Abstract

Search engines are one of the most trusted and used sources of political information. Yet there is limited research on how often people search for political topics in the real world, the search strategies they use to find information, and the results people select. We use a combination of survey and online behavioral data to illuminate how often people search for political content, what queries they use, how autocomplete affects political queries, how searches vary by political characteristics, and what types of results people view. We holistically investigate the political search process of 45 politically diverse individuals in the U.S., selected from a larger sample of 564, by observing 6-months of their online behavior. While politically interested people do most political searching and tend to favor their own side in the queries they compose and the results they visit, it is not overwhelmingly so. In fact, there is a substantial amount of cross-party searching and result visiting. Autocomplete and trending topics play a small role in political search overall. People visit a wide variety of results after searching for political information beyond national news sites. These findings extend our understanding of political search and have both theoretical and practical implications.

摘要

搜索引擎是最受信任和最常用的政治信息来源之一。然而，关于人们在现实世界中搜索政治话题的频率、他们用于查找信息的搜索策略以及人们选择的结果的研究还很有限。我们结合使用调查和在线行为数据来阐明人们搜索政治内容的频率、他们使用的查询、自动完成如何影响政治查询、搜索如何因政治特征而异，以及人们查看的结果类型。我们通过观察 6 个月的在线行为，从更大的 564 人样本中选出 45 名美国政见不同的人，全面调查他们的政治搜索过程。虽然对政治感兴趣的人进行大多数政治搜索，并且在他们撰写的查询和访问的结果中倾向于支持他们自己的一方，但并不是压倒性的。事实上，存在大量的跨方搜索和结果访问。自动完成和热门话题在整体政治搜索中扮演的角色很小。人们在搜索国家新闻网站以外的政治信息后会访问各种各样的结果。这些发现扩展了我们对政治搜索的理解，并具有理论和实践意义。人们在搜索国家新闻网站以外的政治信息后会访问各种各样的结果。这些发现扩展了我们对政治搜索的理解，并具有理论和实践意义。人们在搜索国家新闻网站以外的政治信息后会访问各种各样的结果。这些发现扩展了我们对政治搜索的理解，并具有理论和实践意义。