Paper>>Foucault at Wiki-First Steps Towards a Conceptual Framework for the Analysis of Wiki Discourses

In this paper, we examine the communicative structure of Wikipedia. The primary goal is to explore principle ways of analyzing and characterizing the various forms of communicative user interaction using Foucault?s discourse theory. First, the communicative situation of Wikipedia is addressed and a list of possible forms of communication is compiled. Second, the current research on the discursive features of Wikis, especially Wikipedia, is reviewed. Third, some key issues of Foucault?s theory are explored: the notion of ?discourse?, the discursive formation, and the methods of archaeology and genealogy, respectively. Finally, an exemplary discourse analysis is applied to a section from the English Wikipedia. The paper argues, that Wikipedia can be understood as a discursive formation that regulates and structures the production of statements. Most of the discursive regularities addressed by Foucault are established in the collaborative writing processes of Wikipedia, too. Moreover, the editing processes can be described in Foucault?s terms as discursive knowledge production.

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