1. KNOWLEDGE INEQUALITIES
A marginal view of the digital landscape
Laura Czerniewicz
14 June 2016

2. THIS TALK
o General inequalities of knowledge
production & dissemination
o The emerging complexities of the digital
o Two cases of discoverability & visibility
A view from the global south, a marginal perspective

3. Knowledge production and dissemination
have always been
fraught contested unequal

4. http://www.un.org/en/events/humanrightsday/udhr60/exhibit.shtml

5. http://jalperin.github.io/d3-cartogram/
World scaled by the number of documents in Web of Science by authors living there
(2011)

6. (Florida, 2005)

7. The global south is partly geographical
but it is also an imaginary

8. http://images.slideplayer.com/24/7344819/slides/slide_30.jpg

9. “The global economy is a dynamic and
often turbulent affair. It doesn’t produce a
simple dichotomy. It does produce
massive structures of centrality and
marginality, whose main axis is the
metropole-periphery, North-South
relationship.“
(Connell 2007, 2014)

10. INEQUALITIES ACROSS AND WITHIN
Hout Bay and Imizamo Yethu in Cape Town, South Africa in 2016
http://www.unequalscenes.com/hout-bay-imizamo-yethu

11. What causes inequalities in knowledge
production?

12. FUNDING
Research and development intensity
http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/

13. 1.53 % of GDP
1.96 % of GDP2.76 % of GDP
0.73 % of GDP
FUNDING
Gross domestic spending on R & D (2012)
figureshttps://data.oecd.org/rd/gross-domestic-spending-on-r-d.htm

14. IT’S MORE THAN THE MONEY
What counts?
Reward systems
Legitimacy
Gatekeeping

15. http://jalperin.github.io/d3-cartogram/
Genres
• Journal article
• Books
• Book chapters
• Monographs
• Technical
reports
• Scholarly blogs
• Websites
• Multimodal
outputs
• Consultancy
reports
• Etc.

16. TYPES OF RESEARCH
o Different types of research
• Different genres
• Different audiences
o A typology of research types
• Discovery – traditional empirical, generalizable explanations or theories
• Interpretive - interpretation of phenomena not search for generalizable explanations
• Applied – applied enquiry, problem solving, may include consultancy
• Integrative – use-inspired basic research
• Teaching and Learning – scholarship of T&L
(Kell and Czerniewicz 2016; Czerniewicz and Kell 2014)

17. REWARD SYSTEMS
o In South Africa the national department of
education (DHET) gives universities +/-
$13000 for every article published in
• The Sciences Citation Index of the Institute of Scientific Information (ISI)
• The Social Sciences Citation Index of the ISI
• The Arts and Humanities Citation Index of the ISI
• The International Bibliography of Social Sciences (IBSS)
• A list of approved South African Journals
o The majority of SA universities give a %
directly to the authors

18. CITATIONS
o Valorisation of citation counts in
academia
• Citations used for promotion
• Measure of reputation
o Citations have their uneven
geographies
• Citing those from the global north
• Keeping the networks closed
o Altmetrics’ slow acceptance

19. ACCESSIBILITY
o Research is generally not easily
accessible to those in the South
• works that are more easily found will
likely be more frequently cited
• 54% of respondents in SARUA universities said
research output exists; of these 90% said that
ready accessibility is hampered
• Budget cuts in library subscriptions
(Abrahams et al 2008)

20. CULTURE
(Adams et al, 2010)
Zimbabwe
Malawi
Tunisia

21. Who publishes?
What about?
What does an “international” high impact
journal look like?

22. WHO GETS PUBLISHED
o Of the articles published in international
peer-reviewed journals
• USA academics 30%
• Developing country academics 20%
• of which half from China, India, Brazil, Turkey,
Mexico
• Sub Saharan Africa 1% of total
(Hassan 2008)

23. A CASE IN POINT
Authorship per country AMJ, AMR, ASQ and JIBS (2006-2010),
Four high impact social science journals
(Hamann, 2012)

24. Empirical focus AMJ, AMR, ASQ and JIBS (2006-2010)
(Hamann,2012)

25. o At the same time Northern authors publish
about the South
• A study of 2 top African studies journals
1993 - 2013 found
• the percentage of articles by Africa-based
authors has declined
• not lower submission rates from Africa but low
and declining acceptance rates
• Africa-based scholars are systematically cited
less than others
(Briggs and Weathers, 2016)

26. WHO DECIDES?
“We editors seek a global status for our journals, but we
shut out the experiences and practices of those living in
poverty by our (unconscious) neglect. One group is
advantaged while the other is marginalised.”
Richard Horton, editor of The Lancet
Chan,2012,/www.slideshare.net/lesliechan/remapping-the-local-and-the-global
In short, international = global north

27. WHY THIS MATTERS
o Local knowledge
• Needs to be available to others in similar
conditions
• Is a necessary and often missing
contribution to global knowledge
o A plurality of knowledge/s is good for
science
• A knowledge production & dissemination
system that sidelines three quarters of the
world is bad for everyone

28. “African scholars face a critical choice between
sacrificing relevance for recognition, or
recognition for relevance”
(Nyamnjoh 2010)

29. A NETWORKED WORLD
New opportunities

30. The internet changed the nature of networks by
making them more inclusive and easy to
participate in
(Castells 1996)

31. (Lessig, 2003)
For the first time in a
millennium, we have a
technology to equalise the
opportunity that people
have to access and
participate in the
construction of knowledge
and culture, regardless of
their geographical placing.

32. www.soros,org/openaccess

33. Conceptualisation
Data collection
Data analysis
Findings
Engagement
Translation
Protocols
Literature reviews
BibliographiesProposals
Data sets
Conference papers
Audio records
Images
Recorded interviews
Books
Reports
Journal articles Technical papers
Notes
Presentations
Lectures
Interviews
Shared and shareable
e.g. social bookmarking,
Dynamic multimodal
versions
The rise of rich media
Data
Open
linked, curated,
shareable Metadata
Multiple modes
The “enhanced publication”
multimodal, hyperlinked
Open access mainstream
Emergence of the “megajournal”
New forms
Modes- visual & audio
lectures
New genres - ebooks,
open education resources
Changing, extending
audiences
(e.g. life long learners, global
reach)
Two way process
(e.g. citizen science)
Access
to all types of resources
New measures of impact
Altmetrics- use,
downloads, bookmarking
etc
Open processes
Increased visibility
Increased collaboration
Earlier access
Open science
Changing Scholarship
(Czerniewicz, 2013)

34. New opportunities to
collapse distance
enable easier cross-country collaborations
create possibilities for knowledge production & sharing

35. Digital affords open
Digital = open
Digital affords closed
At each stage new layers of complexity

36. o Each stage can be analysed in terms of:
• Social relations – power relations, networks &
relationships
• Audiences – forms of scholar-to-scholar, scholar-
to- student and scholar-to-community
communication
• Forms – genres, platforms and modes (eg
linguistic, visual, aural and multimodal)
(Czerniewicz & Kell 2014; Kell and Czerniewicz 2016)

37. There is a danger that the
information revolution could
exacerbate sociospatial
segregation
(Castells, 1998)
and create ‘dual cities’ of
inhabitants that occupy vastly
different spheres of knowledge.

38. The basics: infrastructure

39. http://en.actualitix.com/country/wld/access-to-electricity.php

40. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Globalization#/media/File:Global_Digital_Divide1.png

41. http://submarine-cable-map-2013.telegeography.com/

43. http://www.slideshare.net/kleinerperkins/2016-internet-trends-report/10-KPCB_INTERNET_TRENDS_2016_PAGE

44. AFFORDABILITY: IT’S THE DATA, NOT THE DEVICE
o Affordability (5% monthly income)
• Entry level -100MB; maturing – 500MB; connected -2GB
• In Sub-Saharan Africa, 53% could afford access of only
20 MB, (enough for SMS & email)
https://fbnewsroomus.files.wordpress.com/2015/02/state-of-connectivity_3.pdf

45. The new currency: discoverability
If it is not online, it does not exist
If it can’t be found, it does not exist
Visibility is a requirement for participation

46. Why this matters
What is found online shapes what comes to be known
“Visibility and invisibility in material space are
increasingly being defined by prominence, ranking,
and presence on the Internet”
(Graham and Zook 2011)

47. SEARCH ENGINES
o The primary way that content is found
• By academics in all disciplines
• By NGOs
• By students
• BY professionals
(De Groote et al 2014, Catalano 2013, de Satgé, 2012, Waller 2011)

48. SEARCH ENGINES
o Co-producers of knowledge
o Surrogate experts
o Play a role as “switchers’ between
networks
o Engine’s social relations invisible
• Seem naturalised and normal
o Not neutral
• Reflect societal disparities
• Shaped by algorithms
(Halavais 2013; Van Dijck 2010, Rogers, 2009)

49. JerryKing,ttps://c4.staticflickr.com/4/3451/3364886451_52915e5621.jpg

50. ALGORITHMS
o Page ranking
• “collective intelligence”
o Location
• Internet Protocol (IP) address provides country,
region, city, postal code, latitude and longitude,
time zone
o Social media
• Includes social media, eg Facebook likes and
Google +
o Personalization
• individual personalization, previously visited sites
• profile personalization, matches users with other
users with similar browsing histories

51. ALGORITHMS
o Shape what is found through
• prioritising, classifying, associating and
filtering information
o Mediate
o Create
filter bubbles
http://twiki.org/p/pub/Blog/BlogEntry201207x2/google-globe-search-3d.png

52. Browsers per country 2016
http://gs.statcounter.com/#all-browser-ww-monthly-201602-201602-map

53. OPEN ACCESS
http://roarmap.eprints.org/dataviz2.htmlat11June2016
Leveraging the power of the Internet?

54. Danger of increasingly
drowning out scholarship from the global south
ThankstoLeslieChanforimage
UNINTENDED CONSEQUENCES

55. TWO CASES
CC0http://www.pdpics.com/photo/2320-research

56. CASE 1: POVERTY ALLEVIATION

57. Global Inequality: Poverty

58. http://www.worldmapper.org/display.php?selected=169#
Global Inequality: Income

59. http://www.irishtimes.com/news/social-affairs/ireland-at-risk-of-reaching-us-levels-of-income-inequality-says-study-1.2105125
Global Inequality

60. THE INVESTIGATION
o Premises
• Poverty and inequality taken seriously in South
Africa, & beyond
• A great deal of work including academic
research being undertaken
• The outputs of this work important to many:
government, academia, civil society
• Access to information (data/knowledge) critical
to undertake work & address issues
(Czerniewicz & Wiens 2013)

61. THE INVESTIGATION
o How findable is the research & work on
poverty alleviation?
o What is found?
• Where the results come from and the extent to which South
African results appeared in the searches
• Which South African organisations / individuals appeared
• The rankings of the results, and similarities and differences
between the rankings
• The similarities and differences between Google and Google
Scholar results

62. THE SEARCHERS
TOTAL: = 20 : Academic sector -9; Development sector -8 ; IT -3

63. THE SEARCH QUERIES

64. FINDINGS
o Google search “poverty alleviation”
• No South African results
• The 3 South African participants' had no
localised SA based results.
o Google Scholar “poverty alleviation”
• One searcher had one SA result

65. FINDINGS: RANKINGS

66. WIKIPEDIA
o In academia
• Widely used by the general public, researchers
and students
• Wikipedia’s citation rates in scholarly publications
consistently increasing
• Papers & authors mentioned on Wikipedia have
higher academic impact
o In developing countries
• Wikipedia zero rating in 12+ developing
countries – better access
(Soules 2015; Shuai et al 2013; Casebourne et al 2012; Park, 2011; Okoli et al 2010; Eijkman, 2010 Lewandowski 2010; Giles 2005)

67. One result in both
Google “poverty alleviation South Africa” and
Google Scholar “poverty alleviation South Africa”

68. 65% referrals to the repository link through search engines
Among the top 10 search results was one which led to Wikipedia, which
then led to the article itself
Downloaded 2,356 times

69. Online access to single
article for 24 hours at a
cost of USD31.50

70. o Google Scholar Poverty Alleviation South Africa
• High % published in South Africa
• Many had “South Africa” in the title
• Two of the top 5 results from repositories
o Of the South African results
• Many from 7 universities, all of which were full text
• 8 of the 9 journals which appeared in the results
were “green” journals allowing self- archiving

71. CASE 2: CLIMATE CHANGE
A shared global problem
CC-BYhttps://www.flickr.com/photos/ojbyrne/2167696800

72. UNEQUAL IN CAUSE….
http://createhtml5map.com/interactive-map-blog/heat-map-map-shows-countries-are-responsible-to-climate-change/

73. …AND EFFECT

74. o Climate change
• Consequences matter world wide
• A new disciplinary field, scholarly
communication practices not yet
entrenched
• Different strategies promoted by
researchers from the North (mitigation) and
the South (adaptation)
• The ability to set research agendas critical
• Do new ICT-practices help do this?

75. o Analysis climate change publications
1980 – 2013:
• USA dominance of the field
• Other countries from the Global North
consistently in top 7
• Canada, Germany, England and France
• Major shift China’s rise to 2nd place in 2013
• South Africa fallen from 15th place to 24th
(Collyer, 2015)

76. An investigation into one climate change
research group (CCRG)
From the outside in and the inside out
Has their involvement helped to redraw
structurally embedded patterns of power, voice
and representation?
(Czerniewicz et al 2016)

77. THE INVESTIGATION
o Outside in
• Searching on Google Scholar
• Climate change
• Climate change South Africa
o Inside out
• Mapping the climate change group’s
online presence
• Interviews

78. SEARCHERS

79. o Searching for “climate change” (no South
Africa)
• Results largely uniform
• 83% same findings and rankings
• Authors found largely US and UK
• No results from South Africa, Africa or any
other developing countries

80. o Item ranked Number 1
• Cited 4337 x
• Google Scholar 1st results always highly
cited, hence ongoing cycle
• Is a multi-author paper
• Known to be linked to more citations
• Copies appear in 5 web locations, 3
being repositories
(Office of the Chief Scientist 2012; Smart & Bayer 1986)

81. o Genres
• largely technical reports
• only two (different) journals
• technical reports are an acceptable form
of research output in the climate change
field
• Google Scholar indexes “the sources that
scholars believe to be scholarly”.
(Levy 2014)

82. SEARCHING FOR
CLIMATE CHANGE SOUTH AFRICA
o Largely uniform results, 2 sequences
o Number 1 ranked result
• Nature
• Cited 4000+ times
• Appears online in 24 sites

83. “CLIMATE CHANGE SOUTH AFRICA”
o Number 1 ranked result
• South African Journal of Science
o Searching techniques matter!

84. GATEKEEPING
Editorial oversight of publications for 10 ten results
Google Scholar searches “climate change’

85. Editorial oversight of publications for 10 ten results in
Google Scholar searches
“climate change South Africa”
GATEKEEPING

86. GATEKEEPING
Editorial oversight : countries by HDI
(Human Development Index)
(Northern and Southern researchers favour different strategies, different research agendas)

87. INSIDE OUT: CCRG ONLINE PRESENCE

88. o CCRG researchers’ views
• Online presence takes time, money and
expertise
• Hard choices regarding how to use limited
resources
• Tensions between what makes a
contribution, what is academically
rewarded, what brings in funds
INSIDE OUT: CCRG ONLINE PRESENCE

89. o New opportunities and old reward systems
I want the visibility and impact of our work.
I have slaved over the research and the research report might
just gather dust on a shelf, no-one will ever read it. I believe
that the traditional metrics are limited …
I know that our research reports are not captured in those
systems. There are other people who look at research
differently.
I think things can still change.
o The consequences of online invisibility
So many Southern voices get lost so we have no choice but to listen
to the North because there is no alternative

90. CONCLUSION

91. In knowledge creation and dissemination
The online adds major complexities to the
abiding global inequalities of power and
resources
Open scholarship is only meaningful if
everyone can both access and participate

92. On a positive note

93. Active Open Source software developers
per thousand internet users
Study of 1.3million registered developers in SourceForge
(Van Engelhardt,S; et al 2010)

95. Image:StaceyStent
THANK YOU

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