'Wikipedia is under political attack': new book explores the future of knowledge in the AI era
Dr Giota Alevizou’s new book, The Web of Knowledge, shines a spotlight on how encyclopedias transform the act of knowing.
Dr Giota Alevizou and her new book, The Web of Knowledge. Photo: Iryna Rodina
The Web of Knowledge: Encyclopedias and Authority in the Digital Age by Dr Giota Alevizou, Lecturer in Digital Humanities and Culture in the Department of Digital Humanities at King’s, was published in February 2026 by Polity.
The book looks at how encyclopedias – from Britannica to Wikipedia – have evolved across four eras of digital transformation and how they continue to structure what becomes visible and credible online. For Dr Giota Alevizou, they are not only reference objects, but ‘infrastructural, interfacial and orientational media’ that shape the conditions of how we access knowledge.
Knowledge has never been neutral, but we are at the moment when that stops being a philosophical observation and becomes a political emergency. The thirty-year genealogy of digital encyclopedias reveals that every transition – from Britannica to Encarta, from Encarta to Wikipedia, from Wikipedia to LLMs – has been a reorganisation of power: who owns knowledge, who produces it, what counts as credible, and crucially, who bears the cost when it goes wrong.
Dr Giota Alevizou, Lecturer in Digital Humanities and Culture
Dr Giota Alevizou's new book, The Web of Knowledge. Photo: Iryna Rodina
Using real-life examples, The Web of Knowledge demonstrates how technological shifts have reshaped the creation, editing and governance of encyclopedic knowledge. It shows how volunteers, professionals and automated systems interact, how digital formats alter the presentation of information, and how encyclopedias influence everything from classrooms to everyday searches.
Wikipedia sits at the centre of Dr Giota Alevizou’s analysis. ‘Wikipedia is a living archive of democratic knowledge; its authority is derived not from wealth or branding but from a decentralised ethos of verification, transparency, and public labour,’ the author says.
Jimmy Wales, co-founder of Wikipedia, contributed the foreword.
Giota’s work lays out the intricate dance of socio-economic structures, ownership, governance, and values that have defined these transitions, underscoring how platforms like Wikipedia became arenas where rules were redefined and norms re-evaluated. Through her analysis, it’s clear that Wikipedia’s ongoing relevance lies in its role as a unique interface between user-driven creation and rigorous information evaluation. Even amidst the AI-driven algorithmic shifts that redefine authority and expertise today, Wikipedia continues to symbolize an ideal of collective intelligence and participatory culture, and to be dedicated to the democratization of knowledge.
Jimmy Wales, internet entrepreneur, Wikipedia co-founder
Wikipedia, Dr Alevizou warns, is at a crossroads. It is under political attack targeting its decentralised verification model and risks AI appropriation and model collapse.
Wikipedia's centrality in the digital knowledge ecosystem has made it a silent workhorse for AI development. This dynamic reflects a broader asymmetry between commons-based knowledge infrastructures and the profit-driven AI industry... it increasingly serves as a data substrate for proprietary systems, effectively enclosing the commons within computational models that lack both transparency and reciprocity.
Dr Giota Alevizou, Lecturer in Digital Humanities and Culture
Professor Robin Mansell speaking at the Web of Knowledge launch event. Photo: Iryna Rodina
The book reflects on how encyclopedias serve as informational media today and discusses their continued relevance in public communication and culture.
Authority is negotiated. Plurality is procedural. Disagreement is productive. Knowledge requires human intervention. Wikipedia’s significance lies not in what it contains, but in how it structures the act of knowing: as a social, negotiated, and procedural encounter.
Dr Giota Alevizou, Lecturer in Digital Humanities and Culture
The Web of Knowledge, Dr Giota Alevizou says, is essential reading for students and scholars of digital media, platform studies, and the political economy of knowledge.
