ETEC 511 - IP #3

Algorithms:

Option 1
“At a time when state funding for public goods such as universities, schools, libraries, archives, and other important memory institutions is in decline in the US, private corporations are providing products, services and financing on their behalf. With these trade-offs comes an exercising of greater control over the information, which is deeply consequential for those already systematically oppressed…” (Noble, p. 123)

Think and respond to the following questions:

What is Content Prioritization

Content prioritization is the programmatic lens through which information on the internet is presented to us. It refers to the ways search engines and information systems organize and filter results based on perceived relevance, popularity, and user behaviour. The order in which content is shown to users ultimately shapes how we understand the information technology, and influences our sense of identity through the accessibility and representations of data, worldviews and cultural knowledge.

Noble (2018) points out the significance of how the categorization of information influences our perceptions of its credibility by writing:

"In the context of searching for racialized and gendered identities in Google’s search engine, the right to control what information or records can exist and persist is important. It is even more critical because the records are presented in a ranking order, and research shows that the public in the U.S. believes that search results are credible and trustworthy." (Noble, p. 123)

Google’s power to categorize and determine the terms of access to digital content inherently challenges how cultural identities are represented. For us as the users of the search engine, this control means that certain information, perspectives and experiences, especially relating to that of marginalized communities and peoples, may be misrepresented or overlooked completely where commercial interests are favored instead.


Often times, the behind the scenes content prioritization process that occurs unsurprisingly favour advertising revenue and corporate partnerships over the visibility and accessibility of than the diverse needs of the people of those who rely on the information this technology can provide. In essence, content prioritization is the technical rules that make up the design principles of this technology, methodically determining how commercial incentives elevate or oppresses certain search results while promoting others. Noble relays this understanding of content prioritization by writing:

Arguably, if education is based in evidence-based research, and knowledge is a means of liberation in society, then the types of knowledge that widely circulate provide a crucial site of investigation. How oppressed people are represented, or misrepresented, is an important element of engaging in efforts to bring about social, political, and eco- nomic justice. (Noble, p. 141)

As is touched upon in the above excerpt, Noble reiterates the impact and influence that altering the flow of information has on contemporary society towards our understanding of the world around us. Forcing the user to consciously navigate the validity of each search’s results after those results appear to have been organically occuring in the return query to the user, deliberately reflects commercial priorities through pay-to-play advertisement models in order to privilege mainstream advertisers over smaller community-rooted local businesses. While this practice not only emerges in a way that ultimately affects our perceptions of material culture in our lives and the choices we make, it also goes on to control the perceived narratives that occur through what kinds of information become readily accessible and forefront to us as users.

How does it work?

Through learning how pages are ranked in my journey into web development, along with exploring firsthand how Google’s search console tools operate, I’ve had the opportunity to dabble and experience the way which Pagerank occurs on my own websites. While I somewhat understand how PageRank and SEO function in theory, the reality is that it still remains quite mysterious to me in regards to what is actually required of individual webpages from a technical standpoint in order to appeal to Google’s web scrapers and ranking algorithms. While one can seemingly include links to other pages to increase credibility, or include good use of metadata and schema to build the page itself, PageRank’s algorithm remains an independent critic that dictates how, or if, something gets displayed.

Taking this back to defining PageRank, it essentially gives each webpage a score based on criteria such as links, keywords, user engagement, location, commercialization, as well as publisher reputation factors, and then proceeds to organize higher-scoring pages first in search results. In essence, PageRank takes people’s views of websites, and actively ranks them as if views and user engagement are digital votes used to score the overall page.

Summary

Through the way PageRank organizes and feeds recommended content to users, the algorithm clearly wields enormous power in it’s ability to make or break online visibility, bringing with the increased need for skepticism from users. While this underscores a continued need for transparent alternatives to tech giants controlling the show, Noble clearly identifies a continued need for public policies to evolve in order to globally protect oppressed peoples and marginalized perspectives from the homogenization effect of algorithmic bias.


By shaping how content is organized and delivered, PageRank clearly holds immense power in whether a website “makes or breaks” into online visibility. Regardless of how the algorithm develops and evolves in the future for users, this ultimately highlights an increased need for users to practice skepticism in information technology. In addition to this, it also underscores a global responsibility to recognize and safeguard marginalized voices from the homogenizing effect of algorithmic bias through the advocacy for further public policy to evolve alongside the technology we already use more than ever.

As Google and other private platforms financially incentivize displaying content from major news outlets and corporations over their smaller community-based counterparts, content prioritization will go on to affect the way which information and cultural memory are publicly transferred in society, thus becoming “deeply consequential for those already systematically oppressed…” (Noble, p. 123) When major influencers dominate these technological spaces, the perspectives that are shared have the potential to be skewed or appropriated as stereotype, thereby furthering misrepresentation due to the inherent power imbalance built into the digitization and corporate control of local knowledge.

Fogust on the Skeena River
A foggy day on the Skeena River