In a world of text, is the author King? The revolutionary potential of wiki (open content) technologies

Internet enthusiasts have predicted that Internet technologies would facilitate global and multi-directional information sharing, promote political participation, increase global awareness of injustice, and allow the construction of an ‘electronic global village’. In this paper, I argue that in spite of early revolutionary claims, simple Internet connectivity has not brought about any radical break with the values and power structures of modernity. I suggest, however, that recently emerging Internet-dependent open content and open source technologies (such as wikis), promise to fulfill some of these earlier revolutionary claims by decentralizing production of online information, and challenging current definitions of “authoritative” knowledge.Arts, Faculty ofScience, Faculty ofReviewedResearche