Submissions:2018/Wikipedia’s Gender Gap and Disciplinary Praxis: Representing Women Scholars in Digital Rhetoric and Writing Fields

Title

Wikipedia’s Gender Gap and Disciplinary Praxis: Representing Women Scholars in Digital Rhetoric and Writing Fields

Theme (optional)

Inclusion & Diversity

Academic Peer Review option

Yes

Type of submission

Presentation

Author

Matthew Vetter

E-mail address

Wikimedia username

Matthewvetter

Affiliation(s) (optional)

Indiana University of Pennsyvania

Abstract

Wikipedia’s gender gaps, the result of a predominance of male editors and the correlating uneven participation and coverage of marginalized groups, are by now both well-known and well-documented (Cohen, 2011; Collier and Bear, 2012; Glott, Schmidt, and Ghosh, 2010; Gruwell, 2015; Wadewitz, 2013). This article seeks to interrogate these gaps in coverage as they manifest in discipline-specific representations, especially representations related to the academic fields of computers and writing, digital literacy, and digital rhetoric. Preliminary analysis of articles related to these fields demonstrates a severe lack of coverage, which, given these fields’ attention to digital literacies, should be improved. This article employs a bibliometric method of citation analysis (Eyman, 2015; Kaur, Radicchi, and Menczer, 2013) across five Wikipedia articles related to these fields in order to show how the gender gap manifests in the absence of cited research by non-male scholars. To address these content gaps, co-authors of this article move beyond analysis to define and engage in acts of critical digital praxis within Wikipedia, editing the encyclopedia to improve representation of women and women’s research in computers and writing and digital rhetoric fields. Descriptions of such editorial work and its implications, furthermore, provide a model for disciplinary praxis, and graduate pedagogy, in which authors work together to engage in the critique and remediation of Wikipedia’s disciplinary content and gender gaps. As a larger example of critical digital analysis and participation, this article also aspires to unpack and critique the ways in which media, even those professing an open-access and democratic ethic, perpetuate social hegemonies of marginalization.

Length of presentation

20 min

Special requests

Please do not schedule during the workshop I have also submitted with Alexandria Lockett. Technology requirements - Capability for slide show

Preferred room size

10-15

Have you presented on this topic previously? If yes, where/when?

No

If you will be incorporating a slidedeck during your presentation, do you agree to upload it to Commons before your session, with a CC-BY-SA 4.0 license, including suitable attribution in the slidedeck for any images used?

Yes

Will you attend WikiConference North America if your submission is not accepted?

Yes

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