The next speaker in this Weizenbaum Conference session is Victoria Vziatysheva; she begins by noting that pre-existing beliefs affect what information we engage with – this is selective exposure. But studies have also shown that the use of search engines can reduce selective exposure; whether this is the case also depends on the way search queries are formulated in the first place, however.
Victoria’s project explored this in the context of a Swiss referendum on a responsible economy within the planet’s limits (which was ultimately rejected); this connected voting intentions on this referendum with search queries that reflected attitudes for or against this initiative. It also distinguished between the use of queries from a list provided to participants, and the use of self-formulated queries.
The research found no evidence for selective exposure; voting intention did not affect querying behaviours. Perceptions of the likely outcome of the referendum did affect query choices, however. There were no marked differences between closed- and open-ended questions, either. Demographics (age, gender) and pre-existing attitudes also affected the kinds of topics being searched for.
There is therefore no evidence for selective exposure here; the key factor driving query choice was the vote outcome that participants expected. Cognitive factors did not substantially affect query formulation or selective exposure, but did have a limited effect on query topics.
