[p2p-research] CFP: Dynamics of Knowledge Creation in Wikis

[Tere Vadén]

Call for papers (open until May 15., 2010):


Dynamics of Knowledge Creation in Wikis

A session in The 2nd International Power & Knowledge Conference, 
Tampere, Finland. September 6-8, 2010
http://tinyurl.com/yfvgyh6

The collective knowledge creation on various wiki-sites, including the 
massively popular Wikipedia, is having a profound effect on the social 
and epistemological conditions of public information. Distributed 
collaboration, possible anonymity, radical equality and global reach of 
wikified information lead to a situation that at the same time 
democratizes knowledge production by leveling hierarchies of expertise 
and increases the postmodern condition of reflective uncertainty. 
Everybody knows that the Wikipedia can not be trusted in the same way 
as, say, the Encyclopedia Britannica, yet over 100 million people 
utilize the Wikipedia daily. The 'edit' and 'history' buttons ever 
present on wiki pages are already starting to exert pressure on 
information presented elsewhere. For instance, the negotiations on what 
information to include and how the information should be presented in 
various Wikipedia entries constitute a huge experiment in the use of 
public reason à la Kant. Consequently, the dynamics of collective 
collaboration also bring out questions on the nature of rationality and 
plurality of knowledge. Wikis provide ready made windows into the 
dialectical interplay between knowledge creation and issues of identity, 
social inclusion, authority, and the interface between information and 
politics.
The session invites contributions discussing these themes through 
theoretical reflection and/or empirical case studies. Abstracts should 
be between 150-200 words of length.
Abstract submission: http://tinyurl.com/yk98dgk

Organizers & more information:
Tere Vadén, tere.vaden at uta.fi , Teemu Mikkonen, teemu.mikkonen at uta.fi, 
Juha Suoranta juha.suoranta at uta.fi