[ICTs-and-Society] Wikipedia: Critical Point of View

[Raffl, Celina]

[Wikipedia: Ein kritischer Standpunkt]
September 25-26, 2010
University Library Leipzig, Germany

On 25th and 26th of September 2010 the German speaking conference Wikipedia:Ein kritischer Standpunkt (Wikipedia: Critical Point of View) will take place at the University Library in Leipzig, Germany. The conference will gather Wikipedia researchers, critics as well as community-members from the German-speaking world for an interdisciplinary debate. In particular the significance of Wikipedia for education, politics, culture and society will be discussed.

Wikipedia is one of the largest, if not the largest, self-contained general knowledge reference of our time. It offers critical insights into the contemporary status of knowledge, its organizing principles, function, impact, production styles, mechanisms for conflict resolution, and relation to power (re-)constitution. New strategic and tactical operations of knowledge and power are clearly at work through Wikipedia. Of specific interest is the concept of 'the open', which is ambiguous within the social formation(s) constituted by Wikipedia, serving as both a rallying concept of digital democracy enthusiasts and as an ideoglical nodal point masking new agonistic encounters.

In both material and perceptional ways, every new technology modifies the conditions of possibility for knowledge. The logic of technologies bleeds into the very structures and organizing principles of knowledge, and today both medium and message may reflect the ideas of the (organized) network, multitude, or the Deleuzian machine. It is through a selected mix of technological and normative conditions – the distributed architecture of the net, the Wiki software platform, commons-based property licenses and the FLOSS zeitgeist – that Wikipedia as the encyclopedia of the information age emerges, both continuing and transforming the Enlightenment encyclopedic impulse or will to know.

The main topics of the conference are Wikipedia & The Politics of Open Knowledge, Digital Governance, and Wikipedia & Education. These topics derive from the significance of the online encyclopedia in the reconfiguration of knowledge (re-)production and its consequences for the public, architectures of participation, and political education in a media democracy. Alongside presentations of established scholars like Christian Stegbauer, Peter Haber, Rainer Hammwöhner, Ramón Reichert, and Ulrich Johannes Schneider, the programme of the conference will consist of a panel discussion of Wikipedia community-members and critics, as well as Wikipedia-workshops and a research network meeting.

The research network meeting addresses Wikipedia researchers to discuss their current research and draft new research projects. Especially aimed for young academics, the research network meeting is planned as open space, allowing its participants to actively engage in the event as questions and topics are shaped and discussed among the group. To participate, we ask for a registration by email not later than August 31, 2010 to info at cpov.de. Please include a description of your research interest or abstract of your research on one page and tell us, if you are interested to make a short presentation.

The Leipzig conference continues the series of international conferences of the Wikipedia Research Initiative Critical Point of View from January and March 2010 in Bangalore (India) and Amsterdam (Netherlands). It is hosted by cultiv – Gesellschaft für internationale Kulturprojekte e.V. in cooperation with the Research Initiative Critical Point of View and funded by the Bundeszentrale für politische Bildung.

The conference will be open to the public. There will be no participation fee. Conference language is German.

For further information please visit the conference website: www.cpov.de

Deadline for the Registration for the network meeting: August 31, 2010

Concept and Editorial board: Geert Lovink, Johanna Niesyto and Andreas Möllenkamp

Contact
cultiv
Gesellschaft für internationale Kulturprojekte e.V.
Bernhard-Göring-Str. 65
D-04107 Leipzig
Tel. +49-341-2228893
Email: info at cpov.de
www.cpov.de

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