While reading through the
"Research in India suggests Google search results can influence an
election" reading, I went ahead and tested the Google search results to
see if any form of manipulation or favor was being done in regards to the
recent presidential candidates. Surprisingly, my search results were exactly
the same for both the candidates. In fact, I noticed a pattern in my search
results. The search results came out to be very biased as both the candidates
had a mixture of negative and positive information. When I typed in
"Hillary Clinton “on one window and "Donald Trump" on the other,
I went ahead on to the news tab of Google and saw that there were two similar
articles about the health of the candidates which was very amusing to see.
(Here’s the link to the articles: http://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/19/us/politics/donald-trump-health.html?_r=0 and http://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/19/us/politics/hillary-clinton-health.html)
(Here’s the link to the articles: http://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/19/us/politics/donald-trump-health.html?_r=0 and http://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/19/us/politics/hillary-clinton-health.html)
In the reading, it is mentioned about a psychologist Robert
Epstein who discovered that search
engines have a high potential in influencing our votes towards a specific
candidate without us noticing. In fact, he calls this the “Search Engine
Manipulation Effect” or SEME. So how exactly would the articles about the candidate’s
health influence my voting and does this manipulate my mind? Yes, it definitely
does. In fact, naturally it makes me question their political standpoints and if
they are capable enough to endorse them and basically live a healthy life to be
able to be the leader of the USA and I believe that with every kind of research
we do, we’re more likely to find results that will have our minds thinking in a
different way.
This
reading opened my mind up into looking deeply into what I’m being exposed to
and how it effects my thought process which was very interesting to know
because, normally I would just scroll through results and find something that
seemed more relevant to my beliefs but, never have I ever thought about how
those results are manipulating my thought process towards the subject being mentioned in a very indirect way.
Response to: Research in India suggests Google can influence an election by Craig Timberg.
ReplyDeleteIn this article Timberg suggests that major search engines can manipulate search results to ultimately influence the voter choice and voter preferences. Timberg focuses on referencing psychologist Robert Epstein's experiment in India to support this suggestion. Epstein found that search engines can "profoundly influence voters without them noting the impact". Epstein calls this Search Engine Manipulation Effect.
The critics of this study pointed out that there are other factors to be taken into account that effect this study, such as the voters prior "party allegiances, potent issues and ethnic and religious affiliations." Critics also pointed out that major search engine operators have reason to avoid the appearance of manipulating election search results on the account of not undermining the public's trust and the backlash that would occur.
However, the studies Epstein conducted do make sense. Manipulating the results on his search engine did impact the voter's choice in candidate. We may also account this manipulation having such an impact because of confirmation bias, priming, and framing; as these studies were conducted right before the voter voted for his/her candidate of choice.
On a side note, there were rumors that Google had manipulated their search results with Hillary Clinton cr ...., instead of criminal, crime reform, cried, etc comes up instead. I put it to the test and I got a mixed result.
Hi Alexandra -- is there a particular reason why you decided to post this as a response to Shumaila's post rather than as your own reading response?
DeleteI didn't know I did that sorry... FIXING NOW!
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