The tech-media hybrid : Google's news ambition /

Wang, Qun, 1960-2008

The tech-media hybrid : Google's news ambition / Qun Wang. - 291 pages : illujstration ; 22 cm.

Includes bibliographical references and index.


Introduction. Google News: Google and/or News
Why Was Google Interested in News in the First Place? 9/11, a Turning Point
The Google News Homepage Over Twenty Years: What Is the "Google Way"?
Disputes Surrounding Google News: A Global Media-Tech Landscape
Datafication of News and Media Diversity: Google's Technological Specialization and Its Influence
A Global Network: Google's Systematic News Initiatives


"Founded in 1998 as a site to organize the Web, the founders of Google did not conceive of news as a core part of their search engine or business model. This all changed on September 11, 2001. Google quickly recognized that traditional news media was not suited to the new digital environment, nor could it respond to the desire for online news. For both economic and brand-building reasons, news, Google realized, would be crucial to the site's growth. Google soon created Google News, imbuing it with new values and technologies such as automation, algorithms, aggregation, and the de-bundling of content. The result has been that Google News has become a primary gateway and aggregator for news and has played a major role in shaping the news and information ecosystem of the twenty-first century. In The Media-Tech Hybrid: Google's News Ambition, Qun Wang examines a series of related questions including how Google developed its news-related business and its relationship with the news industry over the past two decades; How Google exercised power in the news landscape in the digital age; and what are the implications for policymaking and the future of the news industry. In describing Google's relationship to news, Wang analyzes changes in Google News's homepage, patent law, the global governance of the Internet. She argues that Google normalizes and differentiates from established journalistic practices in ways that ignore, push against, and solidify traditional news values relating to objectivity, fairness, and providing a public service"-- Provided by publisher.

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