2010/11/09 by E. Johanna Hartelius · 3 citations
Social Sciences · Arts and Humanities · Computer Science · #Wikis in Education and Collaboration #Translation Studies and Practices #Web and Library Services
paper · doi:10.1080/10417940903377169
openalex publication_date 2010/11/09 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/29
Wikipedia's popularity as an online encyclopedia calls attention to fundamental assumptions about the management and dissemination of information. Drawing on a Bakhtinian framework, this article posits a model of dialogic expertise. Specifically, it argues that, by facilitating an ongoing chain of interdependent and multivocal “utterances,” Wikipedia challenges traditional “monologic” expertise. Nonetheless, the site's purportedly democratic defiance of knowledge elites (of encyclopedic publishing, academe, etc.) is compromised by the establishment of a “technocratic” hierarchy. Implications extend to the scholarly debate surrounding dialogue and rhetoric and to our understanding of Wikipedia's success in the context of a cultural anxiety—Americans are at once dependent on an extensive system of experts and uneasy about the deferential distribution of power within that system.