User:Astu260instructor 2016/Summer 2016 Content Gap Analysis

ASTU 260 Group Assignment: Wikipedia Analysis and Entry

This page includes student responses to an assignment that is part of the Wiki Education Foundation Project. The assignment is for a course on knowledge mobilization for students in the Sciences Po - University of British Columbia Dual Degree Program.

Scholarly Analysis
The gap we have decided to analyze is the lack of treatment, on the English Wikipedia, of the ethical concerns relating to what is referred to as “popular science” or “public understanding of science”, that is, ‘translation’ or ‘dissemination’ of science via media channels (whether traditional or recent). When scientific research is reworded, there is always a risk that certain aspects of the research be modified in the process. Such risks are mentioned in Peter Weingart’s article Global climate change in science, politics, and mass media, in which he mentions how climate scientists were uneasy about how the media exaggerated their findings. This concern is echoed in a report by the national committee for ethics in the life sciences of France; “a scientist cannot fully control the way in which their research will be presented by journalists. This can be risky from the scientist’s point of view, as the two or three sentences lifted from an article can distort public understanding of the research.” In her dissertation on Communications, one in which Mehry describes how “discursive slips” can “threaten the authenticity of scientific discourse published in the media.”  However, such rewording, or translation, of scientific research is necessary in order to make scientific findings more accessible to the general public through this process of ‘vulgarization’. Hence, the unavoidable need for vulgarization, is science leaving the exclusive realm of academia, coupled with the risks of perverting research findings in the process, shows how the ethical aspect of the matter is really of great importance.

Proposed Wikipedia Entry
There are significant ethical concerns regarding the popularization of scientific research, especially in the environmental, geopolitical and medical fields.

With all research, vulgarization for a wide audience entails that what is already written is rewritten using words and terms with which the general public is more familiar. In that changing of words, many of the more complicated terms and passages lose their specificity, which leads to problems in the transparency of knowledge transmitted. There is therefore a risk that certain important aspects of the research are modified in the process.

These risks are mentioned in Peter Weingart’s article “Global climate change in science, politics, and mass media”, in which Weingart talks about how climate scientists were uneasy about how the media exaggerated their findings. This concern is echoed in a report by the French Comité d’Ethique du Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (Ethics Committee of the National Center for Scientific Research) which states that a scientist cannot fully control the way in which their research will be presented by journalists. As a result, numerous are the sentences lifted from their research for the purpose of public understanding. In Layal Mehry’s dissertation on communications (La vulgarisation dans les médias : sciences et émotions), she describes how “discursive slips” can “threaten the authenticity of scientific discourse published in the media.”

Even though this vulgarization of academic findings is necessary, for many scholars like Murdo McRae, the scientific jargon used by scientists and scholars prevents the general public from understanding the work they have done. The need for science to leave the universities, coupled with the risks of perverting research findings in the process, is at the heart of ethical problems of vulgarization.

Part One: Gap Analysis
TED Talks are thought of as a new way of knowledge mobilization in a digitally-dominated society, where diverse and complex topics are discussed through “storytelling” (“TED (conference)”). However, in the Wikipedia article on TED Talks, there is little attention given to their implications, with criticisms focusing mostly on the logistics and economics of TED conferences. Scholars like Christopher Shea highlight that, while the process of knowledge transmission provided by TED Talks is generally depicted in a positive light, there are negative ramifications that should be given further scrutiny.

The fact that criticisms of TED Talks are not comprehensively covered in the Wikipedia article suggests that listeners may not be aware that TED Talks offer a limited facet of a given reality, deterring audiences from creating educated opinions.TED’s focus on “feel good” solutions to stimulate audience attention can also mean oversimplification of complex issues. This gap within the TED talks description is also supported by Denksus et al. in their research on communication theory. The scholars mention that even if the talks themselves are a new concept, the topics discussed “remain embedded in a liberal market ideology” (Denksus 178). Moreover, Denksus et al. talk about the fact that the talks still focus on an individual perspective of receiving information and not a collective organization movement where the information is translated into action (179). Based on these criticisms, public circulation of knowledge is portrayed as one-sided where the presenters share their ideas to the audience and beyond this point no action is done. With TED presenters acting as an initial source of information, it is necessary to critically assess the context and consequences of this innovative type of knowledge dissemination.

Works Cited

Denskus, Tobias and Daniel E. Esser. "TED Talks On International Development: Trans-Hegemonic Promise And Ritualistic Constraints". Commun Theor 25.2 (2015): 166-187. Web.

Shea, Christopher. "The New Academic Celebrity". The Chronicle of Higher Education. N.p., 2014. Web. 22 Aug. 2016.

"TED (conference)." Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, n.d. Web.

Part Two: Proposed Wikipedia Entry
TED Talks have been criticized by several scholars for oversimplification of complex issues to cater towards audience sentiment, aiming to give listeners a sense of inspiration, without providing comprehensive discussions. Lilie Chouliaraki, a professor at the London School of Economics, stated in 2013, that digital and visual presentation formats, such as TED Talks, merely give audiences a sense of accomplishment for becoming aware of specific issues, instead of encouraging commitments to long term solutions. Evgeny Morozov, a writer and researcher of political and social implications of technology, argues that instead of fostering concrete plans of action, TED provides a cycle of ideas, publicity and projects that do not translate into substantial responses.

Christopher Shea acknowledges the fact that TED Talks have provided a new form of direct communication between academics and public audiences, but claims that there is a lack of diversity in the topics discussed. Cassidy R. Sugimoto also argues that there is a lack of variety of the TED presenters. In a study published in 2013, Sugimoto et al found that the majority of presenters were non-academic males and also that the presentations featuring male presenters and academics were more frequently viewed.

Frank J. Lechner and John Boli go beyond inspirational topic selections, suggesting that, in general, TED talks dictate what is considered of global importance and direct constant attention to specific topics while undermining others.

Wendy Quarry and Ricardo Ramirez suggest that TED conferences are based on a one-way model of transmission of knowledge in which spaces for engagement and debate are not provided. Consequently, the audience lacks the contextual framework needed to properly comprehend and execute the details transmitted to them.

Western Dominance
Research disciplines have been dominated by academics from Western countries, particularly by Americans. Geopolitical power dynamics have placed Western scholars as the elite gatekeepers of academia, relegating scholars from Periphery countries to inferior positions.

Methods of Research
In many disciplines, Western methods of conducting research are predominant. Researchers are overwhelmingly taught Western methods of data collection and study. The increasing participation of Indigenous peoples as researchers has brought increased attention to the lacuna in culturally-sensitive methods of data collection. Non-Western methods of data collection may not be the most accurate or relevant for research on non-Western societies. For example, “Hua Oranga” was created as a criterium for psychological evaluation in Maori populations, and is based on dimensions of mental health important to the Maori people — "taha wairua (the spiritual dimension), taha hinengaro (the mental dimension), taha tinana (the physical dimension), and taha whanau (the family dimension)”.

Linguicism
Periphery scholars face the challenges of exclusion and Linguicism in research and academic publication. As the great majority of mainstream academic journals are written in English, multilingual periphery scholars often must translate their work in order to be accepted to elite Western-dominated journals. Multilingual scholars’ influences from their native communicative styles can be assumed to be incompetence instead of difference.

Publication
Publications from periphery countries rarely rise to the same elite status as those of North America and Europe primarily because of fewer material resources, rendering them less able to meet practical conventions of publishing such as paper weight and graphic quality. These subdue the voices of periphery scholars and prevent their contributions to collective knowledge.

Influence of the Open-Access Movement
The open access movement assumes that all information generally deemed useful should be free and belongs to a “public domain”, that of “humanity”. This idea gained prevalence as a result of Western colonial history and ignores alternative conceptions of knowledge circulation. For instance, most indigenous communities consider that access to certain information proper to the group should be determined by relationships.

There is a double standard found in the Western knowledge system. On the one hand, “digital right management” used to restrict access to personal information on social networking platforms are celebrated as a protection of privacy, while simultaneously when similar functions are utilised by cultural groups (ie indigenous communities) this is denounced as “access control” and reprehended as censorship.

Future Perspectives
Even though Western dominance seems to be prominent in research, some scholars, such as Simon Marginson, argue for “the need [of] a plural university world”. Marginson argues that the East Asian Confucian model could take over the Western model.

This could be due to changes in funding for research both in the East and the West. Focussed on emphasizing educational achievement, East Asian cultures, mainly in China and South Korea, have encouraged the increase of funding for research expansion. In contrast, in the Western academic world, notably in the United Kingdom as well as in some state governments in the United States, funding cuts for university research is observed which may lead to the future decline of Western dominance in research.

Scholarly Analysis
The Wikipedia article Knowledge Mobilization lacks an Ethics sub-section where ethical criticisms/perspectives of knowledge mobilization models can be discussed. This is a necessary addition because an ethical perspective can have the potential to reveal the assumptions underlying the process and structure of knowledge mobilization as well as its impact on the distribution of social power. For example, the traditional model of knowledge mobilization assumes that academics/researchers are charged with the role of gatekeeping and disseminating knowledge (Jemielniak 2014, Eijkman 2010). In this model, the flow of knowledge is one-way and is bolstered by assumptions of the superiority of researchers’ intellect, expertise, and legitimacy over practitioners. These assumptions can shape what knowledge gets produced, circulated, and accepted in the public. This invokes the need for a discussion, grounded by ethical considerations, about what alternative models of understanding knowledge mobilization exist, aside from the trickle-down approach of a traditional model. Many scholars have their own formulation of an input in this debate. For example, Willinsky argues that researchers have an ethical obligation toward the public good to distribute their work to those that are interested in it (Willinsky 2006). Other scholars argue that the traditional model neglects to take into account the specific institutional and cultural realities that knowledge practitioners/users operate within (Levin 2013, Christen 2012). This ethical criticism has repercussions for the political paths knowledge circulation can take and the distribution of social power (Jemielniak, 2014).

 Works Cited 

1.     Jemielniak, Dariusz. Common Knowledge?: An Ethnography of Wikipedia. Stanford, California: Stanford University Press, 2014.

2.     Henk Eijkman, (2010) "Academics and Wikipedia: Reframing Web 2.0+as a disruptor of traditional academic power‐knowledge arrangements", Campus-Wide Information Systems, Vol. 27 Iss: 3, pp.173 – 185

3.     Willinsky, John. The Access Principle: The Case for Open Access to Research and Scholarship. Cambridge: The MIT Press, 2006.

4.     Christen, Kimberley. “Does Information Really Want to be Free? Indigenous Knowledge Systems and the Question of Openness.” International Journal of Communication 6 (2012): 2870-2893.

5.     Levin, B. (2013), "To know is not enough: research knowledge and its use". Review of Education, 1: 2–31. doi: 10.1002/rev3.3001

Ethics
The knowledge mobilization (KMb) process raises a number of ethical questions such as the degree to which information should be liberalized and the relationship between “producers” and “receivers” of knowledge.[1] Advocates of the movement known as ‘Open Access’ criticize a “unidirectional model of knowledge transfer”[2] in which authority of knowledge production is organized hierarchically, with “exclusive rights to knowledge creation and dissemination to universities or other academic institutions.[3] Scholar Michael Burawoy stresses the importance of intermediaries such as sociologists in disseminating knowledge, framing KMb as a process where the public is both at the source and the receiving end of the process.[4] Proponents of broader knowledge mobilization argue that “knowledge wants to be free,” such as hacktivist, Aaron Swartz, who argues in his “Guerilla Open Access Manifesto” that those with the privilege to access information must “morally” share this privilege with the majority world.[5] However, some warn against the potentially negative consequences of unrestricted and free flowing information, citing risks of miscellaneous dissemination. Potential risks include that of improperly remunerating individuals, such as researchers, for their work, or of providing sensitive knowledge to individuals not qualified to use it. Kim Christen argues that such a model fails to “recognize that indigenous perspectives on managing, protecting, sharing, and preserving cultural heritage materials and traditional knowledge are anything but uniform”.[6] Other authors have been quick to contextualize the Open Access Movement’s concerns too. Each society and/or culture has received knowledge from another society and/or culture, being that no one society has ever lived in complete isolation.[7] One group produces the knowledge, and a secondary group receives the knowledge from them. [8] During this process, ethical questions may arise concerning the manner in which this knowledge was transmitted. For example, was the knowledge transfer forced upon the secondary group, were they in dire need of it, or were they otherwise on par with the first group except in the specific area in which the knowledge was needed?[9]