"(Critical) Discourse Analysis" on Wikipedia

[Lutfi Hussein]

Hi,

Since we  are on the topic of Wikipedia, I thought I 'd mention that
recently it was discovered that Wikipedia entries have been "manipulated."
(See below.) This of course problematizes or throws into question the whole
notion or principle of "construction of knowledge." But then as it was
before the Internet, those with the resources/power are, to varying degress,
the ones who construct knowledge.

(Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Congressional_Staffer_Edits)

Quoted material:
-----------
>From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia (Redirected from Congressional Staffer
Edits<http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Congressional_Staffer_Edits&redirect=no>
)
Jump to: navigation<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Congressional_Staffer_Edits#column-one>,
search<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Congressional_Staffer_Edits#searchInput>

On January 27 <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/January_27>,
2006<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2006>,
the *Lowell Sun <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lowell_Sun>* of
Massachusetts<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Massachusetts>published an
article
[1] <http://www.lowellsun.com/ci_3444567> entitled *"Rewriting history under
the dome"*. This story unveiled the editing by Congressional staff members
of Congressman Marty Meehan <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marty_Meehan>'s
Wikipedia entry.
*"Matt Vogel, Meehan's chief of staff, said he authorized an intern in July
to replace existing Wikipedia content with a staff-written biography of the
lawmaker."*

Further investigation by Wikipedia members discovered well over a thousand
edits by IP addresses <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IP_address> allocated to
the US House of
Representatives<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_House_of_Representatives>and
Senate <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Senate>. These edits had,
among others, added libelous
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libel>statements, removed content with
malice <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malice>, added childish insults, and
violated Wikipedia Policy <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WP:POL>. This has
resulted in the
blocking<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Blocking_policy>of at
least one of the IP addresses
[2]<http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Log/block&page=User:143.231.249.141>and
the opening of a request
for comments<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Requests_for_comment/United_States_Congress>page.
-----------

Best wishes, Lutfi
--
Lutfi M Hussein
http://www.public.asu.edu/~lhussein/
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://listserv.linguistlist.org/pipermail/critics-l/attachments/20060313/e552a414/attachment.htm>