What can we
learn from this?
How do search
engines depict the content of our culture?
Do the links that search
engines provide their users with, form our nations new “togetherness”?
How do search engines depict the content of American
culture?
In American culture, people have the belief that they should have access to information as soon as it is available, regardless of where it is coming from. People carry this belief with them when they use search engines, and believe that they can find any information they want, at any time of the day. This belief influences how search engines work because search engines try to accommodate their users with large amounts of information, which can be accessed at any time of the day, and from any place with access to the Internet.
Why do people assume that since the Internet has disengaged
time and space, they can retrieve information at any time of the day?
The Internet gives people access to a large amount of information, and therefore people assume that they can find this information at anytime or anywhere they have access to the Internet. What we do not realize is that there is a process that needs to be followed in order to put information online. People may find information on a specific subject search at anytime, but real time information takes a few hours for it to be accessible. Also on search engines, information is indexed at varied times, ranging from once a week to once every few months. Because of this, real-time information will not be available on search engines.
How
are the newly added lists of online news sites on search engines a form of
gatekeeping? How are they not a form of
gatekeeping?
The links provided by search engines to users can be seen as a form of gatekeeping because they are not providing users access to every web site available on the Internet. Whenever all possible information is not given, gatekeeping has occurred. This set of links that search engines are giving people may also provide a biased view of the September 11th events due to the fact that not all sides of the issue are being given. But, since the links are available on a search engines, users have the opportunity to search for other online news sites through the search engine itself, if they think that the links provided are not of help to them. This is how the provided links are not a form of gatekeeping.
Do the
links that search engines provide their users with, form our nations new
“togetherness”?
In the immediate hours after the attacks, the media attempted to pull the nation together by claiming there was an “attack on America”, and they asked the nation to give blood for the victims. Search engines in the days and weeks after the attacks, provided links to direct online news sources that contained information related to the attacks. When people read the same things that others are reading, they feel a sense that they are a part of a community. Because these sites were similar, meaning they all contained information related to the attacks, search engines caused our nation to come together because many people were all exposed to the same information as other people. This creates a sense of togetherness.