Matthew Vetter gave a job talk at Indiana University of Pennsylvania about his research on public pedagogy and critical digital praxis. His research focuses on using wikis and Wikipedia to teach writing theory in a public and interactive way. Specifically, he has studied how to address representation and gender gaps on Wikipedia by having students edit Wikipedia articles. In this talk, he outlined his past research projects, discussed a case study where he had a class edit Wikipedia to improve gender representation, and proposed future directions for using critical digital praxis approaches.

1. From Public Pedagogy to
Critical Digital Praxis
Learning/Writing as Reflective Action
Matthew Vetter
Visiting Assistant Professor of English
Ohio University Zanesville
Section Editor, Kairos
vetter@ohio.edu
Campus Visit Job Talk – Indiana University of Pennsylvania– February 1, 2016

2. The Arc of My Research
 Wikis and Wikipedia for teaching writing theory
 A public and interactive pedagogy for teaching writing
 The politics of the interface
 Representation and access in Wikipedia
 Edit the gender gap: critical digital praxis in Wikipedia
 A case study
 Future directions for critical digital praxis

3. Wikipedia and Writing Knowledge
 Procedural knowledge – “History” pages
 Social knowledge – “Talk” pages
 Rhetorical Knowledge – “an understanding of a rhetorical,
constructivist model of knowledge production and the role of
personal subjectivity in that process”

4. Rhetorical Knowledge
“I guess in some ways that’s what surprised me the most
throughout this project: the revelation that I personally had
contributed a legitimate article and added to the knowledge on
Wikipedia. Also though, it did make me realize that many of the
articles I had read and fully trusted over the years may have been
put together by people that didn’t know what they were doing any
more than I did at that moment. It was something to think about
for sure.”
-student process log

5. Expanding Authorities; Expanding
Audiences

6. Community-Engaged Learning
 Civic or community engagement (Herzberg; Weisser)
 Moving beyond homogenous cultures of university (Deans)
 Increased levels of motivation and responsibility (Adler-
Kassner, Crooks, and Watters; Feldman

7. Representation and Access in Wikipedia
 The free encyclopedia anyone can edit has so far been mostly
edited by Western males.
 Problems of representation and access prevent the community
from achieving its enlightenment goal of “gathering the sum of
all human knowledge.”

8. The Gender Gap
 The Gender Gap is caused primarily by the fact that 1/10
editors are women.
 This translates into uneven representation of articles on topics
that might matter more to women readers.
 But it also means that women’s perspectives are missing from
all kinds of content.
 We’re not building a truly multicultural encyclopedia that
represents diverse views if our editorship is so homogenous.

9. Edit the Gender Gap
Critical Digital Praxis in Wikipedia

10. A Case Study
 Critical digital praxis
 The context of the course and how we engaged with Wikipedia
and digital culture in general
 The particulars of the assignment: how it was framed and what
we accomplished – examples of articled edited
 Theoretical speculation on how Wikipedia’s epistemological
practices make it susceptible to existing social hierarchies

11. Critical Digital Praxis
 A model for making writing interventions in public digital
cultures in order to both better understand the writing activities
of those cultures and make meaningful impressions with/in
them.
 Freire: “reflection and action directed at the structures to be
transformed”
 In Wikipedia, this means tackling gaps in content and
spreading awareness of systemic problems of representation
 Initiate and participate in public conversations about why we
need to intervene

12. About the Course
English 3060j, Women Writing in Digital Spaces
Course Theme and Design | mattvetter.net/womenandwriting
“This course will explore the ways in which new media and digital
geographies both open up new possibilities and create new challenges for
women in digital spaces. “

13. Addressing the Gender Gap in Wikipedia
From the Assignment Sheet:
“In this project, you’re going to contribute to Wikipedia by
performing research on a topic related to gender, women’s
studies, women’s representation, or an LGBTQ issue, identifying
a need for a new article or edits to an existing article, and then
contributing content to the encyclopedia based on your research.”

14. Assignment Motivations
 Theoretical questions:
 Why the gender gap manifests? What caused or causes the gap?
 How does the gender gap influence content and representation?
 Practical work
 Let’s improve representation by working on content.
 Let’s diversify editor base by becoming editors (at least for the
course of the academic term).

15. Digital Humanities & Public Culture
Students become:
“generative producers and critical consumers of
cultural products” and can learn to make
“meaningful interventions in the world and lasting
connections between their humanist training and
public engagement” (Melanie Kill).

16. Components and Process
 Proposal - details “gaps” or
omissions in coverage
 Annotated Bibliography – source
information and source material on
targeted topic
 Article draft for peer review and
Content Expert Review– posted in
Sandbox
 Final article edits – Mainspace edits
 Training Modules
 Explore Wikiprojects
 Sandbox set up / Practice
 Workshop Proposals
 Research
 Annotated Bibliographies due
 Draft articles in Sandbox
 Peer & Wiki Ed Content
Expert Review
 Revise and Publish

17. Student Work
Some examples of Wikipedia articles edited or created by students

25. What We Accomplished:
In numbers
A three-course collaboration, 54 students edited 61 articles and
created 12 new ones on a diversity of topics. Combined, students
in these three courses made a total of 1,361 individual edits.

26. Building and Sustaining Relationships in
Digital Rhetoric/Education Spaces

27. The Gender Gap and Wikipedia
Epistemology
 Verifiability ensures that Wikipedia will typically represent the
dominant texts, sources, authorities in our culture
 Those that are mainstream, published and most readily available
 If we accept that we live in a culture that already marginalizes
women and LGBTQ identities, we can also expect Wikipedia to
reflect those social hierarchies.
 Wikipedia as a mirror of existing social hierarchies
 This is a systemic rather than deliberate bias.

28. Academic Interventions
 Collaborations like this demonstrate how we can address
these biases.
 By working to enlarge representation and diversifying editorial
populations,
 Beginning conversations among academics, Wikipedia
communities, and the general public,
 And by giving students opportunities to engage in public writing
projects that effect change.
 This is praxis.

29. Future Questions and Directions
 Articulating and defining a theory of critical digital praxis for
rhetoric and composition
 Locating a historical and disciplinary lineage for such a theory
 Further application of critical digital praxis to other digital
communities and new media interfaces
 Additional study of the pedagogical benefits of praxis
 Encourage emphasis on writing as action

30. Questions / Discussion
vetter@ohio.edu | mattvetter.net/iup-visit

31. Appendices- Extra Material

32. Qualitative Research Methodology
“Classroom Studies”
 Descriptive in nature
 Multi-source collection
 Surveys, reflective essays, process logs, article drafts
 Situated in classroom practice
 Meant to follow and enrich writing practices and assignments
of students

33. Digital/Cultural Rhetoric
“The use of rhetorical methods for uncovering and interrogating
ideologies and cultural formation in digital works” (Eyman, 2015)

34. Wiki Ed’s Goals
To meet the goal of representing ‘the sum of all human
knowledge,’ Wikipedia needs to grow. Wikipedia
writing assignments can help…While we’ve seen great
contributions to Wikipedia content tackling gaps
in gender, race, and class, there’s still a lot of work to
do to diversify Wikipedia. Wiki Ed is dedicated to
improving and expanding Wikipedia through quality
contributions that bridge content gaps. We believe
student editors are a natural ally. (Salvaggio,
“Introducing Wiki Ed”)

35. The Politics of the Interface
We begin the task of describing some of the political and ideological boundary
lands associated with computer interfaces that we—and many other teachers of
composition–-now use in our classrooms.
— Cynthia and Richard Selfe, 1994
Technology, like rhetoric, can both push and pull at us. Not only do 'artifacts have
politics,' as Langdon Winner has claimed, they also have rhetorics. Technology
pushes or manipulates us by requiring us to do certain things and in certain
ways…. A technology pulls from us, or panders to us, by reconfirming and
strengthening our inclinations and propensities.
— Carolyn Miller, 2013