Google Search and the creation of ignorance: The case of the climate crisis

Abstract

The article examines the relationship between commercial search engines, using Google Search as an example, and various forms of ignorance related to climate change. It draws on concepts from the field of agnotology to explore how environmental ignorances, and specifically related to the climate crisis, are shaped at the intersection of the logics of Google Search, everyday life and civil society/politics. Ignorance refers to a multi-facetted understanding of the culturally contingent ways in which something may not be known. Two research questions are addressed: How are environmental ignorances, and in particular related to the climate crisis, shaped at the intersection of the logics of Google Search, everyday life and civil society/politics? In what ways can we conceptualise Google's role as configured into the creation of ignorances? The argument is made through four vignettes, each of which explores and illustrates how Google Search is configured into a different kind of socially produced ignorance: (1) Ignorance through information avoidance: climate anxiety; (2) Ignorance through selective choice: gaming search terms; (3) Ignorance by design: algorithmically embodied emissions; (4) Ignorance through query suggestions: directing people to data voids. The article shows that while Google Search and its underlying algorithmic and commercial logic pre-figure these ignorances, they are also co-created and co-maintained by content producers, users and other human and non-human actors, as Google Search has become integral of social practices and ideas about them. The conclusion draws attention to a new logic of ignorance that is emerging in conjunction with a new knowledge logic.

Advancing search engine studies: The evolution of Google critique and intervention

“…This special issue collects five original research articles (Haider and Rödl, 2023; Mager, 2023; Norocel and Lewandowski, 2023; Ridgway, 2023; Rogers, 2023) and two invited commentaries (Graham, 2023; Rieder, 2022), all of which are devoted to the state of Google critique and intervention by engaging critically with its study as well as prospecting for alternatives. Three contributions focus on search engine bias and discrimination in the context of right-wing extremism (Norocel and Lewandowski, 2023), Google Autocomplete (Graham, 2023), and content moderation (Rogers, 2023).…”

“…Reflecting these concerns in this special issue, the commercial dynamics of Google are traced back to Brin's and Page's first description of their PageRank algorithm (Ridgway, 2023) and embedded in the political economy of “technical systems” (Rieder, 2022). Moreover, the study of Google audiences, particularly the means by which the engine directs attention, contributes not only to what is visible and amplified, but also to ignorance (Haider and Rödel, 2023).…”

The changing role of nation states in online content governance: A case of Google's handling of government removal requests

“…As digital platforms mediate our daily lives, their corporate purveyors have effectively accumulated platform power and sought economic, cultural, and political influences in society. It is worth noting that Google Search has come under scrutiny by researchers who contend that it lacks algorithmic transparency and sometimes creates “data voids” (Haider & Rödl, 2023; Steiner et al, 2022). However, these corporations have argued that their platforms are simply “the conduits for communication activities of others” (Flew, Martin, & Suzor, 2019, p. 45).…”

“…Building upon previous studies that divide the governance of digital platforms into three eras, namely, the eras of "rights", "public health," and "process" in Bowers and Zittrain (2020) and the stages of "libertarian Internet," "platformized Internet," and "regulated Internet" in Flew (2021), this study investigates how one of the most influential digital platforms, Google, has handled government removal requests from 2009 to 2021. 1 Google has become an integral part of our lives, albeit with varying degrees of influence in different countries and as Haider and Rödl (2023) aptly noted, "the platform must be understood as a key participant in the creation of meaning in society" (p. 2). By sketching the regulatory terrain of Google as a case study, this study seeks a more balanced understanding of content moderation.…”

Managing Information Gaps and Non‐Information

“…Specifically, she elucidates how different expressions of ignorance associated with climate change, including productive, necessary, strategic, manipulative, as well as destructive ones, are coconstituted by algorithmic systems and various datafication imperatives. Haider argues that this gives rise to complex and layered, yet specific, sociotechnical and socio-political configurations that she proposes to conceptualise as "networked silences" (Haider et al, 2022;Haider & Rödl, 2023). Jutta Haider is Professor at the Swedish School of Library and Information Science (SSLIS).…”