What do search engines do? And what should they do? These questions seem relatively simple but are actually urgent social and ethical issues. The influence of Google's search engine is enormous. It does not only shape how Internet users find pages on the World Wide Web, but how we think as individuals, how we collectively remember the past, and how we communicate with one another. This book explores the impact of search engines within contemporary digital culture, focusing on the social, cultural, and philosophical influence of Google.
Using case studies like Google's role in the rise of fake news, instances of sexist and misogynistic Autocomplete suggestions, and search queries relating to LGBTQ+ values, it offers original evidence to intervene practically in existing debates. It also addresses other understudied aspects of Google's influence, including the profound implications of its revenue generation for wider society. In doing this, this important book helps to evaluate the real cost of search engines on an individual and global scale.
Author(s): Rosie Graham
Series: Bloomsbury Studies in Digital Cultures
Publisher: Bloomsbury Academic
Year: 2023
Language: English
Pages: 252
City: London
Half Title
Series Page
Title Page
Copyright Page
Dedication
Contents
Illustrations
Acknowledgements
Introduction: Investigating Google’s Search Engine
Google’s dominance
The three steps of how search engines work: Crawling, ranking, and query results
Step one: Crawling
Step two: Ranking
Step three: Query results
Five key challenges of studying Google’s search engine
One: Multiple actors: Search engine optimization and economic incentives
Two: Moving targets
Three: Each search a partial viewpoint
Four: No real alternatives
Five: The myth of black boxes
Chapter outlines
Chapter 1: Understanding Google queries and the problem of intentions
Chapter 2: Google’s impact on cognition and memory: Histories, concepts, and technosocial practices
Chapter 3: Autocomplete: Stereotypes, biases, and designed discrimination
Chapter 4: Google’s search engine results: What is a relevant result?
Chapter 5: The real cost of search engines: Digital advertising, linguistic capitalism, and the rise of fake news
Notation and examples
Chapter 1: Understanding Google Queries and the Problem of Intentions
Introduction
Categorizing how and what people search
The roles of search engines and information retrieval’s question of why
Query length and the problems of intention
All information is ethical: Searching for [food for snakes]
Predicting intentions with a lack of information: Plato, Gadamer, and Derrida
Gadamer’s hermeneutics and Plato’s fears of deception
Google’s algorithms and Derrida’s monster
What kinds of things do people search Google for?
Google trends, Brexit, and ‘frantically’ googling after the EU referendum
Conclusion
Chapter 2: Google’s Impact on Cognition and Memory: Histories, Concepts, and Technosocial Practices
Introduction
Google’s impact on cognition and memory
Kinds of recall from extended minds to transactive memory
Technosocial memory practices from oral culture to digital literacy
The legacy of naturalized technologies
Truth and knowledge for Plato
Aristotle’s sensory approach
Technosocial memory before Google: The Ars Memoria
The science and magic of search
Treating the mind as technology: Bacon, Hooke, and modern psychology
Conclusion
Chapter 3: Autocomplete: Stereotypes, Biases, and Designed Discrimination
Introduction
The desire for a digital oracle
Autocomplete’s minimal academic attention
The biases of autocomplete: Stereotypes and discrimination
Predicting and shaping user attitudes: The origins of Autocomplete
So, how does Autocomplete operate?
Second-order stereotyping: Sexist suggestions for female scientists
RankBrain and the biases of machine learning
Automated misogyny for every individual
Speed
Speed and judgement: Time to reflect
Conclusion
Chapter 4: Google’s Search Engine Results: What Is a Relevant Result?
Introduction
‘Quantifiable signals’ and Malawian witch doctors
What should search engine results be?
The Idealists: Search is democratic, relevance can be measured objectively, and answers can exist independently of bias
The difficulty with measuring relevance
The Contextualists: Search is undemocratic, relevance is a measure of personalization, and all answers are inherently biased
Are search results personalized?
Methodological challenges of studying search engines
Particular considerations for collecting search engine results
Variables that matter: Search experiments in 2015, 2017, and 2021
The rationale behind focusing on same-sex sexual orientation
Queries used
Capturing the spread of results from the first page
Evaluation method
Google’s public position on how they provide results
Summary of 2015 results
How do variations in terminology and phrasing alter search results?
Unimaginable communities
How search results change throughout time: 2015, 2017, and 2021
Longitudinal overview: Official languages in each domain
Terminology throughout time: ‘Homosexual’ versus ‘gay’
Phrasing throughout time: ‘Good’ versus ‘wrong’
Conclusion
Chapter 5: The Real Cost of Search Engines: Digital Advertising, Linguistic Capitalism, and the Rise of Fake News
Introduction
The economics of Google
The context of post-Fordism
AdWords: Organic versus sponsored results
AdWords: The multilingual linguistic market and an economy of bias
Google’s institutionalization, data collection, and advertising
AdWords in the context of ‘The Magic System’
AdWords and the general intellect
The economic profits of discrimination
Private profits and public losses
Google’s international expansion
AdSense and post-Fordism: The cost of Google’s billboards
AdSense and fake news in the 2016 US presidential election
The reciprocal relationship between AdSense and Facebook
Conclusion
Conclusion: What If Search Engines Were Actually Built to Benefit Users?
Bibliography
Index
