97 Country Report: Wikipedia
bi135
Wikipedia is commonly used in Japan and as of February 2022, it has over 1,312,000 articles with 15,898 active contributors, ranking 4th behind English, Spanish, and Russian editors. However, it is the world’s most visited language Wikipedia after the English one. A study found in 2016 that the Japanese Wikipedia had over 15 billion page views after English Wikipedia’s dominating 97.2 billion views despite not being one of the original six non-English languages launched in 2001. Wikipedia is not the most reliable source of information no matter what language it is in due to the high numbers of contributors and the fact that anyone can edit it at any time but it does provide a lot of free truthful information. Popular articles tend to be more reliable than less edited ones because more users and viewers are able to fact-check and re-edit if needed. Many may argue the use of Wikipedia requires no critical thinking which has some truth to it because it’ll be the first thing that pops up in a google search under various occasions but it can also be used as a tool for better media literacy.
Although Japan has wide use of Wikipedia, most of the information and articles posted are entertainment-related. It is mostly dominated by pop culture articles, containing up to 80% of all Japanese Wikipedia articles and only the other 20% are for any other topics. It has also received a lot of criticism due to the factor that anyone can edit information because in the instance of Keigo Oyamada as Cornelius, the composer for the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, it was revealed that he had bullied classmates with disabilities as a student and had to resign his position. People argue that if Wikipedia has not removed years of information in regards to Oyamada’s bullying history, he most likely wouldn’t have been appointed in the first place. Some other historical instances have also been heavily altered in the Japanese Wikipedia to favor Japan.
Without turning any topics political, Wikipedia provides a good portion of basic information that one needs to know about Japan. From its ancient to modern history, geography, politics, and economy, readers are able to find out a lot about Japan just from Wikipedia. On top of the ones mentioned above, events and details about Japan’s infrastructure, Demographics, and even culture are all listed on Wikipedia.
Links:
https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2016/01/14/wikipedia-at-15/