Web search engines have emerged as one of the dominant technologies of modern life, leaving few aspects of our everyday activities untouched. Search engines are not just indispensable tools for finding and accessing information online, but have become a defining component of the human condition and can be conceptualized as a complex behavior embedded within an individual's everyday social, cultural, political, and information-seeking activities.

This book investigates Web search from the non-technical perspective, bringing together chapters that represent a range of multidisciplinary theories, models, and ideas about Web searching. They examine the various roles and impacts of Web searching on the social, cultural, political, legal, and informational spheres of our lives, such as the impact on individuals, social groups, modern and postmodern ways of knowing, and public and private life. By critically examining the issues, theories, and formations arising from, and surrounding, Web searching, Web Search: Multidisciplinary Perspectives represents an important contribution to the emerging multidisciplinary body of research on Web search engines.

The new ideas and novel perspectives on Web searching gathered in this volume will prove valuable for research and curricula in the fields of social sciences, communication studies, cultural studies, information science, and related disciplines.

Résumé
The inspiration for this book emerged from the editors' participation in a panel d- cussion on Web search engines at an annual meeting of the Association of Internet Researchers. This multidisciplinary panel of Web search researches revealed the diversity of scholars interested in Web searching, coupled with a broad range of questions, attitudes, and approaches. It became clear that more cross-fertilization was necessary between the disciplines to ensure Web search engines (the entities) and Web searching (the user behavior) received the thorough scholarly attention they deserved. This book is a result of that realization, and an important first step in achieving new levels of awareness and collaboration across disciplines. The book represents a core theme within the intellectual pursuits of the editors. The first editor (Spink) is an information scientist who has worked with, taught and has researched the informational dimensions of Web searching since 1997. The second editor (Zimmer) is a scholar of culture and communication who focuses on the political and ethical dimensions of new media and information technologies, and whose dissertation research focused on the value-related consequences of the quest for the perfect search engine.

Contenu
Social, Cultural, and Philosophical Perspectives.- Through the Google Goggles: Sociopolitical Bias in Search Engine Design.- Reconsidering the Rhizome: A Textual Analysis of Web Search Engines as Gatekeepers of the Internet.- Exploring Gendered Notions: Gender, Job Hunting and Web Searches.- Searching Ethics: The Role of Search Engines in the Construction and Distribution of Knowledge.- The Gaze of the Perfect Search Engine: Google as an Infrastructure of Dataveillance.- Political, Legal, and Economic Perspectives.- Search Engine Liability for Copyright Infringement.- Search Engine Bias and the Demise of Search Engine Utopianism.- The Democratizing Effects of Search Engine Use: On Chance Exposures and Organizational Hubs.- 'Googling' Terrorists: Are Northern Irish Terrorists Visible on Internet Search Engines?.- The History of the Internet Search Engine: Navigational Media and the Traffic Commodity.- Information Behavior Perspectives.- Toward a Web Search Information Behavior Model.- Web Searching for Health: Theoretical Foundations and Connections to Health Related Outcomes.- Search Engines and Expertise about Global Issues: Well-defined Landscape or Undomesticated Wilderness?.- Conceptual Models for Search Engines.- Web Searching: A Quality Measurement Perspective.- Conclusion.- Conclusions and Further Research.