William Burnbach once said, “All of us who professionally use the mass media are the shapers of society. We can vulgerize that society. We can brutalize it. Or we can help lift it onto a higher level.” Moreover, according to the top 500 websites generated by Alexa, one of the most affluential political websites entitled, RealClear Politics, ranks at an outstanding #316 whereas mainstream websites surrounding search engines (Google) or social networking (Facebook) rank at #1 and #2, respectively. So the question remains, what is the cause of this socio-political gap. In today's transition into ultrapostmodernism, there is no doubt that politics in conjunction with associated political affairs and legislative practices have interconnected with the ways in which we interact with the Internet. Nonetheless, what accounts for this limited narrowcasting of online politics versus the larger broadcasting of search engines and social network websites? With respect to the political sphere within the online community, Matthew Hindman debunks this idea of online political narrowcasting by introducing his critique theory of "Googlearchy." Hindman defines Googlearchy as a technological hiearchy of using search engines to reinforce link structuring and traffic maintenance. Hindman furthers this notion of Googlearchy into three subsections:
"First, Googlearchy suggests that the number of links pointing to a site is the most important determinant of site visibility. Sites with lots of inbound links should be easy to find; sites with few in links should require more time and more skill to dis-cover. All else being equal, sites with more links should receive more traffic. Second, Googlearchy suggests that niche dominance should be a general rule of online life. For every clearly defined group of websites, a small portion of the group should receive most of the links and most of the traffic. Communities, subcommunities, and sub-subcommunities may differ in their levels of concentration; yet overall, online communities should display a Russian-nesting-doll structure, dominated at every level by winners-take-all patterns. Third, Googlearchy suggests that this dependence upon links should make niche dominance self-perpetuating. Heavily linked sites should continue to attract more links, more eyeballs, and more resources with which to improve the site content, while sites with few links remain ignored. By relying so heavily on links, search engines should reinforce or even accelerate this rich-get-richer phenomenon."
My only concern with Hindman's thesis on Googlearchy is that it dismisses the notion that these politically institutionalized websites surrounding blogs, government, and/or organizations are essentially being marginalized by the dominating small portion of heavily linked, frequently visited websites such as Facebook or Google. Sure, it is one thing to have the highest amount of traffic and link accessibility rerouted to the fewest number of popular mainstream online sites which spoon feed the masses, but what happens to the more prominent yet "underground" political websites that cater to the socio-political frameworks governing our understanding of reality and the real world processes? To elaborate, Alexa's Top 500 Websites lists politically discursive websites such as Politico, NY Times, Huffington Post, and RealClear Politics that statistically show to have an increase in visitors link directly to search engines and other online social networking instead of directly linking mostly towards other online, credible political sources. Ironic isn't it? Here is what Hindman has left to say with regards to political websites: "Yes, almost anyone can put up a political Web site, but this fact matters little if few political sites receive many visitors. In the areas this chapter examines, putting up a political Web site is usually equivalent to hosting a talk show on public access television at 3:30 in the morning."
Nonetheless, I strongly agree with Hindman's claim in regards to the lack of sophisticated searches and the lack of a suitable challenge posed upon the monopoly of commercial media by the political-public sphere. According to Hindman, while political sites are frequently associated with powerful liberal and conservative factions, the fact that news and other media online content are successfully accessed on a larger audience scale alludes to the idea as to why political sites have been shown to be a small niche in the World Wide Web, NOT a large one at best.
In conclusion, Hindman argues that "for politics, we are particularly interested in search traffic to two categories of Websites. First, we want to understand the role that search engines play in directing citizens to news content. If there is indeed widespread citizen disinterest in politics,few of the queries that lead citizens to new sites should be political in nature. We examine the top 990 terms that citizens searched for immediately before visiting a news Website." All in all, could the skewed dichotomy drawn between visited search engines, social networks, and politics ultimately commence in a collective approach towards Googlearchy? Or will the realm of engaging politics be left at the mercy of other forms of social media (newspapers, magazines, television, radio)? Personally, after all was said and done, I must admit that both chapters debunked by Hindman proved to be a very interesting and enlightening read and critique.
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