TY  - JOUR
PY  - 2016//
TI  - Negotiating boundaries of knowledge: discourse analysis of Wikipedia's Articles for Deletion (AfD) discussion
JO  - Communication and critical-cultural studies
A1  - Yam, Shing-Chung Jonathan
SP  - 305
EP  - 323
VL  - 13
IS  - 3
N2  - Although previous research has revealed factors that affect Wikipedia editors' decisions regarding content retainment and deletion,1 there has been little research on the editors' discussion that is involved therein as a linguistic process. In this article, I study Wikipedia's Articles for Deletion (AfD) talk pages and conceptualize each discussion as a conflictual language game.2 I study, by using discourse analysis interpretively and critically, how participants (especially first movers) frame the discussion direction--either as an invitation to collaborate or with cascading arguments (leaving little room for casual chit-chat). Finally, I study entire AfD discussions and find two coexisting language games: the discussion game and the consultation/enforcement game. I find that the closing admins of AfD discussions function as policy experts rather than consensus facilitators. Hence, AfD discussions contain both sets of game rules, but ultimately the power of the decision is nonetheless vested in the admins. This brings background power dynamics into the grammar of language games in the struggle for the generation and sustenance of the dominant knowledge or narratives of our information society.<p />  <p>Language: en</p>
LA  - en
SN  - 1479-1420
UR  - http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/14791420.2015.1137334
ID  - ref1
ER  -