search engines can influence purchases and elections.
Each time I do an internet search in my classroom, I do it with both Bing and Google so that the students can obviously see that Bing pushes people to buy things, while Google "tends" to produce more "informational" hits.
However.....
Since this is from PBS, there should be no complaint about it being "biased".
Dr. Robert Epstein, Senior Research Psychologist at the American Institute for Behavioral Research and Technology, addressed that very question in his latest study, which he will present at the Association for Psychological Science Convention in May.
On another station....one completely reviled by anyone who is "smart"..... he offered the following:
"Google donated $800,000 to the Obama campaign and he was always significantly higher in the rankings than Romney."
Now the POINT here is...for those who are saying...."YEAH!! right on!".....
What if Google had donated the money to Romney instead and Romney was always significantly higher in the rankings?
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/rundown/...-election.html
woodsmoke
However.....
Since this is from PBS, there should be no complaint about it being "biased".
Dr. Robert Epstein, Senior Research Psychologist at the American Institute for Behavioral Research and Technology, addressed that very question in his latest study, which he will present at the Association for Psychological Science Convention in May.
"We've discovered that search engine rankings can be manipulated in ways that dramatically change voter preferences," Epstein told PBS NewsHour's Hari Sreenivasan in a Google Hangout on Friday.
"What is happening here is that a company could literally influence the outcome of elections
a) with no one knowing and
b) with no possible balance, no corrective.
In other words no one there counteracting what they are doing, so that's extremely dangerous."
In the study, Epstein and his team used a mock search engine, real material from Australia's 2010 Prime Ministerial Election and three different test groups. When the study's participants looked up candidates on the search engine, one test group found search rankings favorable to candidate Tony Abbott, the second found rankings favorable to opposing candidate Julia Gillard and the last group had rankings that didn't favor either candidate.
Epstein found that the differing results could influence people to vote for one candidate over the other by margins of 15 percent or more.
"What we are showing is ... search rankings alone can shift people," he said.
Epstein said the reasoning behind such a large change in opinion is that search placement affects people's thinking.
"People trust higher-ranked search results and that's what we are doing, we are just tapping into that phenomena and applying it to politics."
"What is happening here is that a company could literally influence the outcome of elections
a) with no one knowing and
b) with no possible balance, no corrective.
In other words no one there counteracting what they are doing, so that's extremely dangerous."
In the study, Epstein and his team used a mock search engine, real material from Australia's 2010 Prime Ministerial Election and three different test groups. When the study's participants looked up candidates on the search engine, one test group found search rankings favorable to candidate Tony Abbott, the second found rankings favorable to opposing candidate Julia Gillard and the last group had rankings that didn't favor either candidate.
Epstein found that the differing results could influence people to vote for one candidate over the other by margins of 15 percent or more.
"What we are showing is ... search rankings alone can shift people," he said.
Epstein said the reasoning behind such a large change in opinion is that search placement affects people's thinking.
"People trust higher-ranked search results and that's what we are doing, we are just tapping into that phenomena and applying it to politics."
"Google donated $800,000 to the Obama campaign and he was always significantly higher in the rankings than Romney."
Now the POINT here is...for those who are saying...."YEAH!! right on!".....
What if Google had donated the money to Romney instead and Romney was always significantly higher in the rankings?
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/rundown/...-election.html
woodsmoke