PRSA Webinar: PR in a Wikipedia Age by Andrew Lih, author of The Wikipedia Revolution, August 2013.

1. Andrew
Lih
http://andrewlih.com
Twitter:
Fuzheado
Email:lih@american.edu
Understanding
the
New
Digital
Public
Sphere
(PR
in
a
Wikipedia
Age)
PRSA
Webinar
August
19,
2013
Associate
professor
of
journalism
American
University
School
of
Communication

2. Andrew
Lih
author
of
The
Wikipedia
Revolution
andrew@andrewlih.com
Twitter:
Fuzheado
cle view sourcediscussion history
HOW A BUNCH OF NOBODIES
CREATED THE WORLD’S
GREATEST ENCYCLOPEDIA
“Imagine a world in which every single person
on the planet is given free access to the sum of
all human knowledge. That’s what we’re doing.”
—Jimmy Wales
With more than 2,000,000 individual articles on
everything from Aa! (a Japanese pop group) to
Zzyzx, California, written by an army of volunteer
contributors, Wikipedia is the #8 site on the World
Wide Web. Created (and corrected) by anyone with
access to a computer, this impressive assemblage
of knowledge is growing at an astonishing rate of
more than 30,000,000 words a month. Now for the
first time, a Wikipedia insider tells the story of how
it all happened—from the first glimmer of an idea to
the global phenomenon it’s become.
Andrew Lih has been an administrator (a trusted
user who is granted access to technical features)
at Wikipedia for more than four years, as well as a
regular host of the weekly Wikipedia podcast. In The
Wikipedia Revolution, he details the site’s inception
in 2001, its evolution, and its remarkable growth,
while also explaining its larger cultural repercussions.
Wikipedia is not just a website; it’s a global commu-
nity of contributors who have banded together out of
a shared passion for making knowledge free.
Featuring a Foreword by Wikipedia founder Jimmy
Wales and an Afterword that is itself a Wikipedia
creation.
U.S. $24.99
pedia Revolution
pedia, the free encyclopedia
navigation, search
s article is about the book. For the different, similar terms related to Wikipedia, see
ipedia (terminology).
Wikipedia’s non-encyclopedic visitor introduction, see Wikipedia:About.
Revolution (pronunciation ) is the story of the free,[1]
multilingual ency-
roject supported by the non-profit Wikimedia Foundation. The website’s name
anteau of the words wiki (a technology for creating collaborative websites) and
dia. Wikipedia’s 10 million articles have been written collaboratively by volun-
nd the world, and almost all of its articles can be edited by anyone who can
Wikipedia website.[2]
Launched in 2001 by Jimmy Wales and Larry Sanger,[3]
it
y the largest and most popular[1]
general reference work on the Internet.[4][5][6]
edia Revolution traces Wikipedia’s phenomenal success back to its roots, and
e people who have contributed to its stated mission of giving every single person
s to the sum of all human knowledge.
THEWIKIPEDIAREVOLUTIONANDREWLIH
HowaBunchofNobodies
CreatedtheWorld’s
GreatestEncyclopedia
ISBN: 978-1-4013-0371-6
A N D R E W L I H
e Introduction to The Wikipedia Revolution
edia founder, Jimmy Wales
ow, it’s hard not to use the Internet without experiencing Wikipedia in
s and surfing. It has become an incredibly useful Internet resource in
nguages. Yet when you use Wikipedia, you may not understand the
phy behind it.
book tells the story of how Wikipedia began and evolved from a traditional
pedia into the intricate global community that it is today.

3. Core policies
• Neutral point of view (NPOV)
• Verifiability (V) and reliable sources
(RS)
• Conflict of interest (COI)

4. NPOV
• ...representing fairly, proportionately,
and, as far as possible, without bias,
all of the significant views that have
been published by reliable sources on
a topic.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Neutral_point_of_view

5. COI
• Cannot promote your own interests or
those of other individuals, companies,
or groups
• Paid advocates are very strongly
discouraged from direct article
editing, and should instead propose
changes on the talk page of the article
in question
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Neutral_point_of_view

6. Case of Wikipedia

7. Why? Wikipedia tops the
Google searches

8. “If the news is that important,
it will find me.”
– Unnamed teenager at a focus group,
NY Times, March 27, 2008

9. Public relations in a
new digital public
sphere?

10. PRSA 1982
• Traditional definition
“Public relations helps an
organization and its publics adapt
mutually to each other.”
http://www.prsa.org/AboutPRSA/PublicRelationsDefined/Old%20Definition

11. PRSA 2011/2012
• Crowdsourced definition
“Public relations is a strategic
communication process that builds
mutually beneficial relationships
between organizations and their
publics.”
http://www.prsa.org/AboutPRSA/PublicRelationsDefined

12. CIPR
• “Public relations is the discipline
which looks after reputation, with the
aim of earning understanding and
support and influencing opinion and
behaviour. It is the planned and
sustained effort to establish and
maintain goodwill and mutual
understanding between an
organisation and its publics”
http://www.cipr.co.uk/content/about-us/about-pr

13. Highlights
• PRSA: “process” and “relationship”
are key upgrades
• CIPR: “maintain goodwill” and
“mutual understanding”
• What does this mean in social media/
digital public sphere?

14. Strategies
• Understand these communities
• Learn and respect their norms
• Be transparent
• The alternative is far worse

15. Bad strategies
• Astroturfing (fake grassroots)
• Fake/sock puppet accounts
• Undue influence

17. Wikipedia
• CREWE - Corporate Representatives
for Ethical Wikipedia Editing
• Chartered Institute of Public Relations
(CIPR) Wikipedia Best Practice
Guidance

18. COI history
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conflict_of_interest_editing_on_Wikipedia

19. CREWE
• Phil Gomes, Edelman Digital
“It’s imperative, however, that the
public relations industry demonstrate
by cooperation and good behavior that
it can work with the Wikipedia
community instead of taking the
quick, easy-fix route.”
http://www.edelmandigital.com/2012/09/10/public-relations-and-wikipedia-the-unnecessary-impasse/

21. Bell Potinger (2011)
• Analysis of the edits demonstrated that the
changes had both added positive information and
removed negative content, including the removal
of information regarding the drug conviction of a
businessman and Bell Pottinger client, and
changing information about the arrest of a man
convicted for commercial bribery....
head of digital at Bell Pottinger blamed the incident
on Wikipedia's “confusing” editing system and “the
pressure put on us by clients to remove potentially
defamatory or libellous statements very quickly,
because Wikipedia is so authoritative."
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/wikipedia-founder-attacks-bell-pottinger-for-ethical-blindness-6273836.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conflict_of_interest_editing_on_Wikipedia#cite_note-independentbell-58

22. CIPR warning
• There is another interpretation of
public relations, commonly referred to
as "spin". If this is your mode of
operation then you are urged to steer
clear of Wikipedia altogether in the
performance of your job.
http://www.cipr.co.uk/sites/default/files/CIPR_Wikipedia_Best_Practice_Guidance.pdf

23. CIPR warning
• “You are reminded that ‘dark arts’ are
the antithesis of best practice public
relations. Intentional deceit and
anonymous or incognito activities are
breaches of professional codes of
conduct.”
http://www.cipr.co.uk/sites/default/files/CIPR_Wikipedia_Best_Practice_Guidance.pdf

24. CREWE Flowchart

25. CREWE Flowchart

29. Wikipedia has...
• Volunteers who are copyright,
research, reference and topic experts
• Superior technical and logistical to
even top firms
• Database and system
administrators
• Edit history is forever
http://www.cipr.co.uk/sites/default/files/CIPR_Wikipedia_Best_Practice_Guidance.pdf

30. Followup
• Join/understand Wikipedia and start
editing articles with no COI
• Download and understand CREWE
Flowchart
• Monitor the Facebook CREWE group
https://www.facebook.com/groups/
crewe.group/

31. Andrew
Lih
http://andrewlih.com
Twitter:
Fuzheado
Email:lih@american.edu
Understanding
the
New
Digital
Public
Sphere
(PR
in
a
Wikipedia
Age)
PRSA
Webinar
August
19,
2013
Associate
professor
of
journalism
American
University
School
of
Communication