Baker, P., & Potts, A. (2013). ‘Why do white people have thin lips?’ Google and the perpetuation of stereotypes via auto-complete search forms. Critical Discourse Studies, 10(2), 187-204. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/17405904.2012.744320

The purpose of Baker’s & Potts’s (2013) article is to address social issues such as identity, representation, prejudice and stereotyping on the internet. The authors challenge the idea of the internet as a platform that promotes democratization. They refute the claim that the anonymity provided by the internet breaks down the communication barriers that divide society by class, race, and gender. They claim the internet only reinstalls cultural biases and stereotypes and is not different from traditional modes of communication in this respect.

Baker & Potts (2013) make their case by pointing out the abundance of stereotyping results on Google’s “Autocomplete”, a feature which aims to guess what users are attempting to search for while they type in their search queries. They regard Autocomplete, in this context, as a ‘window into the collective internet consciousness’.

Baker & Potts (2013) conducted experiments that involved starting Google searches on different identity groups (races, religious groups, genders, etc.) and carefully recording and coding the results of Google’s Autocomplete suggestions. The searches used for Baker’s & Potts’s (2013) experiment include ‘What do gay men…’, ‘Why do black…’ etc. and the data gathered was the autocompletion suggestions provided by Google.

The theoretical framework used in this article is the social construct of technology as Baker & Potts (2013) argue that society’s values are perpetuated in the technology built and used by humans. They state that the internet was thought of as a tool for democratization in its early stages but age-old values of society linger in the new technology. This article adds to the body of works in the fields of sociology of technology and information searching.

The article effectively uses appropriate research methods to prove that there is an abundance of stereotypical content produced by Google Autocomplete. The data produced by the research was also processed to reveal other information about the different stereotypes associated with different social groups. However, the purpose of identifying the different stereotypes most often associated with different social groups was not comprehensively stated.

Keywords from the article include: Google; identity; representation; stereotypes; religion; sexuality; gender; ethnicity

Page author: Salim Zubair