WikiIndaba 2023/Submissions/Reading Wikipedia in Swahili, Yoruba, French, and English: Insights from Sub-Saharan Africa

Full recording of the session

ID :
Author(s): Michael Raish	Username(s): Michael Raish (WMF)	Type of submission: lecture
Author(s): Michael Raish	Affiliation: Wikimedia Foundation	Theme(s): Strategy, Readership, Diversity
Abstract: Conducted on behalf of the WMF Web team, the Reading Wikipedia project connected with readers of four sub-Saharan African Wikipedias in order to shed light on what they “think they are doing” as they read Wikipedia. The WMF Design Strategy team partnered with YUX, a Senegal-based research agency, to conduct dozens of reader interviews and deploy a large-scale survey to African readers of English, French, Yoruba, and Kiswahili Wikipedias. Focusing on readers’ motivations, the navigational structures they perceive and use, and the ways in which they store, access and share information, this project sheds new light on sub-Saharan African readers of small, medium, and large Wikipedias. For example, interviews revealed that: readers Yoruba and Kiswahili often access Wikipedia specifically because it represents a useful corpus of non-English texts—participants described reading Yoruba Wikipedia articles to non-literate relatives, and accessing Kiswahili Wikipedia to see examples of technical language used in context; readers of Yoruba and Kiswahili are often looking for content related to their cultures and languages, while readers of English and French are often searching for broader general themes; readers of all 4 languages describe a state of confusion regarding how Wikipedia works and where its content comes from; readers want access to features that they don’t currently have—several interviewed Yoruba readers had downloaded the app expecting to be granted access to additional content in Yoruba.		Level of advancement: advanced (project completed in May, 2023)
		Special requirements:
		Extra information: Presenting the results of a mixed-methods study of reader beliefs and behaviors within four sub-Saharan African Wikipedias. - Etherpad

How will this session be beneficial for the communities in the region? This presentation will highlight new findings about these African reading communities and present opportunities for future engagement by the broader Movement.

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