Advantages
A Wiki can serve as the collective truth of the event, portraying the hundreds of viewpoints and without taxing any one journalist with uncovering whatever represents the objective truth in the circumstance.
Wikis allow news operations to effectively cover issues on which there is a range of opinion so broad that it would be difficult, if not impossible, to summarise effectively in one article alone. Examples might include local transport problems, experiences of a large event such as a music festival or protest march, guides to local restaurants or shops, or advice. The Wikivoyage site is one such example, "A worldwide travel guide written entirely by contributors who either live in the place they’re covering or have spent enough time there to post relevant information."
Organisations willing to open up wikis to their audience completely may also find a way of identifying their communities’ concerns: Wikipedia, for instance, notes Eva Dominguez "reflects which knowledge is most shared, given that both the content and the proposals for entries are made by the users themselves."
Internally, wikis also allow news operations to coordinate and manage a complex story which involves a number of reporters: journalists are able to collaborate by editing a single webpage that all have access to. News organisations interested in transparency might also publish the wiki 'live' as it develops, while the discussion space which accompanies each entry also has the potential to create a productive dialogue with users.
There are also clear economic and competitive advantages to allowing users to create articles. With the growth of low-cost micropublishing facilitated by the internet and blogging software in particular, and the convergence-fuelled entry into the online news market by both broadcasters and publishers, news organisations face increased competition from all sides. At the same time, print and broadcast advertising revenue is falling while competition for online advertising revenue is fierce and concentrated on a few major players: in the USA, for instance, according to Jeffrey Rayport 99 percent of gross advertising money 2006 went to the top 10 websites.
Wikis offer a way for news websites to increase their reach, while also increasing the time that users spend on their website, a key factor in attracting advertisers. And, according to Dan Gillmor, "When works right, it engenders a community – and a community that has the right tools can take care of itself". A useful side-effect of community for a news organisation is reader loyalty.
Andrew Lih notes the importance of the "spirit of the open source movement" (2004b p6) in its development, and the way that wikis function primarily as "social software – acting to foster communication and collaboration with other users." Specifically, Lih attributes the success of the wiki model to four basic features: user friendly formatting; structure by convention, not enforced by software; "soft" security and ubiquitous access; and wikis transparency and edit history feature.
Student-run wikis provide opportunities to integrate learning by doing into a journalism education program.
Read more about this topic: Wiki Journalism
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