Nathaniel Tkacz

PhD
Nathaniel Tkacz at the Wikipedia Conference, 2010
NationalitySwedish/Australian
Scientific career
FieldsInternet studies, cultural studies
InstitutionsUniversity of Warwick

Nathaniel Tkacz is a Swedish-Australian scholar of digital media who is currently Reader at the University of Warwick. His research on Wikipedia has been influential in media studies and organisational theory. Tkacz has described his work as investigating "the political, economic and organisational dimensions of technology, with a specific focus on networked and digital forms".[1]

Education and academic career

Tkacz has bachelor's degrees in arts and commerce from Monash University and a PhD in culture and communication from The University of Melbourne. He is currently Reader at the Centre for Interdisciplinary Methodologies at the University of Warwick, where he has worked since 2012.[1][2]

Research on Wikipedia

Tkacz's research on Wikipedia has been influential in the fields of internet research and digital media studies.

His monograph Wikipedia and the Politics of Openness (2015) has been cited in over 200 scholarly articles and books. In the book Tkacz argues that the openness of Wikipedia in allowing anybody to edit articles is countered by a "closure" where community debates determined what is excluded from the encyclopaedia. Two controversies are analysed: the deletion of an article about an artistic project, and the debate over whether to include images of Muhammed on Wikipedia. As Johan Söderberg wrote in a review of the book for the journal Science, Technology and Human Values, Tkacz's point is not that Wikipedia enthusiasts should be reprimanded for being insufficiently open. Tkacz's point is the opposite: openness always and inevitably presupposes closeness."[3] In another review, Fabio Rojas notes that Tkacz contributes to institutional logic theory by developing the idea of forking in software development to apply to organisations.[4] Rojas sees this combination of a cultural studies approach with organisational theory as being particularly useful. The book received a number of other positive reviews, including in Times Higher Education.[5]

In 2021, Tkacz was awarded an Australian Research Council Discovery Grant with two collaborators: Heather Ford (the project leader) and Tamson Pietsch. The project is titled Wikipedia and the nation’s story: Towards equity in knowledge production,[6][7] and aims to understand how Wikipedia "produces knowledge in its coverage of Australian historic events".[8] The project is funded from 2022 through 2024.

Research on data and dashboards

Tkacz's other main research area is data studies, which has culminated in his book Being With Data: The Dashboarding of Everyday Life, published by Polity Press in 2022. He has argued for a situated approach to studying data,[9] which has been described as part of a "growing range of methods used to study data practices in situ and as they affect the operation of data in everyday and organisational contexts",[10] and as exploring how "data ‘intervene’ in the unfolding of actual decision-making processes".[11]

Selected publications

  • Being With Data: The Dashboarding of Everyday Life (Polity Press, 2022)
  • Critical Point of View: A Wikipedia Reader. Institute of Network Cultures, Amsterdam, 2011.[12] (Edited with Geert Lovink) ISBN 978-90-78146-13-1
  • Wikipedia and the Politics of Openness. University of Chicago Press, 2015.[13] ISBN 9780226192277

References

  1. 1 2 Nathaniel Tkacz (Assistant Professor). Centre for Interdisciplinary Methodologies, University of Warwick. Retrieved 2 January 2015.
  2. ↑ "Nathaniel Tkacz (Reader)". warwick.ac.uk. Retrieved 24 July 2022.
  3. ↑ Söderberg, Johan (2017). Coleman, Gabriella; Dunbar-Hester, Christina; Chan, Anita Say; Tkacz, Nathaniel (eds.). "Inquiring Hacking as Politics: A New Departure in Hacker Studies?". Science, Technology, & Human Values. 42 (5): 978. doi:10.1177/0162243916688094. ISSN 0162-2439. JSTOR 26405622. S2CID 151920924.
  4. ↑ Rojas, Fabio (2016). "Review of Wikipedia and the Politics of Openness". Contemporary Sociology. 45 (2): 251–252. doi:10.1177/0094306116629410lll. ISSN 0094-3061. JSTOR 43998505. S2CID 152251248.
  5. ↑ "Wikipedia and the Politics of Openness, by Nathaniel Tkacz". Paul Bernal, Times Higher Education, 1 January 2015.
  6. ↑ "What's missing from Wikipedia's history of Australia?". University of Technology Sydney. 19 May 2022. Retrieved 24 July 2022.
  7. ↑ Heather Ford [@hfordsa] (19 May 2022). "...our 3 year project: Wikipedia and the nation's story: Towards equity in knowledge production" (Tweet) – via Twitter.
  8. ↑ "Grant - Grants Data Portal". dataportal.arc.gov.au. Retrieved 24 July 2022.
  9. ↑ Tkacz, Nathaniel; Henrique da Mata Martins, Mário; Porto de Albuquerque, João; Horita, Flávio; Dolif Neto, Giovanni (January 2021). "Data diaries: A situated approach to the study of data". Big Data & Society. 8 (1): 205395172199603. doi:10.1177/2053951721996036. ISSN 2053-9517. S2CID 233696293.
  10. ↑ McCosker, Anthony; Yao, Xiaofang; Albury, Kath; Maddox, Alexia; Farmer, Jane; Stoyanovich, Julia (January 2022). "Developing data capability with non-profit organisations using participatory methods". Big Data & Society. 9 (1): 205395172210998. doi:10.1177/20539517221099882. ISSN 2053-9517. S2CID 248727818.
  11. ↑ Porto de Albuquerque, João; Anderson, Liana; Calvillo, Nerea; Coaffee, Jon; Cunha, Maria Alexandra; Degrossi, Livia Castro; Dolif, Giovanni; Horita, Flavio; Klonner, Carolin; Lima-Silva, Fernanda; Marchezini, Victor (1 April 2021). "The role of data in transformations to sustainability: a critical research agenda". Current Opinion in Environmental Sustainability. 49: 153–163. Bibcode:2021COES...49..153P. doi:10.1016/j.cosust.2021.06.009. ISSN 1877-3435. S2CID 238055367.
  12. ↑ "Critical Point of View: A Wikipedia Reader". Network Culture.org. 10 May 2011. Archived from the original on 18 December 2011. Retrieved 2 January 2015.
  13. ↑ Wikipedia and the Politics of Openness. The University of Chicago Press Books. Retrieved 2 January 2015.
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