Graphic Communication: Authorship and Interaction - Case Study Example

Graphic Communication: hip and Interaction: Wikipedia Wikipedia Science and technology over time has continued to record improvements and continued use of computer technology claim a lot of responsibilities to the continuous change in the modern science. Several inventions and innovations have come to play even as late as in the 21st century, thanks to the “mentality to discover” that has been created by science. Internet use has become the prime knowledge-bank for most of knowledge seekers in the recent times. Information can now be easily retrieved at the click of a computer mouse without a lot of struggle. One of the contributors to this is Wikipedia. It has provided an electronic forum space for easy accessibility of nearly all information ranging across all the disciplines that have ever been discovered. Wikipedia is a web encyclopaedia that brings together writers, authors, content developers and any other person with an academic information to avail them in a more harnessed and collaborated manner. ‘Wikipedia’ is etiologically a combination of two; ‘Wiki’ and ‘pedia’. Wiki is a web application that allow users to be able to put ,edit, or even delete content on an online electronic space while ‘ pedia’ is derived from Greek word ‘paedia’ which means knowledge. A combination of these two, therefore, means Wikipedia is an online web page that allows users referred to as ‘Wikipedians’ to add, edit o even remove a content that contributes to knowledge. It is essential to note that this is a free online encyclopaedia and users can access it at anytime without paying for anything (Watts, 2007:23). Brief History of Wikipedia Wikipedia has undergone multiple decadal milestone since it official launch in January 15th 2001 although it technologically dates older than this. Rick Gates is known to have first conceptualised an idea about online encyclopaedia in 1993 although in 2000, Stallman proposed the need for not just a mere online encyclopaedia but free one that its content can be edited and updated with the changing times. His (Stallman) idea was that no single person or individual should have the sole responsibility and authority to completely run the online encyclopaedia and this was in great contrast with the encyclopaedias such as Microsoft Encarta, Nupedia among others that existed at that moment (2000). This saw a number of changes made including the changing of Nupedia’s license to become GFDL and Wikipedia was launched by Jimmy Wales and Larry Sanger changing the initial objective of being a foil for Nupedia (which was written only by experts who controlled its use). It was launched after it embraced Wiki technology and since then it overdid Nupedia that as of December 2014, it has 50 million registered authors who have written over 34 million articles in 288 languages across the globe. Use of Wikipedia Wikipedia has been used over time by many people to find information concerning different issues and topics. However, due to its free access, easy registration and authority to develop and edit content by people ranging from students, researchers, to professors and any other registered person, it is never used as a reference or citation point in an academic and research papers .It is not a very accurate database since information can be written with errors and goes unnoticed (Watts, 2007:234). There is a credibility verification of information in which an article is labelled “Good” or “Featured”. This means that the piece of information may have been verified to be accurate from the authentic sources or confirmed by genuine researchers. It is, therefore, important to use Wikipedia as a starting point in knowledge-seeking and not as an end-point. Generally, Wikipedia is most applicable in checking for general knowledge such as condition needed for photosynthesis and murky details such as names of pioneers of certain international organisations like Red Cross. This way, the encyclopaedia of Wikipedia is most beneficial than in trying to find specific information. This because this forums provides for not only experts in specific fields to edit and write contents but also even those that have no accurate ideas about the topics. Adding, Editing and Deleting Content on Wikipedia Wikipedia relies on its users to gather information and avail it to those who need it. It, therefore, has policies that direct and govern the actions regarding to content addition, edition and deletion. These policies are never so strict so they may encourage registered users to participate and contribute. The first step in any of the above 3 actions on Wikipedia require one to be registered .That is the prerequisite for an individual to carry out any of the actions. Caution is given to those who intend to add content that reliable sources and references must be availed to verify the work. As step by step user guide is provided for one to know what exactly to click on to enable him get some user space for content writing. Wikipedia do not believe in perfection but rather progressive work. This means your article is not the end but can be edited by other users to make progress with the changing times. It warns people against providing misleading information; it would rather not be availed than avail wrong and misleading content. Editing of articles also has steps that guide users on how to reach a point of altering and modifying someone else’s work. To edit is to engage in a process of rectifying or modifying an existing piece of work by changing some part of the text. This is provided for due to the belief that certain works created on Wikipedia are not exactly from experts and are prone to mistakes and limitations. Consequently, contents created on Wikipedia can be deleted. Just like for adding and editing content, deletion also has policies that govern it. First of all, the administrators have the chief authority to delete or undelete a content based on the standards and policies available. Deletion can be in form of page blanking in which the article page is left unwritten with nothing or through removing the content or article from the face of the public which could be because of several reasons according to Wikipedia deletion policy. Some of the reasons why a content may be deleted include: if the article’s source cannot be properly verified , “content forks, vandalism, article that go against Wikipedia policy concerning biography of people alive’’ and many other several reasons as stipulated by Deletion policy. However, an article that has been deleted still remains with the administrator although it is out of public view. It is possible to request for a deleted file and if genuine reasons are presented, it can be forwarded to the person. It is critical to note that if an article was deleted on grounds of legal concern, it will not be provided (Watts, 2007:423). “Birth of the Reader” and “Death of the Author” Roland Barthes, a French Literary theorist and philosopher wrote an essay concerning the command both the author and the reader of a text have when judging a written work. He argued that personality factors of the author, their opinion, life experience, attitude among others usually are illuminated and takes solitary responsibility in the performance of the article or written pieced. He said people usually fail to spotlight the author’s background and instead just focus on the real product of the author without considering other factors (Corpet, 2011:209). He claims that a lot of evaluation and analysis should be done to determine the state of the author psychologically at the time of writing, the socio-political forces that could have played part in forming the opinion and attitude of the writer among others since without considering this, the work and the author are separated which should never be the case (Corpet, 2011:321). For example, when you find an article written on Wikipedia, the reader should indulge in finding background information about the author. Also opinions written on newspapers should be deeply investigated and information about the author or editor is unveiled so that the information can be accurately be understood. Roland’s conception is that even the information that is not included in the text or work still forms great part of the opinion that is written. The intent and real feelings of the author may not be reflected on the text and this makes the message that the reader interprets to be inaccurate. Since the text is unable to capture some personality factors such as humour and mood, the outcome of the message becomes flawed in most cases. He believes that it is the reader who holds much more responsibility on the outcome of the written texts since he/she (reader) gets a new ‘empty’ piece of information and their interpretation is what will determine the outcome of the message, a point he holds very dearly and emphasises on. Strengths of Roland Barthes The concept of ‘Birth of a Reader’ and ‘Death of Author’ has received a lot of support from many schools of thought that appreciate Barthes analysis and consideration of other factors that can interplay to influence a writer/author write in particular manner. It is true that our opinions are influenced by out experienced and background factors, how were brought up, the moral convections that we subscribe to among others. This is in line with Roland’s thought about the reader-writer relationship. Weakness It is inaccurate to solely leave the responsibility of the author’s text with the reader since it is the writer who plays the greater part in the production of write-up. The reader will only interpret the information availed by the author. The conception by Barthes of blaming the reader in case of a mishap is, therefore, much uncalled for. For example, if I see an article in Wikipedia and read it, I will interpret the information largely based on what the writer is writing about and very little of my opinion will change the meaning of what exactly has been written. Information in an Electronic Space is often malleable and Non-Linear Issues of Authorship for Both the Designer and the User Writing on an online forum or a digital environment is one of the privileges the new era of technological advancement has brought to authors. Nowadays accounts can be created on electronic platforms that allow authors and writers to merge their contributions. An electronic space is a digital forum or platform that enables one to perform electronic operations such as writing by use of electronic gadgets such as a computer. The operations are usually programmed with software that runs them. These advancements has heralded into a world of social media in which facebook, twitter instagram among other sites have become insidious and very common. Globalisation has taken effect that the whole world has been reduced to a “small village” in which someone from Netherlands can easily and conveniently talk with someone in Uganda. Most of these social sites that have become common never have restrictions or strict policies that hinder unwanted information from being posted or written on and this makes the content become non-linear and malleable. An example is twitter, a social site that has been in existence since March, 21 2006. Twitter has come to change how we interact within the twitter -sphere. It gives an electronic space that provides for a maximum of 130 characters that can be written to express to the world what you feel about an event of an occurrence at a particular time or generally any topic you would want to engage your audience in. It has a feature of hash tag (#) which provides for trending information to be shared and viewed by the twitter users. It has no restriction necessarily about who exactly you can interact with and the ‘follow’ button allows one to socialise with the others they have interest on. Also, there’s is a ‘Direct Message’ chat room which allows users to go private on their chats. A graphic designer and twitter user can get enlightened through this social media by converting the unprocessed information to info -graphics; which are embodied visual information of complex items (Wollan, 2010:35). The graphic designer inspects filters and organises the raw data for it to become easier for a user to relate the visual representation and the data. This is meant to make it simple for the user to find whatever he/she wants to apply. In twitter, it is not possible to filter information that is put on the electronic space and this makes it hard to contextualise the information that one puts on the social media. To solve this, the designers come up with software called ‘tweetpsych’ which arranges data on twitter. This interface allows the user to be able to format and edit even the previous tweets one had posted on their space thereby providing control to them. The interface comes with dictionary, a software that organises and show the number of words one is posting among others which analyses and categorises data in a way that the user can relate and understand what he/she is doing (Wollan, 2010:46). Twitter has a limitation of number of characters a tweet is suppose to have although generally it works well in providing for a podium for social interactions. Although through the platform, visual images and graphics can be displayed, at times this fails to work due to complexities coming from incompatibilities of twitter format to American Standard Code for Information Interchange (ASCII), which is a coding art meant to integrate and make under the computer language information. Twitter, just like any other social media that provides an electronic space has experienced authorship problems since the re-tweet key and its malleability becomes hard to establish. For example if a person retweets another person’s post (Wollan, 2010:98). Conclusion The two essays have unveiled various issues relating to authorship. In Wikipedia discussion, it was established that an online electronic space is provided by the administrators that allows easy and free edition of articles as in the case of Twitter and this demonstrates how electronic/online sources need to be handled with utmost caution as anyone can access can be granted authorship permission. Roland in his essay discussion has harnessed and tried to bring the conflict between the author and the reader to a calm state by giving a different perspective of critically evaluating an author. These have contributed to our understanding of authorship in totality. References Badmington, N. (2010). Roland Barthes: critical evaluations in cultural theory, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon, Routledge. Bilton, N. (2013). Hatching Twitter: a true story of money, power, friendship, and betrayal, Gane, M. & Gane, N. (2003). Roland Barthes, London, SAGE. Robbe-Grillet, A., Corpet, O. & Barthes, R. (2011). Why I love Barthes, Cambridge, Watts, L. S. (2007). Encyclopaedia of American folklore, New York, Facts on File. Polity Press. Wollan, R. & Smith, N. (2010). The social media management handbook: everything you need to know to get social media working in your business, Hoboken, N.J., Wiley. Read More