Wikipedia is a cornucopia of knowledge
and misinformation. Knowing that Wikipedia has a page for just about
everything, I decided to search for a few Public Discourse-related
terms. The two pages which I analyzed were Metatextuality and
Intertextuality. Though the two are closely linked, their Wikipedia
pages are very different.
The Metatextuality page is virtually
empty. There are two sentences giving the definition of the term,
one reference, and four related links. There are no illustrations.
The tone of this page (though it's barely perceptible due to it's
briefness) is informational.
The Intertextuality page, by contrast,
is quite full. There is not only a paragraph of definition, but
there is an image, quotes, a connection to culture, examples, a
history of use, references, works cited, and a lengthier list of
related links. The tone of this page is, like the Metatextuality
page, informational. Simply scrolling down the page, you'll
encounter a wealth of blue hyperlinks, unlike the Metatextuality
page, which only has three hyperlinks. This page also has nine
references, six sources, some with multiple references.
While Wikipedia has a lot of knowledge,
that doesn't necessarily translate to a lot of knowledge per subject.
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