ITA manu:scripts
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DATUM, UNTERSCHRIFT / DATE, SIGNATURE
BANK AUSTRIA CREDITANSTALT, WIEN (IBAN AT04 1100 0006 2280 0100, BIC BKAUATWW), DEUTSCHE BANK MÜNCHEN (IBAN DE16 7007 0024 0238 8270 00, BIC DEUTDEDBMUC)
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ITA manu:scripts
Astrid Mager
doi:10.1553/ITA-ms-13-02 Eigenverlag/Self
Abstract: Google has been blamed for its de facto monopolistic position on the search engine market, its exploitation of user data, its privacy violations, and, most recently, for possible collaborations with the US-American National Security Agency (NSA). However, blaming Google is not enough, as I suggest in this article. Rather than being ready-made, Google and its ‘algorithmic ideology’ are constantly negotiated in society. Drawing on my previous work I show how the ‘new spirit of capitalism’ gets inscribed in Google’s technical Gestalt by way of social practices. Furthermore, I look at alternative search engines through the lens of ideology. Focusing on search projects like DuckDuckGo, Ecosia, YaCy and Wolfram|Alpha I exemplify that there are multiple ideologies at work. There are search engines that carry democratic values, the green ideology, the belief in the commons, and those that subject themselves to the scientific paradigm. In daily practice, however, the capitalist ideology appears to be hegemonic since 1) most users employ Google rather than alternative search engines, 2) a number of small search projects enter strategic alliances with big, commercial players, and 3) choosing a true alternative would require not only awareness and a certain amount of technical know-how, but also effort and patience on the part of users, as I finally discuss. Keywords: google alternative-search-engine ideology social-construction-of-technology new-spirit-of-capitalism Published Online: 2014/01/03 11:44:18 Document Date: 2013/11/30 11:43:00 Object Identifier: 0xc1aa5576 0x002f701b Rights: . Das Institut für Technikfolgen-Abschätzung gibt die ITA-manu:script-Reihe heraus, in der Arbeitspapiere und Vorträge von Institutsangehörigen und Gästen veröffentlicht werden. Die Reihe wird intern begutachtet und erscheint nur online im PDF-Format. |
epub.oeaw – Institutionelles Repositorium der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften epub.oeaw – Institutional Repository of the Austrian Academy of Sciences
A-1011 Wien, Dr. Ignaz Seipel-Platz 2
Tel. +43-1-515 81/DW 3420, Fax +43-1-515 81/DW 3400 http://epub.oeaw.ac.at, e-mail: epub@oeaw.ac.at |