Washington: Wikipedia has become a reliable source for political information, according to a new study.
Brigham Young University political scientist, who fact-checked biographical information and voting statistics, said his study validates Wikipedia as a reliable place to get a political education.
Focusing on Wikipedia entries on past and present candidates for governor across 50 states in the US, Brown confirmed biographical information on the candidates and their election statistics and found very few inaccuracies, a BYU release said Thursday.
He focused on past and present candidates for governor across 50 states in the US and found very few inaccuracies.
“My finding is optimistic for the health of our country. It doesn’t have to be hard to learn about the political process, or your political candidates,” said Brown.
He studied 230 Wikipedia articles about 246 major-party candidates who ran for governor between 1998 and 2008 and found that all of the verifiable biographical information in those articles was completely accurate.
Brown wondered whether “the free encyclopedia” would survive the heated debates and contradicting opinions of the political scene.
“The more an issue is talked about, the more people are battling over it on Wikipedia,” he said.
The study appears in the journal PS: Political Science and Politics.
ANI
