Wikipedia and the Politics of Openness
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A01=Nathaniel Tkacz
ad-hocracy
archives
article deletion policies
Author_Nathaniel Tkacz
authorship
business
Category=JBCT
Category=JPVH
collaboration
community
controversy
decision making
edit wars
encyclopedia
eq_bestseller
eq_isMigrated=1
eq_isMigrated=2
eq_nobargain
eq_non-fiction
eq_society-politics
information age
internet
media theory
nonfiction
openness
organizational structure
politics
reference
transparency
user access levels
user-generated content
wikipedia
Product details
- ISBN 9780226192307
- Weight: 340g
- Dimensions: 16 x 23mm
- Publication Date: 19 Dec 2014
- Publisher: The University of Chicago Press
- Publication City/Country: US
- Product Form: Paperback
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Few virtues are as celebrated in contemporary culture as openness. Rooted in software culture and carrying more than a whiff of Silicon Valley technical utopianism, openness - of decision-making, data, and organizational structure - is seen as the cure for many problems in politics and business. But what does openness mean, and what would a political theory of openness look like? With Wikipedia and the Politics of Openness, Nathaniel Tkacz uses Wikipedia, the most prominent product of open organization, to analyze the theory and politics of openness in practice-and to break its spell. Through discussions of edit wars, article deletion policies, user access levels, and more, Tkacz enables us to see how the key concepts of openness - including collaboration, ad-hocracy, and the splitting of contested projects through "forking" - play out in reality. The resulting book is the richest critical analysis of openness to date, one that roots media theory in messy reality and thereby helps us move beyond the vaporware promises of digital utopians and take the first steps toward truly understanding what openness does, and does not, have to offer.
Nathaniel Tkacz is assistant professor in the Centre for Interdisciplinary Methodologies at the University of Warwick and coeditor of Critical Point of View: A Wikipedia Reader.
