Naslov
Tracing audiences in online communities: examples from the English Wikipedia

Autori
Bilić, Paško

Vrsta, podvrsta i kategorija rada
Sažeci sa skupova, pp prezentacija, znanstveni

Skup
Comparative media systems: audience transformations

Mjesto i datum
Dubrovnik, Hrvatska, 08.04.2013. - 12.04.2013

Vrsta sudjelovanja
Predavanje

Vrsta recenzije
Međunarodna recenzija

Ključne riječi
Audiences; online communities; media events; Wikipedia

Sažetak
Mass communication is being supplemented and displaced by online communication. Apart from mass media websites that act as extensions of communication offered through print and broadcasting technologies, online technologies offer numerous other services including blogs, collaborative tools and social network services. In that context audiences discuss, comment and criticize what the mass media publish and broadcast. Social interaction and communication in the online world often takes the form of online communities. These communities are centred on shared values, norms, goals and desires and range from television-series-fan websites to encyclopaedic projects such as Wikipedia. Wikipedia has gathered enormous public and academic interest by being one of top ten websites in the world for several years already. It is not only a repository of content and information, but also an active community of editors, sharing the desire for summarizing and collecting knowledge from various sources. One aspect of its popularity, that has only recently garnered interest from the internet research community is its focus on contemporary events, and rapid creation of articles about these events. As audience of global media events (Dayan, Katz, 1992), Wikipedia editors share the viewing experience of these events, but need to distance themselves from the ephemeral news media to create encyclopaedic entries about these events according to their own community standards. The goal of this paper is to trace these audience social dynamics by looking at the thematic distribution of articles edited by the largest number of editors on English Wikipedia. They show a predominant current event orientation. Examples of specific media events and comparable articles about these events will also be presented. These emerging communication structures open-up the question of how the audience concept has changed in the networked communication model (Cardoso, 2006 ; 2008), and what role these structures play in contemporary media systems.

Izvorni jezik
Engleski

Znanstvena područja
Sociologija

POVEZANOST RADA