MA Thesis Digital Communication and Interactive Storytelling in Wikipedia A Study of Greek Users’ Interaction and Experience Author: George Mavridis Supervisor: Sara Ellis Nilsson Examiner: Ludvig Papmehl-Dufay Term: VT21 Subject: Digital Humanities Level: Master of Arts Course code: 4DH40E Abstract Wikipedia consists of an online encyclopedia created by users worldwide who collaborate to distribute knowledge and edit information in real-time. Although Wikipedia's accuracy has been a disputable and debatable issue in many recent studies, little academic research has systematically addressed how users interact with the platform's storytelling tools and how do they perceive and use Wikipedia's infrastructure, such as interactive tools. This exploratory study fulfills this gap and sheds light on users' perceptions about Wikipedia's interactivity. Moreover, Wikipedia is approached as an online community where collaboration, co-creation, and knowledge distribution play an important role. Therefore, it can be studied under the scope of Digital Humanities as well. The theoretical framework of interactive storytelling and digital communication suggests that hyperlinks, page preview bottoms, or interactive catalogs are applied in Wikipedia's environment to help users absorb information and construct their narratives. The findings of this thesis offer practical insights on how Wikipedia's interactive storytelling tools empower users with the ability to develop their stories and become editors/authors and provide a foundation for further academic research on user experience and how to improve interactivity and digital communication in Wikipedia. Key words Wikipedia, interactive storytelling, digital communication, digital humanities, online communities, user experience, hyperlinks, interactive tools Acknowledgments I want to thank Linnaeus University and the Digital Humanities Initiative for providing me with the opportunity to study this prominent and exciting field of studies, my tutors for helping me during this year to broaden my horizons and obtain new knowledge and skills, and my supervisor, Sara Ellis Nilsson, for guiding me on how to organize my thesis research. Table of contents 1 Introduction 1 2 Background 3 2.1 Wikipedia as an online community 3 2.2 Interactive Storytelling in Wikipedia 4 2.3 Digital Communication and Wikipedia 5 3 Previous Research 6 4 Theoretical basis 7 4.1 Storytelling and new technologies 8 4.2 Interactive technologies 8 4.3 Social Constructionism 10 5 Methodology 10 5.1 Purpose and aims 11 5.2 Method 11 5.2.1 Sample 11 5.2.2 Data Collection Method 12 5.2.3 Data analysis method 13 5.3 Ethics and Limitations 14 6 Results – Analysis 16 6.1 Research Population 16 6.2 Research Findings 17 6.3 Analysis of results 20 6.3.1 Users and interactive technologies 20 6.3.2 Users and storytelling 22 6.3.3 Users and social constructionism 24 7 Discussion – Conclusion 25 7.1 Discussion 25 7.2 Conclusion 26 8 References 28 Appendices Questionnaire: translated and original version 1 Introduction Since its creation, on 15/01/2001, Wikipedia has been developed into a trendy reference website, attracting 1.7 billion unique visitors monthly as of November 2020. It currently has over 56 million articles in over 300 languages, including 6,283,820 articles in English, with 142,081 active contributors (Wikipedia, 2021). Apart from these significantly vital statistics about Wikipedia's operation, what is interesting about this platform is its connection to Digital Humanities (DH) and the concepts of co-creation, collaboration, open access, and development of digital archives of knowledge. Burdich et al. (2012) pointed out that Digital Humanities involve collaborative, transdisciplinary, and computationally engaged research, teaching, and publishing in innovative ways. They also underlined that DH develops new digital platforms for knowledge production and distribution. Examining Wikipedia under this perspective, we can detect these types of knowledge distribution and the collaboration between the members of this online community. They play an active role in information creation and distribution. The reliability of the information presented through this online community may be questionable and not comparable to other similar DH projects, in which only researchers take part. Still, the core of Wikipedia seems to be supported on basic principles of DH. This exploratory study investigates how users of Wikipedia perceive and use interactive storytelling and digital communication, which are constructed and developed within this platform. Also, to obtain a broad image of the ways users understand Wikipedia's interactive storytelling, which tools they find most interesting and easy to use, and what additions they think could improve the browsing experience, online research was conducted. To make this research workable, I have focused on a specific group: the Greek users because of time and resource limitations. Apart from time limitations, this thesis is limited to this particular focus group of users. The questionnaires constructed for this study were shared online on platforms in which only users from Greece take part and use Wikipedia. Therefore, the data presented below constitute part of the analysis and discussion that follows concern answers received from Greek users. The main Research Question (RQ) of this study is "How do Greek users interact with Wikipedia storytelling?" A few sub-research questions support the main one and obtain an even broader picture: a) What type of interactive storytelling tools do the Greek users prefer when accessing Wikipedia articles, b) how they evaluate these tools, and c) what enhancements users suggest improving Wikipedia storytelling. Wikipedia is a popular online community where users can both access and provide information and data. Konieczny (2011) declared that Wikipedia is much more than an encyclopedia or an online portal and described it as one of the largest online communities facilitated by new information and communication technologies. Wikipedia connects volunteers, teachers, librarians, scholars, and activists (Reagle and Koerner, 2020), and consequently, collaboration and co-creation are two key concepts that characterize the overall operation of the platform. Jemielniak (2020) 1 stated that the collaboration exhibited by Wikipedia is engaging in online communities. Wikipedia comprises an online community devoted to collaboration and knowledge creation and distribution, where users' participation and contribution play a significant role in an open-access context. Developed with wiki technology, this specific online community applies various interactive storytelling approaches (data visualization, hyperlinking, images, etc.) to create a networked data poll, where the knowledge and information are connected. How users interact with Wikipedia storytelling is of research interest. It can provide insights into how this online community could be improved or what kind of interactive technologies make it easier for readers to access the platform. Improving Wikipedia's interface is likely to improve both the reading experience and broader access to the forum, knowledge, and information. New technologies, such as interactive tools can empower users and help them better absorb information and data. Even though there are many examples of research on Wikipedia, the most significant interest seems to have been given to the degree of its reliability and to how knowledge is structured and disseminated. Therefore, the present research aims to shed light on a new perspective around this popular platform. Since Wikipedia is associated with the field of Digital Humanities, I have notably chosen to study this platform as an online community and examine the interactive storytelling tools that apply to its non-fictional narratives. As a researcher, I found particular interest in exploring this online community because of its popularity and because it is a platform on which many users search for information and base their knowledge on it. Besides the reliability of the information disseminated through this community, the digital tools used and how the non-fiction narrative of the articles in this online and open-access encyclopedia can offer us handy tools for studying how interactive storytelling can apply to related projects. Examining how users of such a popular and large platform evaluate the interactive interface in its non-fiction narrative can also enrich our knowledge and understanding of the extent to which interactive tools fulfill their purpose: to help users better absorb knowledge and information. This paper displays first the broad background of this exploratory study by presenting the theoretical and research context, and then previous research conducted about Wikipedia. Afterward, in the theoretical basis sections, the theories of interactive storytelling, digital communication, social constructionism, and social sciences approaches are presented in detail to help readers get a more solid and accurate picture of the theoretical context of this investigation. In the methodology section that follows, arguments on the choice of the appropriate and more suitable research method for this investigation are declared, emphasizing both the advantages and drawbacks of the selected approach. The data presented in this exploratory study was collected with an online survey. In this specific chapter, there are details about how the survey was conducted, the data analysis method used to analyze the