RGS-IBG Session Report – Digital Representations of Place: Urban Overlays and Digital Justice
19 September 2018, posted on The Digital Inequality Group
Now that over half of humanity is connected to the internet, do we see greater levels of representation of, and participation from, previously digitally disconnected populations? Or are our digitally dense environments continuing to amplify inequalities rather than alleviate them? We are a group of researchers and professionals who engage with these questions in our work, and we came together for a workshop at RGS-IBG 2018 to reflect on these questions. Through our diverse experiences we have come to recognise the significant and often unexpected effects digital representations of place have on people’s understanding of the world, and their actions in the world. We seek to systematise this knowledge, and to provide guidance for practitioners, researchers, and policy-makers to address imbalances and inequalities in representation. This session report can provide a first glimpse of the many aspects we discussed in our sessions.
To reduce inequality, Wikipedia should consider paying editors
11 September 2018, posted on Wired U.K.
In a question and answer session at Wikimania 2018, the annual global gathering of the Wikipedia community in Cape Town in July, an African Wikipedia editor stood up and asked an unusual question. “You expect us to contribute our knowledge for free?,” she said. “People here can’t afford to volunteer their time.” What might sound like a provocation was in fact a genuine challenge: Wikipedia should reconsider its current stance against paying editors. The reason? To reduce its global inequalities of participation.
Knowledge Equity and Spatial Justice on Wikipedia
30 July 2018, posted on The Digital Inequality Group
Last week, 600 Wikipedians met in Cape Town for Wikimania 2018, the annual global gathering of the Wikipedia community. The keynote speaker on the first day was OII digital geographer Dr Martin Dittus, who presented new work with Professor Mark Graham on the information geography of Wikipedia. Read on for a summary of the talk, watch the recording below, and access our slides on Slideshare.