Blogs vs. Wiki

In today’s world, everyone has a story or an opinion that they feel obligated to share with the world.  The internet and various technologies have made the sharing and spreading of good/bad, true/false ideas and information easy.  Anyone with any level of education or any background can create a blog or a wiki without a background check.  Blogs and Wikipedia have a double-edged effect.  On one hand, both platforms are used to spread ideas and information to a wide variety of people.  This information can be helpful and truthful.  On the other hand, blogs and Wikipedia can be used to spread hateful and untrue information.  In this day and age, so many people go to Wikipedia and blogs to get their news and entertainment.  According to The New York Times article, “Wikipedia to Limit Changes to Articles on People”, Wikipedia “is the first reference point for many Web inquiries” because Wikipedia “pages often lead the results on Google, Yahoo, and Bing” (Cohen).  An estimated “60 million Americans visit Wikipedia every month” (Cohen).  These statistics prove that Wikipedia is most people’s new and information source, not newspapers or magazines.  Both blogs and Wikipedia pages are relatively easy to create and generally have no entity monitoring the users.

Although they are very similar, Wikipedia is taking more responsibility in curating their information.  The leaders at Wikipedia realize that as “the site grows more influential, they must transform its embrace-the-chaos culture into something more mature and dependable” (Cohen).  Wikipedia is taking a more social responsibility approach by implementing a flagging feature.  This makes it so that “volunteer editors for Wikipedia sign off on any changes made by the public before it goes live” (Cohen).  This “flagged revision feature is only possible because Wikipedia is a single platform that is used by many users who can edit information.  However, it is almost impossible to regulate blogs because many different and
unrelated platforms offer blog services for free.  In other words, not every blogger uses the same blog generator.  In this way, Wikipedia pages are used for collaboration.  Blogs are so readily available, “most neighborhoods in Brooklyn have at least one blog – and in some places, there seems to be one in every house, every bedroom” (Wilson).  In The New York Times article, “Brooklyn Blog Helps Lead to Drug Raid”, we see a story of how bloggers helped law enforcement clean up their neighborhood.  It started out as peering, “peering turned to blogging, and blogging turned to action” (Wilson). The blogs put pressure on policymakers to take action.  These series of blogs were used to bring a community together to collaborate on a common goal.  

Wikipedia pages are known for their written information but they should think about moving into the art and music world.  This platform can be used to share and curate artwork and music from all around the world.

Digital Divide: The Haves and the Have Nots

Technology has connected so many people across the globe and there is no questioning its impact.  But the fact is that the technology industry is a money making industry that is solely concerned with profits and not with empowering people.  There are still people and places that remain off grid mainly due to lack of resources.  This creates a digital gap between the haves and the have nots; between the people who can afford the latest device and the people who can't; between the countries or villages who have the infrastructure to connect to the rest of the world and the places that do not.  As stores, schools and businesses are housed in more digital space, people or communities who lack the necessary resources will get left behind.  This will enhance the other "gaps" in society: the opportunity gap, the educational gap, the resource gap and the economic gap.