[ecrea] Book Announcement: Geert Lovink and Nathaniel Tkacz (eds), Critical Point of View: A Wikipedia Reader (INC Reader #7)

INC Reader #7

Critical Point of View: A Wikipedia Reader
Geert Lovink and Nathaniel Tkacz (eds)

For millions of internet users around the globe, the search for new 
knowledge begins with Wikipedia. The encyclopedia’s rapid rise, novel 
organization, and freely offered content have been marveled at and 
denounced by a host of commentators. Critical Point of View moves beyond 
unflagging praise, well-worn facts, and questions about its reliability 
and accuracy, to unveil the complex, messy, and controversial realities 
of a distributed knowledge platform.

The essays, interviews and artworks brought together in this reader form 
part of the overarching Critical Point of View research initiative, 
which began with a conference in Bangalore (January 2010), followed by 
events in Amsterdam (March 2010) and Leipzig (September 2010). With an 
emphasis on theoretical reflection, cultural difference and indeed, 
critique, contributions to this collection ask: What values are embedded 
in Wikipedia’s software? On what basis are Wikipedia’s claims to 
neutrality made? How can Wikipedia give voice to those outside the 
Western tradition of Enlightenment, or even its own administrative 
hierarchies? Critical Point of View collects original insights on the 
next generation of wiki-related research, from radical artistic 
interventions and the significant role of bots to hidden trajectories of 
encyclopedic knowledge and the politics of agency and exclusion.

Contributors: Amila Akdag Salah, Nicholas Carr, Shun-ling Chen, Florian 
Cramer, Morgan Currie, Edgar Enyedy, Andrew Famiglietti, Heather Ford, 
Mayo Fuster Morell, Cheng Gao, R. Stuart Geiger, Mark Graham, Gautam 
John, Dror Kamir, Peter B. Kaufman, Scott Kildall, Lawrence Liang, 
Patrick Lichty, Geert Lovink, Hans Varghese Mathews, Johanna Niesyto, 
Matheiu O’Neil, Dan O’Sullivan, Joseph Reagle, Andrea Scharnhorst, Alan 
Shapiro, Christian Stegbauer, Nathaniel Stern, Krzystztof Suchecki, 
Nathaniel Tkacz, Maja van der Velden.

Colophon: Editors: Geert Lovink and Nathaniel Tkacz. Editorial 
Assistance: Ivy Roberts and Morgan Currie. Copy-Editing: Cielo Lutino. 
Design: Katja van Stiphout. Cover Image: Ayumi Higuchi. Priner: Ten 
Klei, Amsterdam. Publisher: Institute of Network Cultures, Amsterdam. 
Supported by: The School for Communication and Design at the Amsterdam 
University of Applied Sciences (Hogeschool van Amsterdam DMCI), the 
Centre for Internet and Society (CIS) in Bangalore and the Kusuma Trust.

You can download the pdf for free here: 
http://www.networkcultures.org/_uploads/%237reader_Wikipedia.pdf

To order a hard copy of the reader, send an email to 
(books /at/ networkcultures.org) <mailto:(books /at/ networkcultures.org)>


Nate Tkacz

School of Culture and Communication
University of Melbourne

Twitter: http://twitter.com/__nate__
Homepage: www.nathanieltkacz.net <http://www.nathanieltkacz.net>
Current project: http://networkcultures.org/wpmu/cpov/about-2/