Hey Google: show me accurate results
A plethora of publications & newsletters now on Tuesday!
Before we dive into this week’s content, I have 3 quick announcements for you:
1. We are hiring! We are seeking an Executive Director to join us and provide innovative and visionary leadership. Read the full description here and share the posting!
2. CITAP has an Instagram! We will be sharing events, stories, research, and more with you via a platform that allows for a bit more creative and explanatory freedom. Feel free to follow and check us out @unccitap.
3. We will be posting our newsletters (starting September 19th) on Tuesday mornings rather than Friday afternoons. We will have no newsletter next week, but we have plenty of reading from this week to hold you over.
Semantic Searches & Health Info Results
What makes finding accurate information about how to terminate a pregnancy harder? Francesca Tripodi and Aashka Dave assert that it is a combination of the searcher’s own position on abortion, as well as SEO and advertising making the top results insufficient for the searcher’s needs in “Abortion Near Me? The Implications of Semantic Media on Accessing Health Information”.
The “information-seeking biases of the user are just as important to consider as algorithmic bias.” In the study, the intention of the participants influenced their keyword choice (ex. “abortion near me” vs. “adoption in NC”), which then influenced the information that was returned to them in the search. It does not stop at intent of the search engine user, however.
Crisis pregnancy centers (CPCs) rely on advertising, SEO, and websites that make their centers “look like health clinics”. 2 searches, “abortion near me” versus “alternatives for abortion”, both populating CPCs in the search result suggests Google’s advertising structure connects and classifies CPCs to the phrase “abortion” regardless of the perceived intent. This suggests that the placement of advertised CPCs is not accidental, because as research demonstrates, Google carefully calculates the placement and pricing of advertising in order to maximize profits. Corporate revenue, thus, plays a role in shaping the semantic web.
Labels provided by Google that indicate whether a location does or does not provide abortions “risk confusing the services offered by CPCs with health care centers that provide a wide range of reproductive and sexual health services, including access to exams, contraception, and testing for pregnancy and/or sexually transmitted infections”. The authors argue that it is important for future work to consider the complexities that arise from both users’ information-seeking biases and corporate interests, and how this impacts their ability to obtain accurate information.
Publications and appearances
Affiliate Andrea Lorenz, Carolyn Schmitt, Shannon McGregor, and Daniel Malmer have a new publication, “CNN can kiss my As$”, in which they found that “nearly ten percent [of a nationally represented sample of 10,000] self-report at least one far-right news outlet as a primary news source… we then examined the characteristics of this small but significant group, given the current political climate in the United States, finding that far-right news consumers are overwhelmingly white, male, Republican, Christian, and without a college degree. This study reinforces previous findings that patterns in hyperpartisan media usage demonstrate growing extremism in the U.S., and that it is deeply rooted in identity.”
“We can talk all day long about sisterhood and friendship and going through with a life with a cohort of women. But fundamentally, the power of full access still resided with the men and whether they just found you desirable, and beautiful. And here race and class would always always matter, not just an Alabama would trust me, it matters. But here all of the United States and all pop culture is implicated being admitted is not the same as being a full member of what makes that sorority what it is.” Listen to Tressie McMillan Cottom on The Waves: Gender, Relationships, Feminism podcast this week as she discussed her Bama Rush NYT article and the Trad wife movement.
Yiping Xia, former CITAP postdoc and now ACES Assistant Professor at TAMU, looked at the question of how past news engagements shape how a person interprets a news story. “Temporal meaning-making” is a process where the individual thinks back to past news engagements (and sometimes, anticipated future news events) to help shape the way they understand new information. Yiping argues that news interpretation is dependent not only on the news content or the personal traits of the individual, but also on the temporal relationship they have formed with a particular news topic, such as what they have known about it from past news engagements, or what they expect to happen next.
Coming Soon
October 16 at CITAP: Misinformation and Marginalization Symposium. How does misinformation circulate in marginalized communities, and what misinformation narratives are shared about marginalized groups?
Featuring a keynote from Dr. Sarah Banet-Weiser and panels on misinformation and gender & sexuality; diasporic communities; and algorithmic amplification, race, and religion. Free registration required to join in person or virtually!
October 18 at AoIR: Alice Marwick, Yvonne Eadon, and Rachel Kuo are among the co-organizers of an AoIR preconference on future of conspiracy.
October 20 at AoIR: CITAP, CDCS, and IDDP are co-hosting a networking Happy Hour on Friday at 6pm. RSVP for the event here!
October 22 at the Annenberg Public Policy Center: The Post-API Conference.
November 10 at CITAP: Symposium on Religion, Media, and Public Life.
Confirmed panelists include Whitney Phillips, Samuel Perry, Eden Consenstein, Xavier Pickett, Erika Gault, and Heidi Campbell, with additional participants to be named in the weeks to come. Register to join in person or virtually!
Rest of Web
Pranav Malhotra, CITAP affiliate and Assistant Professor at the University of Michigan put a call out on X:
“I'm teaching a Qualitative Approaches to Studying Social Media undergrad course next semester. Please send examples of good methodological texts and empirical work using different methods! Would also love to have social media scholars guest lecture about a method they use!” -@pranavmalhotra8