English and Ukrainian Versions of “Coronavirus Disease 2019”: A Critical Rhetorical Analysis of Wikipedia’s Language Editions

Since the outbreak of Covid-19 in March 2020, Wikipedia was among the first sources of updates for the general public. In recent years, the internet encyclopedia has gained a reputation of containing trustworthy information due to its strict rules on misinformation and verifiability. However, as reported by Harrison (2020), editors faced numerous challenges while creating articles on such a hot topic, for example, the novelty of information and the speed of making real-time edits. As a native speaker of the Ukrainian language, I was curious to see how Wikipedia’s language diversity is manifested in reality by critically examining two articles in Wikipedia on the same topic titled “Coronavirus disease” in English and Ukrainian Wikipedia. To critically analyze the two versions, I used Foss’ (2009) rhetorical criticism framework. She explained that rhetorical criticism is a “qualitative research method that is designed for the systematic investigation and explanation of symbolic acts and artifacts for the purpose of understanding rhetorical processes” (2009, p. 6). Different aspects of the two articles bring several implications to Wikipedia’s language diversity and knowledge equity initiatives. First, the language versions of the same article differ in content, length, visual representation of information, number of views, edits, and editors. The two versions also have different levels of protection, which, therefore, designates one version as more valuable and exclusive than the other. In this presentation, I present a brief literature review on Wikipedia’s knowledge equity and language diversity, provide critical rhetorical analysis, and propose an assignment for first-year composition students