User:Bluerasberry/Readership of Wikipedia
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Readership of Wikipedia is Wikipedia's audience. Various studies have described Wikipedia as the world's most popular reference source.[1] In 2007, commentators began including Wikipedia in lists of top-10 websites by web traffic.[1] Most readers arrive at Wikipedia by following a search engine, although large numbers also arrive through social media.[2] Wikipedia is remarkable as a gateway which channels its readers to examine the sources which Wikipedia editors have cited.[3] The reader click-through rate is about 1/30 for Wikipedia images[4] and 1/300 for citations.[5] Research topics in discussing Wikipedia's readers include how many people read Wikipedia, demographics of readers, reader interest in particular categories of Wikipedia articles, the extent of Wikipedia engagement among readers, how credible readers find Wikipedia, and critiques of technological tools which interact with Wikipedia to provide additional insights to readers.[1]
![Thumb image](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/e/e0/Pageviews_Analysis_2019%E2%80%9320_coronavirus_pandemic_24_March_2020.png/640px-Pageviews_Analysis_2019%E2%80%9320_coronavirus_pandemic_24_March_2020.png)
Wikipedia has a global and multilingual readership.[6] Demographics including gender, country, wealth, languages used, and educational background are predictive of reader interest.[7] Researchers have especially examined reader interest in health information on Wikipedia, and found that patients, medical students, and doctors all routinely consult Wikipedia Health information on Wikipedia.[8][9]
In Wikipedia, humans and technology combine to form a social machine which produces media.[10][11][12] Since Wikipedia is a user-generated content platform, its content contributors are a portion of the readership.[13] While much research examines Wikipedia editor behavior, there is less available research on Wikipedia's readers.[14] Part of the explanation for the lack of research on readers is that Wikipedia provides privacy to its readers, and consequently, reader click path and session time data are not generally available.[14]