How Do Search Engines Work?
It’s my biggest fear. The one that keeps me up at night.
With the power of all knowledge available to the world, humans love to take shortcuts. And the shortest of shortcuts is the Google Knowledge Graph. Yes, you see it every day, every time you search.
The Knowledge Graph combines information from websites that other Google users have found useful, like the answer to the question, “Who invented homework?” Now, for many topics, Google presents you with “the answer” to your query. You do not even need to click on a external website link.The Knowledge Graph relies on an artificial intelligence algorithm to construct these summaries.
More than 50% of all searches begin and end with Google
Why is the Knowledge Graph controversial? As this type of information becomes instantly available to users without the need to seek out external websites, users will not bother visiting individual websites at all. If people get used to getting “the answer” from Google without a real understanding of how that knowledge was constructed and selected, they may become vulnerable to forms of bias and propaganda that can be embedded in algorithms.
They may lose track of the key media literacy idea that all media messages are constructed, and that these messages are always selective and incomplete. They may stop developing the skills of integrating and synthesizing from multiple sources, which are practices at the heart of creating new knowledge.
So that’s what keeps me up at night, wondering how to prevent this problem.
This week we’re exploring the question, “How do search engines work?” and we’ll dig deep into algorithmic personalization of entertainment, journalism and persuasion. Listen to this podcast to get a sense of what and how we are tackling this important subject:
Also, check out the Twitter List to meet the amazing students of #COM250
References
Hobbs, R. (2021). Chapter 3. How Do Search Engines Work? Media Literacy in Action. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield.
