Search Engine Society / Edition 2

by Alexander Halavais

Overview

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.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781509516834
Publisher:	Polity Press
Publication date:	12/11/2017
Series:	Digital Media and Society
Edition description:	2nd ed.
Pages:	240
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.60(h) x 1.00(d)

About the Author

Alexander Halavais is Associate Professor of Social Technologies at Arizona State University.

Table of Contents

• Introduction
• Chapter 1: The Engines
• Chapter 2: Searching
• Chapter 3: Sociable Search
• Chapter 4: Attention
• Chapter 5: Knowledge and Democracy
• Chapter 6: Control
• Chapter 7: Privacy
• Chapter 8: Future Finding
• Notes
• Glossary
• Bibliography
• Index

Editorial Reviews

Alex Halavais has done us a great favor with this book. He explains lucidly what is at stake in the emerging ‘Search Engine Society’. This book is destined to be a central work in the field of digital media studies for many years.”
Siva Vaidhyanathan, University of Virginia

“Too many of us approach search engines as if they are neutral, democratic, all-revealing guides to the internet. Alex Halavais shows that this belief can actually be dangerous, and he provocatively suggests ways to rethink our personal and collective policies toward search systems in the interest of a healthy civic culture.”
Joseph Turow, University of Pennsylvania

From the Publisher