Democratization of knowledge

The democratization of knowledge is the acquisition and spread of knowledge amongst a wider part of the population, not just elite groups such as clergy, professionals, or academia. Mass literacy, the printing press, public libraries, television, and modern information technology such as the Internet have played a key role, as they provide the masses with open access to information through a variety of means.

Wide dissemination of knowledge is inseparable from the spread of literacy.^{[citation needed]}

The Information Age is a historical period that began in the mid-20th century. It is characterized by a rapid shift from traditional industries, as established during the Industrial Revolution, to an economy centered on information technology.

Digitization efforts by Google Books have been pointed to as an example of the democratization of knowledge, but Malte Herwig in Der Spiegel raised concerns that the virtual monopoly Google has in the search market, combined with Google's hiding of the details of its search algorithms, could undermine this move towards democratization.

Google Scholar (and similar scholarly search services) and Sci-Hub (and similar scholarly shadow libraries) have also been pointed to as examples of democratization of knowledge.

Open Library's and HathiTrust's digitization efforts and their use of the controlled digital lending model are also examples of democratization of knowledge.

After the most powerful search engine, Google, and the most viewed online encyclopedia, Wikipedia, the most viewed information-based website is the Encyclopædia Britannica.

Large language models like ChatGPT or Google Gemini have also been shown as examples of democratization of knowledge.^{[citation needed]}