Book Presentation: „Deep Search – The Politics of Search beyond Google“

Konrad Becker at Society of the QueryKonrad Becker, co-founder of the World-Information Institute, used the occasion to present the book „Deep Search – The Politics of Search beyond Google“.  He states that it was the editors‘ objective to create a book about searching which does not focus on Google because the concentration on the company from Mountain View, California restricts the view on the impact of search engines in general. Furthermore he points out another aspect that has already been stressed by other speakers at the Society of the Query conference: he prefers talking about a search society, rather than focussing on a control society.

Becker‘s interest is to examine the long history of the attempt to impose order on the fragile universe of information systems. He refers to library sciences as the kind of discipline that tries to analyze how to structure big amounts of information through catalogue systems. Besides Konrad Becker announces that there will be a second “Deep Search” conference organized by the World Information Institute in May 2010 which is the sequel of the first “Deep Search” conference of 2008.

The book is composed of 13 texts discussing the social and political dimensions related to the organization of knowledge through search engines. Authors involved are for example: Geert Lovink, Richard Rogers, Joris van Hoboken, Matteo Pasquinelli, Konrad Becker and Lev Manovich who also contribute to the Society of the Query conference. It is important to discuss these influence of search technology because as Becker says technology always appears to be politically neutral, but it is always connected to politcal and philosophical ideas.

Society of the Query