Wikipedia and its implications for memory, history (and forgetting)

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From its earliest beginnings shortly before 911, Wikipedia has documented history as it happens. Revolutions, terrorist attacks, earthquakes, fires and floods have been written about on the platform, often within minutes of the first recorded protests, attacks, and blazes. This practice of documentation, conducted by volunteers who are connected by shared interest rather than shared expertise, falls between the disciplines of digital journalism and history. What does Wikipedia’s coverage of events “that haven’t even stopped happening yet” mean for history-making on the platform? Researchers have noted that recent events are covered more than early history, and stories are more often presented from colonialist rather than local perspectives. More recently, Wikipedia has been uncovered as a site of both conscious forgetting and the “frenzy of commemorations,” a venue for nationalist propaganda projecting particular stories that favour particular ideologies and social groups.

How does Wikipedia construct history and collective memory?
Does Wikipedia enable the forging of a collective memory via consensus?
How are some versions of the past pushed to the fringes?
What gets remembered and what gets forgotten?
How can we study history-making on the platform?

In this first annual workshop of the wikihistories roject, we will take stock of what we know and what we still need to know about Wikipedia as a history-making platform. We do this because Wikipedia’s representation of history matters. Its facts travel through knowledge ecosystems and rest as answers to questions provided by digital assistants, search engines and other AI-enhanced tools. Wikipedia’s claims to neutrality are more a hope than a promise, a guise that hides the dreams and ideologies of the individuals and groups that understand its power and are determined to master its form.

https://wikihistories.net/2023-conference

Banner image: ‘Invasion Day Melbourne 2021‘, Matt Hrkac from Geelong/Melbourne, Australia, CC BY 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0, via Wikimedia Commons