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Google and the Digital Divide: The biases of online knowledge

Elad Segev, Hebrew University, Israel

Chandos Information Professional Series

 - develops an extensive historical investigation of information, power and the digital divide
 - provides new social and political perspectives to understand search engines in general and Google in particular
 - suggests original methods to study and assess the digital divide as well as the extent of commercialisation and Americanisation worldwide
 - reveals fascinating findings on popular search queries in different countries, biases in Google News and manipulations in Google Maps
 - maps the most influential and powerful actors of the information and communication global network

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.

ISBN 1 84334 565 X
ISBN-13: 978 1 84334 565 7
January 2010
256 pages  234 x 156mm  paperback  
£49.50 / US$85.00 / €60.00

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About the author

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.

Titles which may also be of interest:
Understanding the Internet
Website Visibility
Effective Information Retrieval from the Internet
A Librarian's Guide to the Internet
News Search, Blogs and Feeds

Contents

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
 - Notes

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
 - Notes

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
 - Notes

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
 - Notes

Mass media channels and the world of Google News
 - Online transformation of media and news
 - Commercial motives and their implications
 - Google World News
 - Dominant online states
 - International concern
 - International network
 - The language dimension
 - Summary and conclusion
 - Notes

Google’s global mapping
 - Google Earth and Google Maps
 - Biases in scope
 - The national security dimension
 - Summary and discussion
 - Notes

Conclusion
 - The importance of information and communication
 - The power of the search engine
 - ‘Googling’ and the politics of online search
 - Information uses in Google and Yahoo!
 - The world of Google News
 - The bias of Google mapping
 - The impact of popularisation mechanisms
 - The future of search engines
 - From personal advisers to global advertisers
 - The future of the information society
 - Notes

Epilogue