1. Opening the black box of search engines Astrid Mager HUMlab, Umeå University/ Sweden Lecture @ HUMlab, April 6, 2011

2. Googlization of Everything? (Vaidhyanathan) © Joel Saget/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images Microsoft

3. Critique of search engines/ focus on implications - „Googlepoly“ (Pasquinelli) / gatekeeper of knowledge -Algorithm: ordering of knowledge based on popularity/ scientometrics (Mayer) -Business Model „service for profile“/ surveillance (Elmer/ Rogers) © http://landofthefreeish.com/© http://lonesailor.wordpress.com/

4. Opening the Black Box i)How are search engines socially constructed? - Who are the dominant actors shaping the technology? - What interests do they follow & what implications result from that? - What is expected from the future? ii) What „information politics“ do search engines trigger? - How do search engines present, hierarchize, display their results? - Who succeeds in the battle for attention? - What broader consequences does this ordering mechanism trigger?

5. Analysis I

6. Core Actor-Network Universities Start-Ups Server FarmsWebsites SEO Money Interests Skills Technology

7. Economic relations Universities Start-Ups Server FarmsWebsites SEO Money Interests Skills Technology Business Model Brand Value Advertising Spamming User Profiles Feed-Back

8. Information society/ economy Competitors Search Engines Facebook, Twitter & co. Mobile Technology Contracts User Data

9. Information society/ economy Media Activists Hacker Open source community China Street View Competitors Search Engines Facebook, Twitter & co. Mobile Technology Contracts Education Civil society Alternatives User Data

10. Information society/ economy Legislation Politics Nation states EU UNO FTC Media Activists Hacker Open source community China Street View Competitors Search Engines Facebook, Twitter & co. Mobile Technology Consumer/ Data Protection Contracts Education Civil society Alternatives User Data

11. Information society/ economy Legislation Politics Nation states EU UNO FTC Media Activists Hacker Open source community China Street View Competitors Search Engines Facebook, Twitter & co. Mobile Technology Consumer/ Data Protection Contracts Education Civil society Alternatives New Actor? Controlling Institution Foundation data protection Mediator Custodian User Data

12. First conclusions Search engine may be seen as a location where societal values are negotiated Core network is dominated by an economic logic – political, legal, cultural actors stabilize the actor-network through inaction  Incorporates the ideology of the information economy/ capitalist society  Search engine bias/ „exploitation of collective intelligence“ (Pasquinelli)/ commercialization of knowledge

13. Future developments? Not enough to blame the „Googlepoly“ (Pasquinelli)  understand the mechanisms behind power creation and stabilization  understand that we are all part of the picture Future is not set  open to debate and potential social intervention Questions to ask: Do we really want to leave the task of „organizing the world‘s information“ to a private firm with a clearly commercial agenda? Who else could/ should take part in the shaping of search technology/ the culture of search/ our access to knowledge/ construction of social reality? How could we – as a society – strengthen these actors & their interests?

14. Further info/ contact Thanks for your attention! astrid.mager@humlab.umu.se http://www.notesfromastridmager.tk/