Title: An uneasy truce: brokering collaborative knowledge building and commodity culture

Authors: Pamela Wilson

Addresses: Faculty of Department of Communication, Reinhardt University, 7300 Reinhardt Circle, Waleska, Georgia, 30183, USA

Abstract: This article provides an ethnographic case study of a genealogy and social media site, Geni.com, that has provided the structure and tools for collaborative knowledge building. To date, over seven million users have contributed to and constructed what is billed as the largest interconnected genealogical database in human history. The author examines this process as part of a new Web 2.0 paradigm for cultural, educational and business practices and focuses, in particular, upon the tensions and inherent contradictions that must be overcome if the corporate for-profit model might successfully be integrated with, and co-exist with, an open-source, participatory, user-led wiki model for collaborative knowledge-building (a wiki model). The article also provides insights on the construction of both a technological and human architecture for participatory involvement in knowledge building and illustrates a number of intercultural and ideological challenges that an enterprise may face as it expands into a global market and global community of users.

Keywords: collaborative knowledge building; collaboration; collective intelligence; peer-to-peer; P2P; collaborative learning; communities of practice; CMC; computer-mediated communication; networked computers; networks; collaborative websites; world wide web; internet; online databases; Web 2.0; social media; social networking; interactivity; collaboration; interactive media; collaborative media; commodity culture; non-profit enterprises; genealogy; cultural studies; global challenges; cultural differences; ethnographic case studies; ethnography; Geni.com; genealogical databases; cultural practices; educational practices; business practices; inherent contradictions; corporate models; for-profit models; open-source models; participatory models; user-led models; wiki models; technological architecture; human architecture; participatory involvement; United States; intercultural challenges; ideological challenges; global markets; global communities; knowledge engineering; soft data paradigms; computers; education.

DOI: 10.1504/IJKESDP.2012.050721

International Journal of Knowledge Engineering and Soft Data Paradigms, 2012 Vol.3 No.3/4, pp.204 - 239

Published online: 23 Aug 2014 *

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