Difference between revisions of "Soctech seminar, Spring 2006"

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Society and technology seminar: SLN 2932 CSE 590 SO, Tue 12:30-1:20, CSE 403

Spring 2006: The Social Ramifications of Search Technologies

(note: this page is under construction...)

It is an oft-quoted cliché that in today’s “information society” there is no shortage of information, but rather an inability to actually process the available information in meaningful ways. The main contemporary response to this information inundation has been the Search. As a consequence, the search engine has become one of the most important transforming social institutions of our time.

Because the heart of serach is ordering results by quality and relevance, search algorithms are a new way of judging quality; something which in the past has been a human task. What does this mean for the distribution of power in society? Do the search algorithms themselves open up new avenues of political participation and expression? Do they work toward social exclusion?

Google in particular has been in the news recently for a variety of essential topics which demonstrate that search engines are raising many questions about the organization of content and access to it. In the process, clashing with many different institutions and cultural values. With regard to privacy: should the US government have access to privately held information about the search habits of its citizens? With regard to political change and censorship: what role are search engines playing in China (this part needs elaboration, else it’s a really stupid question)? With regard to the current copyright institution: what content should be searchable?

In this seminar, we will explore a wide range of topics related to the search engine, drawing on sources as varied as current news stories, social science research, and algorithm design. Although we don't want to focus on Google, let's be honest, it will be difficult to not center on the company whose name, in our vernacular, has become synonomous with the verbs "to search" and "to discover".

Contact information: This course is being organized by Travis Kriplean (travis at cs) and David Orange (dborange at gmail).

If you would like to continue to receive news about ongoing soctech activities, then subscribe to the soctech@cs mailing list.

Topics

Suggestions are welcome about additional topics, how to refine the existing topics, and relevant readings for each. Please send an email to travis (@cs) if you have such suggestions! Note that the readings will be refined to be manageable for a seminar.

• Introduction: The Search Engine as a Social Institution

• Brief History of Search Engines: Survey of search engines, how they’ve developed, and the evolution of the services they provide. From WebCrawler to Inktomi to Yahoo!. Talk briefly about search business models as well.

• John Battelle. The Search. 2005. New York, Portfolio Hardcover.
• Eszter Hargittai. 2000. Radio’s Lessons for the Internet. Communications of the ACM v. 43(1). http://portal.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=323830.323844.

• Basics of Search Engines: Basics of search engine algorithms (web crawling, building indexes, etc.). How does PageRank work? The use of WWW link structure to identify authoritative sources for user queries.

• Sergey Brin and Lawrence Page. 1998. The anatomy of a large-scale hypertextual Web search engine. Computer Networks and ISDN Systems v. 30. http://www-db.stanford.edu/pub/papers/google.pdf. The original paper describing PageRank.
• PageRank patent.
• http://www.iprcom.com/papers/pagerank/. Another explanation of PageRank.
• Jon Kleinberg. Authoritative sources in a hyperlinked environment. 1999. Journal of the ACM v. 46(5). http://www.cs.cornell.edu/home/kleinber/auth.pdf. (just the introduction)
• J. Kleinberg, and S. Lawrence. The structure of the Web, Science 294, 1849-1850, November 2001. The paper which addresses the overall structure of the web with "core", "in", "out", and "other" sections. http://www.cs.washington.edu/education/courses/cse522/CurrentQtr/kleinberg_structure_of_the_web.pdf
• A. Altman and M. Tennenholtz. Ranking Systems: The PageRank Axioms, ACM Conference on Electronic Commerce, 1-8, 2005. A paper which shows that under certain assumptions PageRank is the only ranking allowed. http://www.cs.washington.edu/education/courses/cse522/CurrentQtr/pagerankaxioms.pdf

• Strengths and weaknesses of search: If a search engine can only use keywords to look over webpages, what effects does this have? Explore how keywords are better for simple questions, and their deficiencies for deeper ones (e.g. Where is Rome? vs. Are there patents covering this technology?). Also consider which types of information are not easily accessible, such as financial data and databases, and the result of substituting webpages.

• Fair use of content: What fair use currently entails and where should it go. What can we understand about it by analyzing it from an economic, legal or social perspective? What does it mean for discourse in a society?

Relevant current issue: Google Book Search

Relevant case: Pre-publication of Ford's memoirs - http://www.justia.us/us/471/539/case.html

• Agglomeration of Personalized Data: Search engines enable users to parse the overload of information available online. But there is a trend for search companies to track personal search histories as well in order to provide customized content. Private companies now hold vast databases of information about the behavior of large portions of populations. What implications will this have?

• The Search, Customization, and Media Content: What are some possible results of customization? How far can it go? Will it help create cross-cutting communities as people find each other with similar interests, or will it serve to isolate people as they are served information that continually reinforces social boundaries that have already been constructed?

GoogleZon: A dystopic story of the future of media content. Far-fetched? Maybe, maybe not! Regardless, it raises interesting questions. (8 minutes).

• Privacy rights in the US and elsewhere: What new issues does the search raise for privacy? What complications arise in terms of national governments? (I could see a separate lecture for comparative privacy law - DBO).

• Dissidents in China: Google, Freedom and Information

• Backgrounder - http://www.opennetinitiative.net/studies/china/ONI_China_Country_Study.pdf
• What information do activists need? Peer communication, news, mass communication?

• Search as Political Statement: Is the use of link structure to evaluate quality a democratizing force? Or does it reinforce the status quo? Are phenomena like Google Bombing quirks or do they open up new avenues of serious political commentary? (note: I'd like to spend 2 periods talking about this issue if possible -T I second that -DBO)

• Google Bombing article at wikipedia. Especially check out the scientology struggle.
• Lucas Introna and Helen Nissenbaum. 2000. Shaping the Web: Why the Politics of Search Engines Matters. The Information Society v. 16(3). http://www.indiana.edu/~tisj/readers/abstracts/16/16-3%20Introna.html
• Philip Howard. 2003. Digitizing the Social Contract: Producing American Political Culture in the Age of New Media. The Communications Review v. 6. http://faculty.washington.edu/pnhoward/publishing/articles/socialcontract.pdf.

Mailing list

Visit

https://mailman.cs.washington.edu/mailman/listinfo/cse590so

to sign up for the course mailing list. You will need a UW NetID. Contact Keunwoo if you have any difficulty signing up.

Administrative info

Course grading and credit-load policies: Subject to change, but variable credits are available to meet differing levels of participation:

• Sign up for 1 credit if you plan to attend, do the readings, and participate in discussions.
• Sign up for 2 credits if you wish to lead a discussion/present, OR write a short paper.
• Sign up for 3 credits if you wish to either (a) lead a discussion/present, AND write a short paper, or (b) write one long paper. (Note: you must contact the course organizers in advance if you plan to take this course for 3 credits.)

Past seminars

• Soctech seminar, Spring 2005
• Soctech seminar, Winter 2005

Other Relevant Class Pages

• Fall 2005 CSE522 http://www.cs.washington.edu/education/courses/cse522/CurrentQtr/