Social Media Research: Wikis

Social media encompasses a broad variety of websites, including social networking sites, blogs, wikis, photo sharing, social reading, and more.

Most of the sites on this page fall into more than one category, so it is important to keep that in mind when conducting research on social media.

According to Cole (2003), "a wiki is an editable website that is created incrementally by users working collaboratively" (p. 142). Wikipedia is the most famous example, but others include:

• TV Tropes is a wiki that allows users to discuss tropes that commonly appear in fiction and popular culture, such as the damsel in distress and the deus ex machina.
• Wikia is a platform that allows users to create their own subject-specific wikis that are too esoteric for inclusion in a general encylopedia such as Wikipedia. For example, Wookiepedia (Star Wars) and The Hunger Games Wiki are both hosted by Wikia.