Google and the Digital Divide

Beneficial to scholars and students in the fields of media and communication, politics and technology, this book outlines the significant role of search engines in general and Google in particular in widening the digital divide between individuals, organisations and states. It uses innovative methods and research approaches to assess and illustrate the digital divide by comparing the popular search queries in Google and Yahoo in different countries as well as analysing the various biases in Google News and Google Earth. The different studies developed and presented in this book provide various indications of the increasing customisation and popularisation mechanisms employed by popular search engines, which together with "organising the world's information? inevitably also intensify information inequalities and reinforce commercial and US-centric priorities and agendas.

• Develops an extensive historical investigation of information, power and the digital divide
• Provides new social and political perspectives to understand search engines in general and Google in particular

• Suggests original methods to study and assess the digital divide as well as the extent of commercialisation and Americanisation worldwide

  Autorentext

  Elad Segev is a postdoctoral fellow and lecturer of Media and Communications at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. He dedicated his doctorate work at the Research Institute for Law, Politics and Justice at Keele University to study search engine biases. His research also deals with technology, primarily the Internet, and its social, political and cultural implications. Additionally, he serves as a visiting lecturer of new media and network theory at Ben Gurion University and Emek Yizrael Academic College in Israel.

  Inhalt

  Power, communication and the internet; The structure and power of search engines; Google and the politics of online searching; Users and uses of Google�s information; Mass media channels and the world of Google News; Google�s global mapping; Conclusion; Epilogue.