Introducing an “invisible enemy”: A case study of knowledge construction regarding microplastics in Japanese Wikipedia

Abstract

Microplastics, a novel global environmental problem, has become a fast-developing research field with worldwide investments. With scientific development, social science studies are expected to contribute to developing more effective communication on microplastics. Among various media, this article focused on Wikipedia and discussed one particular situation—when the language of Wikipedia differs from the language of mainstream information sources. Inspired by actor network theory, we analyzed the revision history of the Japanese Wikipedia article on microplastics from 2014 to 2020 and elucidated how knowledge of microplastics was textually constructed. We found editors’ reluctance to disprove and update the latest scientific knowledge in edit actions, as well as problems and flaws existing in the created knowledge that shows limited enforcement of Wikipedia policies. Based on the findings, we urge more attention to improving the public knowledge of fast-developing science, especially when the knowledge construction might encounter a cross-language context.