Sneha Girap (Editor)

Andrew Lih

Updated on
Edit
Like
Comment
Share on FacebookTweet on TwitterShare on LinkedInShare on Reddit
Nationality
  
American

Education
  
Columbia University

Role
  
Writer

Name
  
Andrew Lih

Alma mater
  
Columbia University



Native name
  
(simplified Chinese: 郦安治; traditional Chinese: 酈安治; pinyin: Li Anzhi)

Residence
  
Washington, District of Columbia, United States

Occupation
  
Scientist and professor

Known for
  
studying various open technology cultures, such as Wikipedia and wikimedia

Books
  
The Wikipedia Revolution: How A Bunch of Nobodies Created The World's Greatest Encyclopedia

How wikipedia solved the knowledge gap andrew lih tedxamericanuniversity


Andrew Lih (simplified Chinese: 郦安治; traditional Chinese: 酈安治; pinyin: Lì Ānzhì; born 1968) is an American new media researcher, consultant and writer, as well as an authority on both Wikipedia and internet censorship in the People's Republic of China. He is currently an associate professor of journalism at American University in Washington, D.C.

Contents

Life and career

Lih worked as a software engineer for AT&T Bell Labs from 1990 to 1993. He founded the new-media startup Mediabridge Infosystems in 1994. He also obtained a Masters degree in Computer Science from Columbia University in 1994.

From 1995 to 2000 he served as an adjunct professor of journalism at Columbia, and director of technology for their Center for New Media. In 2000 he formed Columbia's Interactive Design Lab, a collaboration with the university's School of the Arts to explore interactive design for both fiction and non-fiction, including advertising, news, documentaries and films. Soon afterward, Lih served as an assistant professor and the Director of Technology at the Journalism and Media Studies Centre of the University of Hong Kong.

He then moved to Beijing, China, where he lived until 2009. He currently lives in Washington, D.C., where he is an associate professor at American University's School of Communication.

Wikipedia activity

Lih is a veteran Wikipedia contributor and administrator on the English Wikipedia under the username Fuzheado. In 2009, he published the book The Wikipedia Revolution: How a Bunch of Nobodies Created the World's Greatest Encyclopedia. Lih has been interviewed in a variety of publications, including Salon.com, The New York Times Freakonomics blog, and NPR Talk of the Nation as an expert on Wikipedia.

Lih claims that editing Wikipedia with smartphones is difficult and this discourages new potential contributors. Lih claims several years running the number of Wikipedia editors has been falling and alleges there is serious disagreement among existing contributors how to resolve this. Lih fears these situations could imperil Wikipedia’s long term future.

Selected publications

  • Lih, Andrew (2009). The Wikipedia Revolution. New York: Hyperion. ISBN 1-4013-0371-4. OCLC 232977686. 
  • References

    Andrew Lih Wikipedia