Big data and Wikipedia research: social science knowledge across disciplinary divides

Abstract

This paper examines research about Wikipedia that has been undertaken using big data approaches. The aim is to gauge the coherence as against the disparateness of studies from different disciplines, how these studies relate to each other, and to research about Wikipedia and new social media in general. The paper is partly based on interviews with big data researchers, and discusses a number of themes and implications of Wikipedia research, including about the workings of online collaboration, the way that contributions mirror (or not) aspects of real-world geographies, and how contributions can be used to predict offline social and economic trends. Among the findings is that in some areas of research, studies build on and extend each other's results. However, most of the studies stay within disciplinary silos and could be better integrated with other research on Wikipedia and with research about new media. Wikipedia is among few sources in big data research where the data are openly available, unlike many studies where data are proprietary. Thus, it has lent itself to a burgeoning and promising body of research. The paper concludes that in order to fulfil this promise, this research must pay more attention to theories and research from other disciplines, and also go beyond questions based narrowly on the availability of data and towards a more powerful analytical grasp of the phenomenon being investigated.

Keywords:

• Wikipedia
• big data
• interdisciplinarity
• new media

Notes on contributors

Ralph Schroeder is Professor at the Oxford Internet Institute at the University of Oxford. He is director of its Master's degree in ‘Social Science of the Internet’. His books include ‘Rethinking Science, Technology and Social Change’ (Stanford University Press 2007), ‘Being There Together: Social Interaction in Virtual Environments' (Oxford University Press 2010) and ‘An Age of Limits: Social Theory for the 21st Century’ (Palgrave Macmillan 2013). Before coming to Oxford, he was Professor at Chalmers University in Gothenburg, Sweden. His current research is focused on the digital transformations of research.

Linnet Taylor is a Marie Curie research fellow in the University of Amsterdam's International Development faculty, with the Governance and Inclusive Development group. Her research focuses on the use of new types of digital data in research and policymaking around issues of development, urban planning and mobility. Previously she was a researcher at the Oxford Internet Institute on the project 'Accessing and Using Big Data to Advance Social Science Knowledge'. Linnet studied a DPhil in International Development at the Institute of Development Studies, University of Sussex where she was also part of the Sussex Centre for Migration Research.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Sloan Foundation under the grant ‘Accessing and Using Big Data to Advance Social Science Knowledge’.