两极化媒体环境中的搜索引擎：2024年美国大选前对 Google 和 Bing 政治信息策展的审计
Search engines in polarized media environment: Auditing political information curation on Google and Bing prior to 2024 US elections
AI总结：
该研究审计2024年美国大选前 Google 与 Bing 的政治信息策展，发现二者均偏向优先呈现左倾来源，且附加界面元素比自然搜索结果更易受时间和州别影响。
摘要：
搜索引擎在现代选举背景下发挥着重要作用。通过针对用户查询策展信息，搜索引擎会影响个人如何了解与选举相关的进展，以及如何感知选举所处的媒体环境。这对（感知到的）两极分化具有特别影响，尤其是当搜索引擎的策展导致信息来源因其政治倾向而受到不公正对待时。然而，迄今为止，尚不清楚这种党派差距是否会通过搜索引擎上的信息策展出现，以及哪些用户端和系统端因素会影响它。为弥补这一不足，我们在2024年美国总统选举前对两大西方搜索引擎 Google 和 Bing 进行了审计，并考察这些搜索引擎的自然搜索结果和附加界面元素如何根据查询的倾向、用户位置以及搜索进行的时间来呈现与选举相关的信息。研究结果表明，两个搜索引擎都倾向于优先展示左倾媒体来源，而搜索结果意识形态倾向的确切范围在聚焦民主党和共和党的查询之间有所不同。我们还观察到，基于位置和时间的因素对自然搜索结果的影响有限，而附加界面元素的结果随时间和美国各州的变化波动更大。总之，我们的观察强调，搜索引擎的信息策展积极反映了美国媒体环境中存在的党派分歧，并有可能助长这些环境中的（感知到的）两极分化。
英文摘要：
Search engines play an important role in the context of modern elections. By curating information in response to user queries, search engines influence how individuals are informed about election-related developments and perceive the media environment in which elections take place. It has particular implications for (perceived) polarization, especially if search engines' curation results in a skewed treatment of information sources based on their political leaning. Until now, however, it is unclear whether such a partisan gap emerges through information curation on search engines and what user- and system-side factors affect it. To address this shortcoming, we audit the two largest Western search engines, Google and Bing, prior to the 2024 US presidential elections and examine how these search engines' organic search results and additional interface elements represent election-related information depending on the queries' slant, user location, and time when the search was conducted. Our findings indicate that both search engines tend to prioritize left-leaning media sources, with the exact scope of search results' ideological slant varying between Democrat- and Republican-focused queries. We also observe limited effects of location- and time-based factors on organic search results, whereas results for additional interface elements were more volatile over time and specific US states. Together, our observations highlight that search engines' information curation actively mirrors the partisan divides present in the US media environments and has the potential to contribute to (perceived) polarization within these environments.
机构、总结、中文摘要均由AI分析而来，可能存在错误，请以论文正文为准。
