Europe’s online encyclopaedias: Equal access to knowledge of general interest?

Please note: Each In-Depth Analysis is assigned a DOI (digital object identifier), which is a safe and long term way of ensuring a hyperlink to the full text of this report. However, when ESO creates this record, on occasion the DOI still has not been activated by the EU Bookshop. If you find the source url hyperlink does not work please use the alternative location hyperlink listed as a related url.The post-fact era – in which emotions trump evidence, while trust in institutions, expertise and mainstream media is declining – is putting our information ecosystem under strain. At a time when information is increasingly being manipulated for ideological and economic purposes, public access to source of trustworthy general-interest knowledge – such as national online encyclopaedias – can help boost our cognitive resilience. Basic, reliable background information about history, culture, society and politics is an essential part of our societies' complex knowledge ecosystem, and an important tool for any citizen searching for knowledge, facts and figures.

• Primary Source

European Parliament: European Parliamentary Research Service: In-Depth Analysis, January 2018: Europe's online encyclopaedias: Equal access to knowledge of general interest? http://www.europarl.europa.eu/RegData/etudes/IDAN/2018/614657/EPRS_IDA(2018)614657_EN.pdf

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