Quantifying national information interests using the activity of Wikipedia editors (original) (raw)

We live in a "global village" where electronic communication has eliminated the geographical barriers of information exchange. With global information exchange, the road is open to worldwide convergence of opinions and interests. However, it remains unknown to what extent interests actually have become global. To address how interests differ between countries, we analyze the information exchange in Wikipedia, the largest online collaborative encyclopedia. From the editing activity in Wikipedia, we extract the interest profiles of editors from different countries. Based on a statistical null model for interest profiles, we create a network of significant links between countries with similar interests. We show that countries are divided into 18 clusters with similar interest profiles in which language, geography, and historical background polarize the interests. Despite the opportunities of global communication, the results suggest that people nevertheless care about local information.