search

I'm very happy, our new paper on the personalization of search results is out now. To our knowledge, it's the first to do empirical research in a systematic way on how personalized results actually differ from non-personalized results and interpret the results within a critical framework.

First Monday > Volume 16, Number 2 - 7 February 2011
Personal Web searching in the age of semantic capitalism: Diagnosing the mechanisms of personalisation.
Martin Feuz, Matthew Fuller, Felix Stalder

Abstract

... beide zur Politik der Suchmaschinen, einmal in Die Presse "Google ist nicht das Rote Kreuz", (11.05.2010) und einmal in ORF Futurezone "Die Herrschaft der Suchmaschinen." (08.05.2010)

Zwei Interviews und eine Buchbesprechung
1

Wie das Web 2.0 «Öffentlichkeit» neu definiert
Mit Youtube, Facebook, Google und Co. verändert sich der Begriff der Öffentlichkeit rasant. Der angesehene Soziologe Manuel Castells hat mit seiner Studie «Communication Power» eine umfassende Analyse der Veränderung der Kommunikation und der medialen Öffentlichkeit durch das Web 2.0 vorgelegt. Der Medientheoretiker Felix Stalder, der selber zu den Netzpionieren gehört, kennt Castells Thesen - und diskutiert mit Barbara Basting darüber.
www.drs2.ch Reflexe vom Fr, 9.4.2010, 28. Min.

2

“Deep Search” Politik des Suchens jenseits von Google
Die digitale Explosion konfrontiert uns seit Jahren mit einem regelrechten Daten-Tsunami. Die Suchmaschinen sind es, die uns helfen, diesen Tsunami zu beherrschen. Das Verheerende: Was wir über die Welt wissen, erfahren wir fast immer durch Google. Anders gesagt: Was Google nicht findet, existiert für viele Menschen nicht. Mit dieser Situation und ihren Implikationen beschöftigen sich Medientheoretiker, Kulturwissenschaftler, Soziologen und Politologen im Sammelband “Deep Search – Politik des Suchens jenseits von Google”. Philipp Albers hat das Buch gelesen.
http://breitband.dradio.de 26. März 2010, 10 Min.

Wenn man diese Besprechung mit der Renzension der FAZ vergleicht, muss man sich fragen, wo heute wirklich die Qualitätsmedien liegen.

Introduction¹

Google’s well-known mission is “to organize the world’s information”. It is, however, impossible to organize the world’s information without an operating model of the world. Melvil(le) Dewey (1851-1931), working at the height of Western colonial power, could simply take the Victorian world view as the basis for a universal classification system, which, for example, put all “religions other than Christianity” into a single category (no. 290). Such a biased classification scheme, for all its ongoing usefulness in libraries, cannot work in the irreducibly multi-cultural world of global communication. In fact, no uniform classification scheme can work, given the impossibility of agreeing on a single cultural framework through which to define the categories.² This, in addition to the scaling issues, is the reason why internet directories, as pioneered by Yahoo! and the Open Directory Project (demoz)³, broke down after a short-lived period of success.

Search engines side-step this problem by flexibly reorganizing the index in relation to each query and using the self-referential method of link analysis to construct the ranking of the query list (see Katja Mayer in this volume). This ranking is said to be objective, reflecting the actual topology of the network that emerges unplanned through collective action. Knowing this topology, search engines favor link-rich nodes over link-poor outliers. This objectivity is one of the core elements of search engines, since it both scales well and increases the users’ trust in the system.

Introduction

It’s hard to avoid search engines these days. They have established themselves as essential tools for navigating the dynamic, expanding informational landscape that is the Internet. The Internet’s distributed structure doesn’t allow for any centralized index or catalog; consequently, search engines fulfill a central task of making digital information accessible and thus usable. It’s hard to imagine our lives without their ever-expanding digital dimension; and so it’s increasingly hard to imagine life without search engines. This book looks at the long history of the struggle to impose order on the always-fragile information universe, addresses key social and political issues raised by today’s search engines, and envisions approaches that would break with the current paradigms they impose.

I'm extremely proud that our book on the politics of search engines is out now. I know I'm totally biased, but I really think this is a great collection of essays. And it's available in English as well as in German. Two separate books, each containing original and translated texts.

Konrad Becker/Felix Stalder (eds.). Deep Search. The Politics of Search beyond Google. Studienverlag. Distributed by Transaction Publishers, New Jersey 2009 pp. 214, ISBN 978-3706547956

“This collection gets to the heart of the most important issues concerning our global information ecosystem: Will the ‘soft power’ of one, two, or three corporations exert inordinate yet undetectable influence over what we consider important, beautiful, or true? What are the possibilities for resistance? What are the proper avenues for law, policy, and personal choices? This book walks us through these challenges like no other before it.”

Siva Vaidhyanathan, University of Virginia, author of The Googlization of Everything