Google and the Digital Divide

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.

• List of figures and tablesAbout the authorAcknowledgmentsPrefaceChapter 1: Power, communication and the internetCommunication and powerThe emergence of the internetThe various faces of the digital divideThe online knowledge/power nexusThe emergence of the information societyThe power of interfaces‘Informational politics’ onlineConclusionChapter 2: The structure and power of search enginesA short history of information searchThe challenge of the deep webThe challenge of the internet infrastructureInformation protection and digital ‘islands’Interest/internet conflictsControl over informational commonsThe European answerThe long tail of search enginesConclusionChapter 3: Google and the politics of online searchingGoogle’s big ideaGoogle’s search engine mechanismGoogle’s customised searchGoogle’s additional servicesGoogle ScholarGoogle TranslateGoogle’s global control by local useReinforcing online allegianceOnline manipulation and punishmentConclusionChapter 4: Users and uses of Google’s informationMethodologyData sourcesA cross-national comparisonMain classification systemReliability of coding: the hidden intentionEconomic and political value indexVariety of usesSpecificity of search indexExtent of localityInitial predictionsResults and analysisSummary and discussionChapter 5: Mass media channels and the world of Google NewsOnline transformation of media and newsCommercial motives and their implicationsGoogle World NewsDominant online statesInternational concernInternational networkThe language dimensionSummary and conclusionChapter 6: Google’s global mappingGoogle Earth and Google MapsBiases in scopeThe national security dimensionSummary and discussionChapter 7: ConclusionThe importance of information and communicationThe power of the search engine‘Googling’ and the politics of online searchInformation uses in Google and Yahoo!The world of Google NewsThe bias of Google mappingThe impact of popularisation mechanismsThe future of search enginesFrom personal advisers to global advertisersThe future of the information societyChapter 8: EpilogueAppendix A: Search engines statisticsAppendix B: Data for statistic analysisBibliographyIndex