Matt Vetter (faculty, English Composition and Applied Linguistics) and co-author Zach McDowell (University of Illinois, Chicago) have published an article in the journal Social Media + Society.
"It Takes a Village to Combat a Fake News Army: Wikipedia's Community and Policies for Information Literacy" examines the current fake news crisis and identifies key Wikipedia policies that build reliability in the encyclopedia. In doing so, this article further explores the connection between participation in the Wikipedia community, development of critical information literacies, and the ability to navigate the current new media landscape. Analysis and review of Wikipedia's community policies, and the procedures resulting from these policies, ultimately demonstrate the encyclopedia's unique capacity to protect against problematic information.
McDowell and Vetter argue that Wikipedia has become and remains one of the few places on the internet dedicated to combating fake news, and make recommendations on how to leverage Wikipedia practices and policies for information validation outside of the encyclopedia.