally.

Just as in real wars, editors on Wikipedia use a variety of tactics to help them achieve the vision they believe to be right. And the tactics used are only limited by the imaginations of the users.  Months after Chelsea Manning came out as trans, her page remained under the name of Bradley Manning, despite many attempts to relocate it according to her preferred gender identity. One specifically pro-Chelsea editor created a fake account, and began making inflammatory comments from a pro-Bradley perspective, hoping to vilify the opposition. When he was found out, he was banned for false-flagging, even though the community did eventually agree on Chelsea Manning.

Not all editors are given equal treatment and access to edits, just as not all pages are equally editable. Pages considered “controversial” are patrolled by bots, drones made of code that alert top editors of any changes made so they can be swiftly checked. Certain editors are banned from editing on specific topics (like the 5 feminists engaged with Gamergate who are no longer allowed to edit anything on the topic of gender), and other pages are completely off limits to all except a chosen few. These top editors have been “vetted” and enjoy full access along with higher scrutiny. The phenomenon of an “official” or “registered” account is not limited to Wikipedia; Twitter, Instagram, Genius, and many other web platforms offer extra benefits to certain users, granting them more authority, more access and prioritizing their online influence. These are the counterparts to Graham’s “kinetic elites” who move with more speed and fewer barriers across geography.

We quickly see how both the tactics and vocabulary of war are reproduced on Wikipedia. Battles, sanctions and edit-warriors are the inheritance of a world shaped by grabs for power. The saying “History is written by the victors” loses all it’s poetry when applied to Wikipedia warfare, but in asking questions about this very literal association, we are given the chance to reimagine how the process of creating history could change and challenge hierarchical and authoritarian modes of knowledge creation.

Wikipedia, as an open source platform, removes many of the barriers that give the privilege of representation to a select few. This does not need to be another example of colonization and “might is right”. But open does not mean equal, and there are many factors which contribute to the lack of diversity both in editors and articles.

In a world where data is currency, information activism is the logical response.

http://gizmodo.com/5606897/the-greatest-and-most-dramatic-wikipedia-edit-wars

http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/the-most-edited-wikipedia-pages-over-the-last-15-years/

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/jan/23/wikipedia-bans-editors-from-gender-related-articles-amid-gamergate-controversy

JOINING THE SCHOLARLY CONVERSATION

One of the strengths of Wikipedia is that it redefines the way users approach learning, and provokes many conversations by nature of the opportunities it presents. As opposed to print encyclopedias, through which information can only move one way, Wikipedia users can be both readers and editors. To actively engage with reference material, to reframe individual consumers of information as potential contributors of information breaks with hundreds of years of traditional scholarship, and turns scholarly conversation from a lengthy process of research, writing, publication, repeat into an active dialogue. Not to say that the traditional form of scholarly conversation and the reflection and research involved are not immensely valuable, but Wikipedia provides what could be called the “group chat” version, allowing more people to be part of the conversation by eliminating barriers for participating.

Barriers still exist, as editors still require the leisure time and technical resources to be able to participate, and are limited to writing about topics that have already been documented, but the possibility for “anyone” to be an editor exists, and this is an important  thought experiment; it raises questions about the knowledge creation, citation and the notion of “credibility”.

How often did readers of encyclopedias and textbooks question the authority of their authors?

Looking back, how often were those texts outdated and/or written from a narrow and limited perspective?

Citation, discussion, and debate are built into the structure of Wikipedia, which leads to constant review and updating of articles, and the possibility for almost immediate integration of new information.