Wikidata as Semantic Infrastructure: Knowledge Representation, Data Labor, and Truth in a More-Than-Technical Project

Abstract

Wikidata is a knowledge base (i.e., a database of facts) project of the Wikimedia Foundation and a sister project to Wikipedia that contains billions of facts that anyone can edit. Platform companies, such as Amazon, Google, and Microsoft use Wikidata to retrieve and transmit facts across the internet, while researchers rely on Wikidata as a data source for facts. Various Wikipedia researchers have commended Wikidata for its collaborative nature and liberatory potential, yet less attention has been paid to the social and political implications of Wikidata. This article aims to advance work in this context by introducing the concept of semantic infrastructure and outlining how Wikidata’s role as semantic infrastructure is the primary vehicle by which Wikipedia has become infrastructural for digital platforms. We develop two key themes that build on questions of power that arise in infrastructure studies and apply to Wikidata: knowledge representation and data labor. We argue that considering these issues about Wikidata helps contextualize such infrastructural technologies within existing media and communication studies debates and highlights the contingencies upon which their outcomes depend.

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