Do you see what I see? Images of the COVID-19 pandemic through the lens of Google.

ABSTRACT: During times of crisis, information access is crucial. Given the opaque processes behind modern search engines, it is important to understand the extent to which the "picture" of the Covid-19 pandemic accessed by users differs. We explore variations in what users "see" concerning the pandemic through Google image search, using a two-step approach. First, we crowdsource a search task to users in four regions of Europe, asking them to help us create a photo documentary of Covid-19 by providing image search queries. Analysing the queries, we find five common themes describing information needs. Next, we study three sources of variation - users' information needs, their geo-locations and query languages - and analyse their influences on the similarity of results. We find that users see the pan

SUBMITTER: Paramita ML 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC9759662 | biostudies-literature | 2021 Sep

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature