Search Engine Society

Search Engine Society
Author: Alexander Halavais
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
Total Pages: 240
Release: 2017-11-27
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1509516867

Search engines have become a key part of our everyday lives. Yet there is growing concern with how algorithms, which run just beneath the surface of our interactions online, are affecting society. This timely new edition of Search Engine Society enlightens readers on the forms of bias that algorithms introduce into our knowledge and social spaces, drawing on recent changes to technology, industries, policies, and research. It provides an introduction to the social place of the search engine and addresses crucial questions such as: How have search engines changed the way we organize our thoughts about the world, and how we work? To what extent do politics shape search, and does search shape politics? This book is a must-read for those who wish to understand the future of the social internet and how search shapes it.

Search Engine Society

Search Engine Society
Author: Alexander Halavais
Publisher: Polity
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2017-11-20
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 9781509516827

Search engines have become a key part of our everyday lives. Yet there is growing concern with how algorithms, which run just beneath the surface of our interactions online, are affecting society. This timely new edition of Search Engine Society enlightens readers on the forms of bias that algorithms introduce into our knowledge and social spaces, drawing on recent changes to technology, industries, policies, and research. It provides an introduction to the social place of the search engine and addresses crucial questions such as: How have search engines changed the way we organize our thoughts about the world, and how we work? To what extent do politics shape search, and does search shape politics? This book is a must-read for those who wish to understand the future of the social internet and how search shapes it.

Invisible Search and Online Search Engines

Invisible Search and Online Search Engines
Author: Jutta Haider
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 247
Release: 2019-03-04
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 0429828012

Invisible Search and Online Search Engines considers the use of search engines in contemporary everyday life and the challenges this poses for media and information literacy. Looking for mediated information is mostly done online and arbitrated by the various tools and devices that people carry with them on a daily basis. Because of this, search engines have a significant impact on the structure of our lives, and personal and public memories. Haider and Sundin consider what this means for society, whilst also uniting research on information retrieval with research on how people actually look for and encounter information. Search engines are now one of society’s key infrastructures for knowing and becoming informed. While their use is dispersed across myriads of social practices, where they have acquired close to naturalised positions, they are commercially and technically centralised. Arguing that search, searching, and search engines have become so widely used that we have stopped noticing them, Haider and Sundin consider what it means to be so reliant on this all-encompassing and increasingly invisible information infrastructure. Invisible Search and Online Search Engines is the first book to approach search and search engines from a perspective that combines insights from the technical expertise of information science research with a social science and humanities approach. As such, the book should be essential reading for academics, researchers, and students working on and studying information science, library and information science (LIS), media studies, journalism, digital cultures, and educational sciences.

Understanding Search Engines

Understanding Search Engines
Author: Dirk Lewandowski
Publisher: Springer Nature
Total Pages: 297
Release: 2023-03-07
Genre: Computers
ISBN: 3031227891

This book provides a broad introduction to search engines by integrating five different perspectives on Web search and search engines that are usually dealt with separately: the technical perspective, the user perspective, the internet-based research perspective, the economic perspective, and the societal perspective. After a general introduction to the topic, two foundational chapters present how search tools can cover the Web’s content and how search engines achieve this by crawling and processing the found documents. The next chapter on user behavior covers how people phrase their search queries and interact with search engines. This knowledge builds the foundation for describing how results are ranked and presented. The following three chapters then deal with the economic side of search engines, i.e., Google and the search engine market, search engine optimization (SEO), and the intermingling of organic and sponsored search results. Next, the chapter on search skills presents techniques for improving searches through advanced search interfaces and commands. Following that, the Deep Web and how its content can be accessed is explained. The two subsequent chapters cover ways to improve the quality of search results, while the next chapter describes how to access the Deep Web. Last but not least, the following chapter deals with the societal role of search engines before the final chapter concludes the book with an outlook on the future of Web search. With this book, students and professionals in disciplines like computer science, online marketing, or library and information science will learn how search engines work, what their main shortcomings are at present, and what prospects there are for their further development. The different views presented will help them to understand not only the basic technologies but also the implications the current implementations have concerning economic exploitation and societal impact.

Next Generation Search Engines: Advanced Models for Information Retrieval

Next Generation Search Engines: Advanced Models for Information Retrieval
Author: Jouis, Christophe
Publisher: IGI Global
Total Pages: 560
Release: 2012-03-31
Genre: Computers
ISBN: 1466603313

Recent technological progress in computer science, Web technologies, and the constantly evolving information available on the Internet has drastically changed the landscape of search and access to information. Current search engines employ advanced techniques involving machine learning, social networks, and semantic analysis. Next Generation Search Engines: Advanced Models for Information Retrieval is intended for scientists and decision-makers who wish to gain working knowledge about search in order to evaluate available solutions and to dialogue with software and data providers. The book aims to provide readers with a better idea of the new trends in applied research.

(Dis)Obedience in Digital Societies

(Dis)Obedience in Digital Societies
Author: Sven Quadflieg
Publisher: transcript Verlag
Total Pages: 383
Release: 2022-03-31
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 3732857638

Algorithms are not to be regarded as a technical structure but as a social phenomenon - they embed themselves, currently still very subtle, into our political and social system. Algorithms shape human behavior on various levels: they influence not only the aesthetic reception of the world but also the well-being and social interaction of their users. They act and intervene in a political and social context. As algorithms influence individual behavior in these social and political situations, their power should be the subject of critical discourse - or even lead to active disobedience and to the need for appropriate tools and methods which can be used to break the algorithmic power.

Web Search

Web Search
Author: Amanda Spink
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
Total Pages: 349
Release: 2008-09-16
Genre: Computers
ISBN: 3540758291

Web search engines are not just indispensable tools for finding and accessing information online, but have become a defining component of the human condition and can be conceptualized as a complex behavior embedded within an individual's everyday social, cultural, political, and information-seeking activities. This book investigates Web search from the non-technical perspective, bringing together chapters that represent a range of multidisciplinary theories, models, and ideas.

Health Data in the Information Society

Health Data in the Information Society
Author: György Surján
Publisher: IOS Press
Total Pages: 870
Release: 2002
Genre: Medical
ISBN: 9781586032791

MIE 2002 is the XVIIth international conference of the European Federation of Medical Informatics. Today, mankind builds up the information society, enabled by the underlying rapid development in computer technology. The significance of the spread of the internet is comparable to the significance of Gutenberg's invention. On one hand it both helps dissemination of data and knowledge and sharing of ideas. On the other hand the achievements may divide the society, as did non-literacy deprive many people from knowledge throughout centuries. Today millions of people are isolated from an incredibly large amount of information because of "computer non-literacy," and a new elite mastering the information society has appeared. However, the ease of production and dissemination of information may foster thoughtless communication, and has lead to a flood of information and disinformation. We have to learn how to behave in this new situation, in which the dissemination of information - at an international level - is totally uncontrolled. In the area of medical or health informatics these questions are more serious. Lack of information, false or inadequate information, as well as improper interpretation of accurate information may seriously harm patients. And the process may go out of control of the physician, i.e. patients can "treat" themselves just by visiting some health sites on the net. Everybody may throw a message in a bottle in information flood, and everybody may pick up messages at any time. Can we do anything to ensure that all messages are valid? Can we guarantee that our messages reach the intended audience? Can we secure that content has not changed on its way? Do we know that people getting our messages will interpret them correctly? Are we able to understand the intention of a sender, when we get a message totally out of context? These questions build up the framework of MIE2002.

Society and the Internet

Society and the Internet
Author: Mark Graham
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 423
Release: 2019-07-24
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 0192590650

How is society being reshaped by the continued diffusion and increasing centrality of the Internet in everyday life and work? Society and the Internet provides key readings for students, scholars, and those interested in understanding the interactions of the Internet and society. This multidisciplinary collection of theoretically and empirically anchored chapters addresses the big questions about one of the most significant technological transformations of this century, through a diversity of data, methods, theories, and approaches. Drawing from a range of disciplinary perspectives, Internet research can address core questions about equality, voice, knowledge, participation, and power. By learning from the past and continuing to look toward the future, it can provide a better understanding of what the ever-changing configurations of technology and society mean, both for the everyday life of individuals and for the continued development of society at large. This second edition presents new and original contributions examining the escalating concerns around social media, disinformation, big data, and privacy. Following a foreword by Manual Castells, the editors introduce some of the key issues in Internet Studies. The chapters then offer the latest research in five focused sections: The Internet in Everyday Life; Digital Rights and Human Rights; Networked Ideas, Politics, and Governance; Networked Businesses, Industries, and Economics; and Technological and Regulatory Histories and Futures. This book will be a valuable resource not only for students and researchers, but for anyone seeking a critical examination of the economic, social, and political factors shaping the Internet and its impact on society.

Genealogy Online For Dummies

Genealogy Online For Dummies
Author: Matthew L. Helm
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
Total Pages: 432
Release: 2014-02-03
Genre: Computers
ISBN: 111880810X

A guide to conducting genealogical research is updated to cover the latest online tools including social networks and mobile apps to explain how to trace ancestral histories, locate family members and get information from government records.