Digital inequalities undermine the democratizing potential of the Internet. While many people engage in public discourse through participatory media, knowledge gaps limit engagement in the networked public sphere. Participatory web platforms have unique potential to facilitate a more equitable production of knowledge. This paper conceptualizes a pipeline of online participation and models the awareness and behaviors necessary to become a contributor to the networked public sphere. We test the theory with the case of Wikipedia editing, relying on survey data from a diverse, national sample of U.S. adults. Our findings underscore the multidimensionality of digital inequalities and suggest new pathways toward closing knowledge gaps by highlighting the importance of education and Internet skills for online stratification processes.

中文翻译：

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在线参与不平等的管道：维基百科编辑案例

数字不平等削弱了互联网的民主化潜力。虽然许多人通过参与式媒体参与公共话语，但知识差距限制了网络公共领域的参与。参与式网络平台在促进更公平的知识生产方面具有独特的潜力。本文将在线参与的管道概念化，并对成为网络公共领域贡献者所需的意识和行为进行建模。我们以维基百科编辑的案例来检验该理论，依赖于来自美国成年人的多元化全国样本的调查数据。我们的研究结果强调了数字不平等的多维性，并通过强调教育和互联网技能对在线分层过程的重要性提出了缩小知识差距的新途径。