Beneficial to scholars and students in the fields of media and communication, politics and technology, this book outlines the significant role of search engines in general and Google in particular in widening the digital divide between individuals, organisations and states. It uses innovative methods and research approaches to assess and illustrate the digital divide by comparing the popular search queries in Google and Yahoo in different countries as well as analysing the various biases in Google News and Google Earth. The different studies developed and presented in this book provide various…mehr
Beneficial to scholars and students in the fields of media and communication, politics and technology, this book outlines the significant role of search engines in general and Google in particular in widening the digital divide between individuals, organisations and states. It uses innovative methods and research approaches to assess and illustrate the digital divide by comparing the popular search queries in Google and Yahoo in different countries as well as analysing the various biases in Google News and Google Earth. The different studies developed and presented in this book provide various indications of the increasing customisation and popularisation mechanisms employed by popular search engines, which together with "organising the world's information inevitably also intensify information inequalities and reinforce commercial and US-centric priorities and agendas.
Elad Segev is a postdoctoral fellow and lecturer of Media and Communications at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. He dedicated his doctorate work at the Research Institute for Law, Politics and Justice at Keele University to study search engine biases. His research also deals with technology, primarily the Internet, and its social, political and cultural implications. Additionally, he serves as a visiting lecturer of new media and network theory at Ben Gurion University and Emek Yizrael Academic College in Israel.
Inhaltsangabe
List of figures and tables
About the author
Acknowledgments
Preface
Chapter 1: Power, communication and the internet
Communication and power
The emergence of the internet
The various faces of the digital divide
The online knowledge/power nexus
The emergence of the information society
The power of interfaces
'Informational politics' online
Conclusion
Chapter 2: The structure and power of search engines
A short history of information search
The challenge of the deep web
The challenge of the internet infrastructure
Information protection and digital 'islands'
Interest/internet conflicts
Control over informational commons
The European answer
The long tail of search engines
Conclusion
Chapter 3: Google and the politics of online searching
Google's big idea
Google's search engine mechanism
Google's customised search
Google's additional services
Google Scholar
Google Translate
Google's global control by local use
Reinforcing online allegiance
Online manipulation and punishment
Conclusion
Chapter 4: Users and uses of Google's information
Methodology
Data sources
A cross-national comparison
Main classification system
Reliability of coding: the hidden intention
Economic and political value index
Variety of uses
Specificity of search index
Extent of locality
Initial predictions
Results and analysis
Summary and discussion
Chapter 5: Mass media channels and the world of Google News
