Search engines in polarized media environment: Auditing political information curation on Google and Bing prior to 2024 US elections

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dc.contributor.authorMakhortykh, Mykola
dc.contributor.authorRorhbach, Tobias
dc.contributor.authorSydorova, Maryna
dc.contributor.authorKuznetsova, Elizaveta
dc.date.accessioned2025-03-31T13:51:14Z
dc.date.available2025-03-31T13:51:14Z
dc.date.collected2024-06-15/2024-10-15
dc.date.issued2025
dc.description.abstractSearch engines play an important role in the context of modern elections. By curating information in response to user queries, search engines influence how individuals are informed about election-related developments and perceive the media environment in which elections take place. It has particular implications for (perceived) polarization, especially if search engines' curation results in a skewed treatment of information sources based on their political leaning. Until now, however, it is unclear whether such a partisan gap emerges through information curation on search engines and what user- and system-side factors affect it. To address this shortcoming, we audit the two largest Western search engines, Google and Bing, prior to the 2024 US presidential elections and examine how these search engines' organic search results and additional interface elements represent election-related information depending on the queries' slant, user location, and time when the search was conducted. Our findings indicate that both search engines tend to prioritize left-leaning media sources, with the exact scope of search results' ideological slant varying between Democrat- and Republican-focused queries. We also observe limited effects of location- and time-based factors on organic search results, whereas results for additional interface elements were more volatile over time and specific US states. Together, our observations highlight that search engines' information curation actively mirrors the partisan divides present in the US media environments and has the potential to contribute to (perceived) polarization within these environments.
dc.identifier.citationMakhortykh, M., Rorhbach, T., Sydorova, M., & Kuznetsova, E. (2025). Search engines in polarized media environment: Auditing political information curation on Google and Bing prior to 2024 US elections. arxiv.org. https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2501.04763
dc.identifier.doi10.48550/arXiv.2501.04763
dc.identifier.urihttps://www.weizenbaum-library.de/handle/id/867
dc.language.isoeng
dc.rightsopen access
dc.rights.urihttp://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
dc.subjectsearch engine
dc.subjectalgorithm audit
dc.subjectinformation curation
dc.subject2024 US presidential elections
dc.subjectGoogle Search
dc.subjectBing
dc.titleSearch engines in polarized media environment: Auditing political information curation on Google and Bing prior to 2024 US elections
dc.typePreprint
dc.type.statuspublishedVersion
dcmi.typeText
dcterms.bibliographicCitation.urlhttps://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2501.04763
local.researchgroupPlattform-Algorithmen und digitale Propaganda
local.researchtopicDigitale Märkte und Öffentlichkeiten auf Plattformen
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