Centrality and content creation in networks - The case of economic topics on German wikipedia

• Published in: Information economics and policy 2016-09, Vol.36, p.36-52
• Main Authors: Kummer, Michael E., Saam, Marianne, Halatchliyski, Iassen, Giorgidze, George
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Centrality; Econometrics; Hyperlinks; Network analysis; Social networks; Spillovers; Studies; User-generated content
• ISSN: 0167-6245; 1873-5975
• DOI: 10.1016/j.infoecopol.2016.06.002

•We analyse whether the hyperlinks on Wikipedia channel the attention of producers towards more central articles.•We observe a sample of 7635 articles from the category economics on the German Wikipedia over a period of 153 weeks.•We measure centrality within this category and in the entire network, and analyse the topical coverage.•An additional link from the observed category is associated with around 140 bytes of additional content and with an increase in the number of authors by 0.5.•For links from outside the category the relationship is weaker, and the coverage is leaning toward non-mainstream economics. We analyze the role of local and global network positions for content contributions to articles belonging to the category “Economy” on the German Wikipedia. Observing a sample of 7635 articles over a period of 153 weeks we measure their centrality both within this category and in the network of over one million Wikipedia articles. Our analysis reveals that an additional link from the observed category is associated with around 140 bytes of additional content and with an increase in the number of authors by 0.5. The relation of links from outside the category to content creation is much weaker. Beyond the econometric analysis, our study sheds light on how the discipline of economics is represented on German Wikipedia. We find non-neoclassical themes to be highly prevalent among the top articles.