Google and the Digital Divide: The Bias of Online Knowledge

This new publication from Chandos explores the impact of Google's domination as both gateway and guide to the online information landscape. The author, Elad Segev, situates this discussion within the context of the digital divide, a primary theoretical framework which has dominated analysis of both digital information infrastructure and environment. Segev's work acknowledges the legacy of seminal communications theorists in understanding the historical and cultural continuum of information flow, of which the internet is a current iteration; Innis(1951, 1972), McLuhan(1962, 1964), Mumford (1964) and Schiller(1992, 1996). He effectively blends this body of literature from media and communications theory with that of prominent information society theorists such as Castells(1996, 1997) and Norris (2001). This positioning allows the book to take an analytical stance rather than simply telling the reader how and why the internet will solve all our problems.

Segev uses a range of digital research methodologies to investigate Google's role in the geopolitics of the information environment. His work in this text is particularly interesting from this perspective, using emerging techniques to collect and analyse relevant data. Using sophisticated statistical approaches alongside network analysis Segev extrapolates the impact of Google's positioning as a key agent in shaping what Innis describes as the “monopoly of knowledge”. Segev presents his data effectively, however the statistical terms and language used to analyse and discuss the information users and uses of Google (Chapter 4) are challenging, with the average reader likely to be less than familiar with the Spearman single‐tailed correlation test.

Segev's analysis identifies Google as a primary information agent in perpetuating a market driven paradigm around access to information; enhancing existing inequalities and preserving the predominant cultural bias in favour of the USA. Google's famous algorithm, its relationship with online news and media, the nature and national bias of data available through Google Maps and Google Earth are all aspects of Segev's critique. At the same time, he interweaves more general elements of information society critique throughout; language and cultural bias, privacy and customisation, freedom of information, the relationship with capitalism and the paradigm of the market.

This is a significant text in relation to the emerging body of internet research which explores new techniques appropriate to online media and the potential of the large data sets offered by this evolving environment. This is an area of research that is vital in understanding an increasingly networked world, thus Google and the Digital Divide would sit well as a set text in many media and communications or information management courses.