Academic vs. Wikipedia writing-- Genre Comparison

-- this is an essay about genre comparison for Professor Gatten's English-1010 @uconn.

My topic of the last project is about student journalism which in one of the most well-known formats as the school newspaper. This essay will look into a specific case of negative influence started by student journalists in history that lead to intense social turmoil in worldwide by using one Wikipedia source and one academic source, as well as comparing the different expression in each genre. As the scholarly article is discussing a particular topic extends from the event--to demonstrate the author's in-depth argument about this topic and primarily serves ideas for other researchers in the same or related fields. the Wikipedia page functions more like an overall review of the event-- to help unprofessional public knows what happened during then in an impersonal tone.

"The Muhammad cartoons controversy"

• Event Background

In September 2005, a Danish newspaper called Jyllands-Posten (in English means The Jutland Post) published a set of controversial cartoons portraying Muhammad that was originally produced by Gair rhydd, the student newspaper of Cardiff University. The cartoons were accused of criticism of Islam and the crisis soon expanded to intense protests around the world and even became bloody in some places. Two student journalists and the editor, in this case, got suspended but this action failed to end up the turmoil. With Danish long history of being highly tolerated to freedom of speech known by history, the dispute turned to focus on people’s rights of free speech and fear of discussing Islam in public. The cartoons were then republished in some other European countries’ newspapers by supporters standing for freedom of speech such as Germany, Sweden, Norway, Belgium, and Iceland as well as in America.

Wikipedia page:

--“Jyllands-Posten Muhammad cartoons controversy”

As one of the most common ways for people today to get to know an unfamiliar thing, looking it up on Wikipedia is the thing I do first every time. Wikipedia indeed provides an easy-reading genre of an overview of the subject presenting by multiple media ranging from reality photos and model pictures to index box and to word-condensed description paragraphs. Using these different formats of expression significantly helps to deliver information in different ways-- people who don’t want to spend a lot of time reading through the words can also just look at the index box on the right side which highlights the most basic information such as the engaged parties. The box also gives a list of related topics for someone who has specific interest can go for further research.

Just like other historical events, this wiki page obtains the most meaningful and influential moments and transitions in the “timeline” paragraphs following by the introduction part. It also has many smaller divisions such as “responses”, “international protests” and “later development” under, but all of these are just general summaries within couple lines. This wide-but-not-deep structure gives audiences a menu of an array of relevant topics spread out/divergent from this event, and let them choose what they are interested in or which topics they need to develop for further research.

 As I also noticed, writings on Wikipedia page are mostly relatively descriptive like in a way trying to maintain giving audiences information in a neutral tone. To better fit in its target audiences or the proposed function that it wants to serve, the page seldom uses technical vocabulary nor moving to any specialist area. Rather, it keeps the context tie to the surface to provide audiences a quick glance of what, when, who, how, and where of the event process. Most sources are given both in-text and with the full link at the end of the page, but just like Wikipedia itself is more of a public introduction of interest rather than scientific nor academic, the following sources are unclear of their authenticity and credibility. Moreover, it is not composed by a single author and with different editors from all different places making changes to check, correct, add, remove, and rearrange the context at different times, in another word which is similar with continuously updating. 

Academic article

--Normative interpretations of diversity: The Muhammad cartoons controversy and the importance of context (peer-reviewed.)

This article is published in Ethnicities, a journal talks about current events in sociology and politics. It is written by a single author and has the author’s university followed after his name. As to express in a clearer way, the article is divided into several smaller subtopics with each act as a specific angle to discuss the context and all linked together to state the author’s overall argument-- the different roles the context plays significantly influence our normative interpretations. This way is more like gathering evidence/clues from outside of the event to support the author's personal viewpoint. (e.g. ancient philosophers' theories, Danish policy, Muslim's culture...)

Starting with an abstract like a pre-summary that gives an overview of what is going to be discussed in the article, the first subtopic “legal liberalism” pointed out that freedom of speech is a political and moral principle for individuals act “within whatever limits set by law” (Lægaard 316). It states that this cartoon controversy is not related to the state’s regulation of speech. In the next part “self-censorship”, the author heightened that this controversy is especially significant because of the sensitive issues of Islam and Muslim and violence and terrorism rather than just take it as a simple pluralism issue. This is an example of empirical factors.  “Liberal toleration” suggests that if the Muslims can be more tolerated to the cartoon and not overinterpret it, the problems will become smaller. “Racism” tells just like many reacted Muslims might not even have looked at that cartoons but just caught by a feeling of being not respected by people in the creator's side or generally the living environment. By this, the core reason for this problem moves up to a higher sociological level instead of just about the “hurt actually felt by offended Muslims” (Lægaard 322). “Civicity” and “positive respect” parts describe some previous knowledge from consideration of positive relationships between people to keep the society stable and indicate the opposite effect of the cartoons controversy. The last part before formal conclusion is called “the importance of context”, which functions as a pre-conclusion which brings up all subtopics above again, links them all together and emphasize the author's point of writing them in this event--to demonstrate the difference in context influences where do you stand at and considering effect from which point.

• Compare the Difference

Another interesting point I found between the two sources is that usually, it is easier to identify the bias writing in Wikipedia page than in the scholarly article. One important reason might be that audiences like my lack of background knowledge to most things the author discussed in his article. For example, the article introduced many ancient philosopher’s theory, local policy and previous crisis. As an unprofessional audience, reading through the article acts as an infusion of new knowledge for me, and to accept whatever provided by the article rather than having some previous knowledge to serve as a comparison to judge the neutral tone and validity. 

Compare to the scholarly article, the Wikipedia page is more like a record or report of nature and history of the event touching on a wide range of related topics that individuals can go further. On the other side, the scholarly article on Ethnicities has already picked a specific topic and discuss in depth with various supportive sources from previous scholars as well. Because it is talking about philosophy, regional policy and other unfamiliar fields for me, I receive information in a more passive way when reading the article than when reading the Wikipedia page.

References

1. Lægaard, Sune. “Normative Interpretations of Diversity: The Muhammad Cartoons Controversy and the Importance of Context.” Ethnicities, vol. 9, no. 3, Sept. 2009, pp. 314–333, doi:10.1177/1468796809337425.
2. “Jyllands-Posten Muhammad Cartoons Controversy.” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 2 June 2019, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jyllands-Posten_Muhammad_cartoons_controversy#Publication.