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Monday, Jan. 5, 2004 ABBREVIATED VERSION DRAFT LONG VERSION OUTLINE Experiment Data Blog and News References |
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The behavior of the Web depends upon interlocking communities and their objectives: (1) authors whose web pages link to other pages; (2) search engines indexing and ranking those pages; and (3) information seekers whose queries and surfing reward authors and support search engines. Although technological and personal bias is inevitable, systematic suppression of controversial topics would indicate a flaw in the Web's ideology of openness and informativeness. This paper's experiments explore search engines' bias by asking: is a specific well known controversy revealed in a simple search? Experimental topics include: distance learning, Albert Einstein, St. John's Wort, female astronauts, and Belize. The experiments suggest that simple queries tend to overly present the "sunny side" of these topics, with minimal controversy. Alternative behaviors for a more "Objective Web" are analyzed: (a) web page authors adopting research citation practices, (b) search engines balancing organizational and analytic content, and (c) searchers practicing more wary multi-searching.
| Broad Topic | Controversial Subtopic |
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| Distance Learning | "Digital Diploma Mills", the trend toward commercialization of education, as characterized by technology historian David Noblee. |
| Albert Einstein | Did Einstein's first wife, Mileva Maric, receive appropriate credit for scientific contributions to Einstein's early work? |
| Female Astronauts | Did the U.S. space program discriminate against the "Mercury 13", women pilots who passed preliminary astronaut screening tests? |
| St. John's Wort | Does this popular herbal remedy work effectively for depression and mood improvement? Recent medical trials (glaxo, Pfizer, lichter pharma) differ in their results, as reported by NCCAM, ACP-ASIM, and Nutrition Action Newsletter) |
| Belize | This small Central American country has a long, and ongoing, border dispute with Guatemala with deep historical roots in Spanish and British colonization |
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Distance Learning/ Diploma Mills | Albert Einstein/ Mileva Maric | Female Astronauts/ Mercury 13 | St. John's Wort Effectiveness | Belize/ Guatemala Border |
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| Suppressing Factors | |||||
| Organizational Clout | sellers, services, trade associations | reference and science sites | NASA and big space sites | store sites | tourism industry |
| Poorly organized | academic talk | no web site | |
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| Duplication, junk | |
biographies, quotes | lists of women firsts, history | chains of stores | lots of hotels |
| Analytic web secondary | newsgroups, ezines low readership | few in-depth biographies | |
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dissertations and long histories |
| Revealing Factors | |||||
| Promotion | debates, articles online | letters, biographies | books, 99s, NOW | NIH, syndication | Govt. website |
| Social Relevance | college costs, professors' worry | Serb, feminism | role models, activism | safety, HIV | colonialism, mediations |
| Timeliness | Web commercialism debates | Time person of century, ads, books | Columbia, 20/40 years,. Glenn flight | clinical trials in progress | referenda on settlement |
| Media interest | "diploma mill" exposes | 1st wives club, love letters | character profiles, pilot feats, | nutrition, medicine news | daily stories |
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