Making the invisible visible: Critical discourse analysis as a tool for search engine research

IF 2.8 2区 管理学 Q2 COMPUTER SCIENCE, INFORMATION SYSTEMS
Renee Morrison
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Abstract

Like information science more broadly, search engine research has largely been fragmented into two factions: system-oriented and user-oriented studies. This limits our capacity for answering some fundamental questions surrounding an integral—often invisible—part of modern life. Given the “search-ification” of this life, given an oligopolous global market and an information-wealthy but attention-poor audience, methods capable of studying search engines, as well as their relationship with users and society are increasingly necessary. This paper proposes critical discourse analysis (CDA) as an effectual, oft-overlooked method for search engine research, one capable of interrogating both search engines and their use. The paper outlines CDA, provides examples of its application, and highlights its capacity for progressing our critical understanding of search engines. This developing understanding, evidenced by a review of the literature, suggests that challenges brought by search cannot be resolved by critiquing the power of systems alone. Rather, a reclaiming of today's information infrastructure requires we also illuminate the socio-political environments of search systems, and the metacognitive, invisible processes pivotal to our communication with them. While power-analyses of search continue, and some have begun to employ CDA, little recognition exists of this theoretical perspective's capacity for supporting both system-oriented and user-oriented studies.

Abstract Image

让无形变得有形:作为搜索引擎研究工具的批判性话语分析
与更广泛的信息科学一样,搜索引擎研究在很大程度上被分割成两派:面向系统的研究和面向用户的研究。这就限制了我们回答围绕现代生活中一个不可或缺--往往是无形的部分--的一些基本问题的能力。鉴于这种生活的 "搜索化",鉴于寡头垄断的全球市场和信息丰富但注意力贫乏的受众,研究搜索引擎及其与用户和社会的关系的方法越来越有必要。本文提出的批判性话语分析(CDA)是搜索引擎研究中一种有效的、常被忽视的方法,它既能分析搜索引擎,也能分析搜索引擎的使用。本文概述了批判性话语分析(CDA),提供了其应用实例,并强调了其在促进我们对搜索引擎的批判性理解方面的能力。通过对文献的回顾,我们认识到,仅仅批判系统的力量是无法解决搜索带来的挑战的。相反,要重新认识当今的信息基础设施,我们还需要阐明搜索系统的社会政治环境,以及我们与之交流的元认知、无形过程。尽管对搜索的权力分析仍在继续,而且有些研究已经开始采用 CDA,但很少有人认识到这一理论视角既能支持面向系统的研究,也能支持面向用户的研究。
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来源期刊
CiteScore
8.30
自引率
8.60%
发文量
115
期刊介绍: The Journal of the Association for Information Science and Technology (JASIST) is a leading international forum for peer-reviewed research in information science. For more than half a century, JASIST has provided intellectual leadership by publishing original research that focuses on the production, discovery, recording, storage, representation, retrieval, presentation, manipulation, dissemination, use, and evaluation of information and on the tools and techniques associated with these processes. The Journal welcomes rigorous work of an empirical, experimental, ethnographic, conceptual, historical, socio-technical, policy-analytic, or critical-theoretical nature. JASIST also commissions in-depth review articles (“Advances in Information Science”) and reviews of print and other media.
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