Searching Politicians Online: Concentration and Localization of Google SERPs

• In Event: Digital Media Campaigning: Innovative Approaches and Questions

Abstract

Google Search is a dominant channel for political information consumption. The tendency of Google to favor a few national, high traffic websites, leads to concerns about the underexposure to more local media sources which have been shown to be important in providing information about elected officials to their constituents. Existing research has shown that results on Google Search are often balanced by partisanship, yet it remains unknown whether they balance local as opposed to national sources as well. We examine the extent to which Google search results are localized by collecting daily search data for 604 United States governors, House representatives, and election candidates beginning in September of 2020 leading up to March of 2021.
With this, we address two questions. First, we seek to quantify the extent of source concentration in Google's search results, exploring whether Google predominantly promotes well-known sources or provides diverse options. Second, we aim to determine how localized search results are, with a specific emphasis on whether Google favors a few national sources or provides a more localized set of sources. This research will provide descriptive analysis for the role Google plays in the diminishing attention towards local media and nationalizing politicians.

Authors

• David Lazer, Northeastern University

• Zhen Guo, Northeastern University

• Allison Wan

• Ronald Robertson, Northeastern University