Abstract

Spanish Wikipedia ranks ninth among the most consulted websites. The most frequent queries are about: celebrities (athletes, artists, politicians, etc.); movies and television series; places; or sports, among others. Many of these issues require an almost continuous update. The official policy of the Wikipedia declares that “specialized sources should have priority over the general press, since newspapers and weekly magazines tend to simplify their exposition, sometimes omitting important data or describing the subject in an encyclopedically unhelpful way”. The article analyzes the extent to which Wikipedia respects this policy by analyzing the presence of some of the most important Spanish newspaper media in Wikipedia as a source of external reference. How many articles, and what percentage, of the Spanish Wikipedia have references or citations to the Spanish digital newspapers most consulted on the internet? On what types of contents of Wikipedia, from the thematic point of view, are Spanish digital newspapers used as an external source?