The last full paper session at the SEASON 2025 conference starts with a paper by Cecilia Andersson, whose focus is on multilingualism in online search practices. Bi- and multilingualism is becoming increasingly prevalent, and language and cultural contexts are inseparable from information seeking processes; search engine results, for instance, are inherently influenced by the languages used in searching, and/or the language of the search interface.
Half the world, and 56% of EU citizens, are functionally bilingual, with English often as one of these languages; this is in part also a result of migration between countries, of course. Such bi- and multilingualism can also affect the flow of mis- and disinformation, as different language communities may encounter different news and information contexts, and result in misinformation about countries or cultural and linguistic groups.
This calls for a project that examines how language influences everyday information-seeking practices, and especially search practices and strategies; it should also examine how language affects how results are presented in organic search results and AI summaries. This might be addressed by working with multilingual individuals and exploring their strategies and experiences, for example. Such work should not remain limited to textural content, however, but should also involve a critical visual methodology and visual frame analysis.
