40 Country Report: Wikipedia Usage in Ethiopia
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When exploring the country, Ethiopia, on Wikipedia, there are many things to note about the use and coverage of the country online. When one searches something on Wikipedia, depending on what area of the world they are in, they will receive different results. In comparing the English Wikipedia page and the Amharic Wikipedia page, the English version has many more categories than the Amharic version does. The English version includes history, government, geography, economics, culture, and demographics; however, it goes very far into depth in all of the categories. The Amharic version includes all of those plus language, administration, alphabet, and religion but, instead of giving a detailed explanation, much of the information is vague. One example of information that was noticeably different on the English vs Amharic page was Italy’s conquest of Ethiopia. During WWII, Ethiopia was under Italian control at one point and is it spoken about for a few paragraphs on the English page but just glossed over when spoken about on the Amharic page. The Amharic version is the version that those living in Ethiopia will see when they search their country which is why it is surprising that there is not as much information on the home page. However, it is also not surprising because native writers might hold more bias for their country and want to speak highly of it.
Ethiopia also has many WikiProjects currently being worked on that focus on improving the coverage and accuracy of the country page and its categories. The English page was lasted edited on February 1, 2023, and the Amharic page was lasted edited February 3, 2023. Although these dates are only 2 days apart, the Amharic page hadn’t been worked on for months before then, unlike the constant updates to the English page. On the English page, many of the editors are robots while the Amharic page has editors that are a part of member groups within Wikipedia. This is interesting because it is clear that there is more work needed for Ethiopia’s page to keep up to date. For example, there needs to be credible Wiki editors from Ethiopia to create accuracy within the country’s page. Many outside references are included on the English site, but almost all references on the Amharic site link straight back to other Wikipedia pages. There is not much information regarding the usage of Wikipedia in Ethiopia but knowing that only 15% of the Ethiopian population is connected to the internet and they are ranked 123/131 on the network readiness index, allows for the assumption that Wikipedia is not used in a widespread manner.
Sources:
https://networkreadinessindex.org/wp-content/uploads/reports/nri_2022.pdf
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethiopia
https://am.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E1%8A%A2%E1%89%B5%E1%8B%AE%E1%8C%B5%E1%8B%AB
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_Ethiopia
