Towards a political economy of technical systems: The case of Google

Rieder, Bernhard

doi:10.1177/20539517221135162

Cited by 10 publications

(11 citation statements)

References 8 publications

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“…Google Search works to connect various imaginaries and materialities of the different involved actors, so that their heterogeneous relations are folded together in ways that create these ignorances. In all four vignettes, as illustrated in Table 1 in the section Materials and methods above, these ignorances result from the interplay of developers, advertisers, content producers, end-users and all these actors’ decisions, but also of algorithms, data traces, user interfaces and further technical elements (Rieder, 2022). For content producers, advertisers, service providers and others, the popularity of Google Search makes this search engine the primary means of rendering content and themselves visible, increasingly in conjunction with Google Maps.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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

Haider

Rödl

2023

Big Data & Society

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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.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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

Haider

Rödl

2023

Big Data & Society

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“…She uses the metaphor of the "platformization tree" to describe how big tech companies exert and extend their hegemonic power on all levels of digital infrastructures (Van Dijck 2021a: 2805-2807. The roots of the tree consist of computer hardware, cables, Internet protocols and the like, the trunk includes internet services and software comprising web browsers, search engines, social networking platforms, online advertising, and, finally, the branches of the tree encompass sectoral applications that are built on top of it (see also Rieder's (2022) analysis of the political economy of technical systems in this regard). US-American tech companies (Google, Apple, Facebook, and Amazon (GAFA)), but increasingly also Chinese companies (including Baidu, Alibaba, and Tencent (BAT)) successfully managed to occupy and shape large parts of the trunk, which makes them indispensable parts of connected ecosystems.…”

Section: Politics Of Scaling and European Valuesmentioning

confidence: 99%

European Search? How to counter-imagine and counteract hegemonic search with European search engine projects

Mager

2023

Big Data & Society

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This article investigates how developers of alternative search engines challenge increasingly corporate imaginaries of digital futures by building out counter-imaginaries of search engines devoted to social values instead of mere profit maximization. Drawing on three in-depth case studies of European search engines, it analyzes how search engine developers counter-imagine hegemonic search, what social values support their imaginaries, and how they are intertwined with their sociotechnical practices. This analysis shows that notions like privacy, independence, and openness appear to be fluid, context-dependent, and changing over time, leading to a certain “value pragmatics” that allows the projects to scale beyond their own communities of practice. It further shows how European values, and broader notions of Europe as “unified or pluralistic,” are constructed and co-produced with developers’ attempts to counter-imagine and counteract hegemonic search. To conclude, I suggest three points of intervention that may help alternative search engine projects, and digital technologies more generally, to not only make their counter-imaginaries more powerful, but also acquire the necessary resources to build their technologies and infrastructures accordingly. I finally discuss how “European values,” in all their richness and diversity, can contribute to this undertaking.

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“…While there is research focusing on EU's digital innovation policies and the sociotechnical imaginaries surrounding them (Barais and Katzenbach, 2022; Krarup and Horst, 2023; Mager, 2017; Mager and Katzenbach, 2021; Ulnicane, 2021), relatively less is known about technology projects and infrastructures developed in Europe. Such a paucity should be addressed, given the burgeoning interest over the past few years in building European digital technologies and platforms to address the dominant American and Chinese “platform ecosystems” and their infrastructural power (Rieder, 2022; Van Dijck 2021a; 2021b). In fact, there are a number of European technology projects in the pipeline, often below the radar of public attention and overshadowed by Silicon Valley rhetoric.…”

Section: Tracing European Interventionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Accordingly, not only the accumulated data, but especially the large-scale measurements and metrics conducted by platforms like Google, and their advertising networks, enable the commodification or “assetization” of audiences and user engagement (Birch et al, 2021). 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).…”

Section: From Pagerank To “Assetization” Of Audiences: Articulating G...mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…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).…”

Section: Contemporary Google Studies: Special Issue Contributionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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

2023

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In this piece, which frames the special issue, “The State of Google Critique and Intervention,” we provide an overview of research focusing on Google as an object of critical study, fleshing out the European interventions that actively attempt to address its dominance. The article begins by mapping out key areas of articulating a Google critique, from the initial focus on ranking and profiling to the subsequent scrutiny of user exploitation and competitive imbalance. As such, it situates the contributions to this special issue concerning search engine bias and discrimination, the ethics of Google Autocomplete, Google's content moderation, the commodification of engine audiences and the political economy of technical systems in a broader history of Google criticism. It then proceeds to contextualize the European developments that put forward alternatives and draws attention to legislative efforts to curb the influence of big tech. We conclude by identifying a few avenues for continued critical study, such as Google's infrastructural bundling of generative artificial intelligence with existing products, to emphasize the importance of intervention in the future.

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Towards a political economy of technical systems: The case of Google

Cited by 10 publications

References 8 publications

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

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

European Search? How to counter-imagine and counteract hegemonic search with European search engine projects

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

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