8: Google Flashcards
Describe the origin of search engines
The origin of search engines
Initially, the web was a small place and it was easy to find what you might be looking for through guides or bibliographies of websites or even by browsing.
In 1990s, it became necessary to have better mediation between users and the world of websites
This is essentially what search engines do: mediate between users and websites based on user queries and an index automatically compiled by web crawlers
How a search engine works?
Web – Crawler (Checks through URL list) – Raw Archive – Indexing and ranking – Database – Interface – Results produced, Query form returned
An overview of Google:
Google (Sergey Brin and Larry Page) re-invented search in the 1990s with page rank algorithm and minimalist design
By July 2011, 12.5 billion of 19.2 billion search queries in US conducted by Google
OED now has a definition for “to google”
“to search for information”
Searching (with Google) has become a way of life
Hillis, Petit, Jarrett (2013) - Google and the Culture of Search
What is PageRank algorithm?
PageRank algorithm
Concept based on the assumption that hyperlinks are not just a way to get from one site to another, but can represent votes for a site or page
One page linking to another could mean that the page linked to had important information
But links are not made equal, PageRank gives a higher weight to links from sites that have a higher PageRank themselves
This approach assumes a model human searcher who independently assesses websites, but since almost all searches are now done via search engines, PageRank reinforces a Matthew effect in the ranking of pages
How is searching now a way of life? How is Google seen as apolitical?
Searching is now akin to a public utility, embedded as part of our information infrastructure
As practice they are seen as efficient and convenient.
As a result they assume invisibility and have become apolitical
But Google and any other technology is not apolitical: They operate within fields of engineering and technology development and diffusion that are in direct encounter with free market, libertarian, autocratic, democratic, utopian, and globalizing ideologies
What are the 2 factors that leads to Google’s success?
Underlining Google’s success are two factors:
- A growing feeling that everything important (informationally) is or should be on the web and should be accessible through online search
- The tendency from early days of the company to project a messianic flavour to its operations
According to Hillis, Petit and Jarrett, this has consecrated Google, making it something out of the ordinary and a perception that it is a force for good in the world
This combination of the invisibility of political nature of Google and its consecration as a “holy” object in a techno-utopia are what animate Hills, Petit, and Jarrett into a deconstructive study of Google
What does Google want to do with the world’s information?
Google wants to organize the world’s information into a universally accessible database, in other words to create a universal library
But this is very far from the first attempt at creating such an information source.
What were the previous projects on creating a universal library?
Throughout the first half of the 20th century, such projects were planned and a few undertaken
Paul Otlet and Henri la Fontaine and the Mundaneum
H.G. Wells and the World Brain
In the second half of the century:
Vannevar Bush’s Memex
Ted Nelson’s Project Xanadu
Notions of the hive mind or noosphere
What were Plato and Plotinus’s projects, and the difference between their projects and today’s?
Plato in the Timaeus writes of the demiurge that transcends all ideas, concepts and categories
Plotinus in the Enneads speaks of the Divine Mind (Nous) which is the light by which the One sees itself
The major difference is that the Ancients never believed it possible to completely achieve these aims as a concrete entity
Today, modern techno-utopians believe that is possible through electronic networks
Elaborate on the ‘Progress’ concept.
Progress is an Enlightenment (18th century) concept
The future is bound to be better than the past
The heyday of the term was the 19th century
The 20th century starting with WWI shattered the illusion, but not completely.
Technology has been and continues to be a key prop to the concept of progress
And today, networked technology is especially important
What does networked technology replace?
What are the consequences of that?
Networked technology replaces politics, especially in the US, as a means to attain a better future
To many, Google represents a paradigm of efficiency and common sense far removed and better than the political world
What is ignored is the political and technological choices made in the past that have crippled political projects (the rise of the network society)
How is Google associated with magic?
Most searchers don’t have a clue how Google works. For them, the search box is also a black box.
Hillis, Petit and Jarrett: “an altar on which the ritual of search is enacted”
This creates an aura of magic or godhead
Arthur C. Clarke: “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic”
Which may not just be a false consciousness. We may want or even need to believe in the apotheosis of technology “because we need to believe in progress in order not to despair”
How does Google gain power through privacy?
Google’s database potentially contains an index of each searcher’s interests and activities on a real-time basis.
The more searches we perform the more the algorithms “know us” and can predict what we will do next
This political power is enhanced because Google owns Doubleclick which provides user metrics and tracking abilities on any site where Google advertising appears
76% of websites have trackers deployed by Google
Elaborate on Google’s access to information.
Access to information
Unprecedented control over people’s access to information. Page Rank algorithm is proprietary and constantly changing - 400 changes made in 2010 alone
The entire apparatus has achieved such complexity that it is no longer possible to know exactly how any given change affects the algorithmic matrix as a whole
And “faith in Google” means that people only look at first page of search results
We assume that Google is taking the job of gatekeeper seriously just like teachers and journalists
Examination and critique of Google’s power is necessary because increasingly “if you are not on Google you don’t exist”
Haigh (2006) estimates that 70% of the web “is effectively censored as its obscurity is determined not by its relevance or potential importance to society but solely by its overall popularity”
