Running Head: GOOGLE, INC. AS INTERNET GATEKEEPER
Google, Inc. as Global Internet Gatekeeper
Group 1: Genevieve Bland, Arwen McCaffrey, and Angela Stalcup
Queens University of Charlotte
1
GOOGLE, INC. AS INTERNET GATEKEEPER
For the first time in human history, thanks to rapid advancements in Internet-based
technology, individuals across the globe can experience seemingly unrestricted admission to an
endless catalog of information. Despite the Internet making access to this information easier,
users must still rely on a gatekeeper to access the information – in this case, a search tool such as
Google Search. Although Google, Inc. claims to provide this access in a completely objective,
democratic fashion, with search results derived from Google’s own algorithm known as
PageRank (“Ten things…”, n.d.), a level of subjective influence is inevitable; because Google is
a predominant player in the Internet search business, it is important to examine potential biases
that may result from its influence. This paper will focus on two specific areas of interest: bias in
Google Search, and censorship of Google Search in China. The authors of this paper will
examine the literature on Google’s corporate structure, and issues related to bias and censorship,
through the lens of media gatekeeping theory. Specifically, the paper will address two research
questions: (1) in what ways does the corporate structure of Google, Inc. create a gatekeeping
effect? And (2) what are the effects of Google as gatekeeper on global audiences?
With gatekeeping and potential bias resulting from this gatekeeping as focal points, the
researchers will be examining Google as a transnational media company, or TNMC. A TNMC is
a nationally-based company with overseas operations in two or more countries. As with any
corporation, TNMCs must answer to shareholders, employees, boards, and the greater
marketplace to remain globally competitive. Google, Inc., founded in 1998, is an Americanbased TNMC that provides a wide variety of Internet-based services, and as a TNMC, Google
faces the economic imperative to maintain market domination of these Internet services.
Google’s central mission is to provide universal, democratic access to all available information
(“Ten things…”, n.d.), a goal they strive for with serious effort. Google commands an
2
GOOGLE, INC. AS INTERNET GATEKEEPER
impressive presence in the industry of Internet search: as of March 2014, Google occupies 71%
of the market share (MarketLine, p. 21), a notable presence that makes Google especially worthy
of study.
As a multinational corporation, Google's reach extends well beyond the parameters of
American borders, which has interesting implications in countries with different systems of
media, and different cultural, political, and economic circumstances. Perhaps the most
noteworthy example of this potential conflict is between Google and China. Google has fought
to establish a presence in the Chinese market, which is the second largest in the world (Rapoza,
2013), but is met with cultural and political resistance on behalf of the Chinese government,
which objects to Google’s mission to provide unfettered information access to Chinese citizens.
In order to do business in China, Google must comply with Chinese law, putting them in a
precarious position in which they must compromise their dedication to an open, accessible
Internet. In addition to potential bias resulting from Google’s algorithm, Communist China’s
federal policy of unabashed censorship acts as an added layer of gatekeeping. The Chinese
government prefers to maintain dominion over the wants and needs of the gated, defying the
logic of the algorithm. This makes China an especially timely and pertinent case study of
TNMCs and gatekeeping.
The research for this paper takes the form of an analytical literature review of the
corporate structure of Google, Inc. and the specific areas of interest of search engine bias and
Internet censorship in China. These topics will be examined through the lens of media
gatekeeping theory.
Analytical Literature Review
Theoretical Framework
3
GOOGLE, INC. AS INTERNET GATEKEEPER
Media gatekeeping theory is essentially the examination of selection, or “the process by
which the billions of messages that are available in the world get cut down and transformed into
the hundreds of messages that reach a given person on a given day” (Shoemaker, 1991, p. 1).
Gatekeeping is “the directed flow of information” (Granka, 2010, p. 365), where entities
(individuals, organizations, governments) filter and/or control the flow of information to
audiences. In a media context, gatekeeping theory examines how selections are made regarding
news and information before reaching media consumers. There is extensive literature on media
gatekeeping, particularly as relates to journalism and mass communication. As media platforms
evolve, so does media gatekeeping, going from an emphasis on the role of the individual
gatekeeper, to the role of systemic policies, to the concept of the gated network.
Gatekeeping theory originated with the work of social scientist Kurt Lewin in the 1940s
in his study of how communities made food choices. Lewin’s (1951) “theory of channels and
gate keepers” revealed that “not everyone is equally important in making food selection choices”
(Shoemaker & Vos, 2008, p. 76) and that the gatekeeper, or decision maker, at any point in the
process exerted influence over which foods made it to the table or were rejected. From this
work, Lewin identified the critical components of channels, sections, forces, and gates.
David Manning White (1950) took Lewin’s idea of gatekeeping and applied it to media,
specifically to how a news story makes it to the pages of a newspaper. White asked the editor of
a small-city newspaper, whom he referred to as “Mr. Gates,” to track his selection/rejection
process of news stories for the period of a week. White found that the selection decisions were
“highly subjective” (p. 386), with the editor rejecting stories due to his own personal opinion or
due to space constraints. White thus identified two primary forces at work in gatekeeping: the
personal preference of the gatekeeper and the impersonal structures of the business of news.
4
GOOGLE, INC. AS INTERNET GATEKEEPER
White concluded that the decisions of the individual gatekeeper were the most significant factor
in gatekeeping decisions. However, Westley and MacLean (1957) expanded upon White's work
and asserted that the policies of the news organization, the impersonal aspects, exerted greater
influence than the preference of any individual decision-maker.
Shoemaker and Vos (2008) returned to Lewin’s field theory with channels, sections,
forces, and gates, and applied these to how a news story becomes a news story. A channel is “a
social artifact or organization that determines the hurdle an item must pass over” (p. 77).
Sections are the way in which the channels are organized, gates are the decision points
(accept/reject, story placement, length of coverage), and forces are “cultural norms that work for
or against section, length, and so on” (p. 77). The gatekeepers are either individual decision
makers in new organizations or the policies these individuals enforce.
Shoemaker (1991) and Shoemaker and Vos (2008) further extended media gatekeeping to
include five levels of influence: individuals, routine practices, communication organizations,
social institutions, and social systems. Much as in Lewin’s work, an individual in a decisionmaking position may use personal preference in selecting a news story for coverage or
publication, something as simple as a subject she likes or dislikes. With routine practices, “the
pre-established and generalized set of practices about how the work is to be done” (Shoemaker &
Vos, 2008, p. 79) govern the decision-making process, with newsworthiness the primary concern.
On an organizational level, the structure of an organization and the business environment are
factors in gatekeeping. Decisions related to target markets for media and advertising sales are a
factor at this level. In the context of social institutions, governments, corporations, and special
interests can exert power on gatekeepers (Shoemaker & Vos, 2008). In the final context, social
systems, “cultural values, beliefs, and practices” (Shoemaker & Vos, 2008, p. 83) of countries or
5
GOOGLE, INC. AS INTERNET GATEKEEPER
regions can impact gatekeeper selection, as societies prefer certain ideas and concepts to others.
Thus, gatekeeping theory becomes a multi-level, multi-faceted process.
Building on Shoemaker (1991) and Shoemaker and Vos (2008), Barzilai-Nahon’s (2008)
network gatekeeping theory examined the relationship between gatekeepers and the gated. In
this framework, information passes through a gate (passage point) by means of a gatekeeping
mechanism (including channel mechanisms, censorship mechanisms, editorial mechanisms, and
infrastructure mechanisms) controlled by a gatekeeper(s) (institutions) to the gated
(audience/consumers of information). Barzilai-Nahon (2009) identifies five “rationales” for
gatekeeping: (1) controlling access to information; (2) editorial concerns; (3) regulating
information for the protection of a group; (4) preservation of group or cultural values; (5) acting
as a “change agent” for behavioral or social concerns (p. 17).
Subsequent research has focused on media gatekeeping and the Internet. Bui (2010)
examined search engines as representative of multiple layers of network gatekeeping. While
acknowledging Shoemaker and Vos’s (2008) contention that audiences now have the power to
act as gatekeepers, Bui observed that, given the vast amount of information available on the
Internet, “the gateds, even though empowered with greater autonomy in the Internet era, are still
largely dependent on the gatekeeper’s design and policy” (p. 5). Bui examined Google Search
and Yahoo Search as a comparison of the gatekeeping effects of Google’s automated algorithm as
compared to Yahoo’s "automated-plus-human-editor" (p. 36) and identified search engine bias in
the way search engines favor so-called credible and/or popular sites, thus favoring the Big Five
TNMCs—News Corporation, Viacom, Comcast, Disney, and Time Warner. Thus, Internet search
engines become just another level, perhaps “the last level” of media gatekeeping, with certain
sources favored while others are excluded, regardless of level of automation.
6
GOOGLE, INC. AS INTERNET GATEKEEPER
In the early stages of the development of gatekeeping theory, the focus of the study was
on one-way communication, from gatekeeper to the gated (audience), and with the power resting
entirely with the gated (Lewin, 1947, 1951; Westley & MacLean, 1957; White, 1950). However,
Shoemaker (2009) and Barzilai-Nahon (2008, 2009) advocated for a two-way communication
model, in which both gatekeepers and the gated impact and are impacted by each other.
Shoemaker notes that in the age of the Internet, audience members can function as their own
gatekeepers, with the ability to choose and share the content of their choice. Barzilai-Nahon’s
(2008) network gatekeeping model suggested “a versatile and dynamic nature of the relationship
between the gated and the gatekeeper due to frequent, enduring, and direct exchange” (p. 1507)
where the gated have the potential to exercise their own power.
While the earliest investigations of media gatekeeping focused on print and television
broadcasting (White, 1950), the current literature on gatekeeping is concerned with gatekeeping
in the age of the Internet. Shoemaker (2009) and Barzilai-Nahon (2008, 2009) included the
Internet gatekeepers in their research, suggesting that the gated are no longer at the mercy of
traditional gatekeepers for access to news and information. Bui (2010) suggested just the
opposite—not only are search engines gatekeepers, both algorithms and human editors tend to
favor the Big Five TNMCs, so the gated still have limited access to information. The literature
on gatekeeping suggests that, while audiences have a degree of power, they are still forced to
rely on Internet gatekeepers to access information, and are thus subject to the forces at play on
the gatekeeper.
In the gatekeeper literature mentioned above, Google Search (often along with Yahoo’s
search engine) is referenced frequently; however, Google, Inc., as a corporation, has not been
studied in its role as a gatekeeper.
7
GOOGLE, INC. AS INTERNET GATEKEEPER
For this analytical literature review, the researchers will be analyzing the literature
pertaining to Google, Inc. for evidence of network gatekeeping and the effects of Google’s
gatekeeping on globalized audiences, particularly as relates to search engine bias and Internet
censorship in China. To that end, the researchers will be using the following terms from
Barzilai-Nahon (2008):

Gate: “entrance to or exit from a network or its sections” (p. 1496)

Gatekeeping: “the process of controlling information as it moves through a gate” (p.
1496)

Gated :“the entity subjected to gatekeeping” (p. 1496)

Gatekeeping mechanism: “a tool, technology, or methodology used to carry out the
process of gatekeeping” (p. 1496)

Network gatekeeper – “an entity (people, organizations, or governments) that has the
discretion to exercise gatekeeping through a gatekeeping mechanism in networks and can
choose the extent to which to exercise it contingent upon the gated standing” (p. 1497)
Additionally, we will be looking for the specific gatekeeping processes of: “selection, addition,
withholding, display, channeling, shaping, manipulation, repetition, timing, localization,
integration, disregard, and deletion of information” (p. 1496).
Google, Inc. Corporate Structure
Google, Inc. is a publicly traded company currently valued at over $400 billion (Farzad,
2014). Google’s most well-known services include its search engine, Google Search; web
browser, Chrome; the Android operating system for smartphone applications; Google Drive, a
cloud-based storage system; Gmail, Google+, YouTube, and Picasa photo-editing software.
8
GOOGLE, INC. AS INTERNET GATEKEEPER
Google’s primary revenue stream is advertising. Google claims to be as objective as possible in
its Internet search result listings, refusing to sell search result placement to anyone, and it
developed its own algorithm to democratically determine which results were ‘voted’ to be the
best by all Internet users (“Ten things…”, n.d.). Google’s desire to provide universal information
access to every country, in every language, has driven them to develop a substantial international
presence, with service provided in 130 languages and corporate offices in more than 40 nations
(“Ten things…”, n.d.). Google’s extensive portfolio of information products, combined with its
market share of more than 71% as of March 2014 (MarketLine, p. 21), makes Google’s influence
as an information gatekeeper particularly worthy of study.
Barzilai-Nahon (2008) extrapolates on gatekeeper theory by exploring the relationship
between the gatekeeper and the gated. Despite the access to information afforded to many of the
gated through the ubiquity of the Internet, individuals must still rely on a gatekeeper – in this
case, a search tool such as Google – to help them locate their desired content. According to the
literature, Google’s corporate structure aligns with gatekeeper theory through its acquisition
strategy; its partnership with other, key media corporations; and its reliance on advertising for
revenue.
Google has demonstrated an aggressive acquisition strategy. According to Steiber and
Alänge (2013), Google describes the motive in their acquisitions as “find[ing] key companies
with strong engineering power and succeeding where we are not” (p. 251). Combined with
internal corporate motivations, such as a lack of bureaucratic structure, these acquisitions, or
external motivators, have “allowed the company to better sustain its ability to be innovative” (p.
259). Google began acquiring other technology-based businesses in the early 2000s, including
Pyra Labs, later known as Blogger, in 2003; Picasa, a photo management company that offers
9
GOOGLE, INC. AS INTERNET GATEKEEPER
free photo editing software, as well as Keyhole, a satellite mapping company now known as
Google Earth, in 2004; Urchin Software, a web analytics company, and Writely, a web-based
word processor, in 2005; DoubleClick, an online ad management program, in 2008; and
Motorola Mobility in 2012. Perhaps Google’s most notable acquisition was that of online video
sharing site YouTube, which Google acquired in 2006 for $1.6 billion in stock (MarketLine, p.
7). The diverse technological specialties that these acquisitions represent, combined with
Google’s substantial market share and enormous global reach, allow Google to dominate the
Internet and act as network gatekeeper for many types of content, including photo, video, GPS
and topographical data, mobile phone technology applications, and advertising. The more and
varied types of information Google manages, the more the gated are forced to interact with, and
subsequently be influenced by, Google itself.
In addition to their acquisitions, Google maintains partnerships with many large-scale
media conglomerates that further extend Google’s role as network gatekeeper. Google has
maintained an alliance with AOL Time Warner since 2005, when it initially invested $1 billion in
AOL for a 5% stake in the company. AOL then became one of Google’s key customers, as
Google’s search services expanded into the AOL platform. In 2006, Google reached an
agreement with News Corporation’s Fox Interactive Media and became its exclusive provider of
targeted advertising sales, through use of searches and keywords. Google has also partnered
with EchoStar’s Dish Network, having introduced an automated advertising system onto Dish
Network’s 125 satellite television networks, as well as establishing multi-year advertising
agreements with Clear Channel and Nielson Company. In 2012, Google, along with AOL,
Facebook, Twitter, and the global nonprofit group Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB), formed
an industry partnership to work against what they considered bad advertising, known as the Ads
10
GOOGLE, INC. AS INTERNET GATEKEEPER
Integrity Alliance (MarketLine, pp. 7-10). By aligning with transnational media corporations
such as these, Google strategically places itself in an advantageous gatekeeping position. Not
only does Google exert significant influence over Internet-based users, but their reach now
extends to a differentiated audience of radio and television consumers. Lewin’s (1943) original
gatekeeping theory assertion that there may be several channels that lead to the same end result,
and that different actors may control these channels at different times, is evidenced in Google’s
relationships with these other gatekeepers.
Beyond these official partnerships, indirect associations with other media corporations
can be found in Google’s board of directors. Ann Mather, a Director on Google’s Non-Executive
Board since 2005, also serves as a Director for Glu Mobile, for movie and television streaming
giant Netflix, and for Shutterfly, a photo processing website. Prior to her time at Google, she
served as Chief Financial Officer for both Pixar Animation Studios and Village Roadshow
Pictures. Prior to his time at Google, Nikesh Arora, Senior Vice President and Chief Business
Officer since 2011, worked for Deutsche Telekom and founded a mobile multimedia subsidiary
of T-Mobile International (MarketLine, p. 16). While these histories with other national and
multinational media corporations aren’t necessarily indicative of official corporate preferences
on behalf of Google, they are evidence of potential media connections that may influence
Google’s professional decisions. These individuals not only act as gatekeepers themselves in
their management of business information that they choose to share with Google, but as highranking board members, they exert influence over Google’s larger role as network gatekeeper.
Although Google describes their advertising ventures from a user-focused standpoint,
“[helping] businesses reach people in the moments that matter” (MarketLine, p. 29), and
providing ads that are “useful and relevant to search queries or web content” (p. 4), the literature
11
GOOGLE, INC. AS INTERNET GATEKEEPER
points to revenue as Google’s true motivation for its involvement in advertising. Ming-Hone,
Yu-De, and Yeah-Huey (2011) go so far as to describe Google, from a profit business model
perspective, as an advertising company (p. 232). They posit that Google developed free Internet
search technology only at its inception, quickly progressing into advertising in order to profit (p.
235). In 2013, advertising provided 84.3% of Google’s revenue, making it a vital corporate
priority (MarketLine, p. 22). Google’s primary advertising program, known as AdWords, offers
advertisers cost-per-click (with the advertiser paying Google a set amount for each click on its
advertisement), and cost-per-impression (where advertisers pay based on the number of times
their ads appear) payment options (p. 4). In 2008, Google bought out DoubleClick, an online
advertising technology, and in 2010, Google furthered their advertising reach by acquiring
AdMob, a mobile advertising technology, which Google soon integrated into AdWords in order
to run advertising campaigns across hundreds of thousands of mobile applications (pp. 8-9).
Google sought to rapidly expand its advertising capabilities through these technology
acquisitions. Its ownership of YouTube, which holds a video advertising market share of 20.5%
in the United States (MarketLine, p. 23), further expands their advertising influence.
Although Google claims to remain objective in its search query results by using a
carefully crafted algorithm, and staunchly forbids advertisers to pay for higher rankings in
Google’s search results, Google seeks to continually refine its advertising and does so with
gatekeeping tendencies. Google admits to “not displaying ads that generate low-click through
rates or that send users to irrelevant or otherwise low-quality websites . . . and terminating our
relationships with those Google Network Members whose websites do not meet our quality
requirements” (p. 29). This practice, an example of what Barzilai-Nahon (2008) refers to as a
gatekeeping mechanism, demonstrates Google’s lack of objectivity, suggesting their influence
12
GOOGLE, INC. AS INTERNET GATEKEEPER
over the information available on the Internet through their search engine. This influence
interferes with its users’ unfettered access to unbiased information.
These effects of Google, Inc. as a gatekeeper have an impact on globalized audiences.
While these effects may be many, we will now focus on issues of global reach: the automated
effects of search engine bias and the combination of automated and human editors as seen in
censorship of Google Search in China.
Areas of Interest
Search engine bias. There is also a significant body of research on search engine bias.
Google claims to be as objective as possible in its Internet search result listings, refusing to sell
search result placement to anyone, and it developed its own algorithm to democratically
determine which results were ‘voted’ to be the best by all Internet users (“Ten things…”, n.d.).
Bui (2010), Cornière and Taylor (2014), and Walker (2002) all challenge that assertion. Bui
demonstrates that bias in search engines, whether entirely algorithm based or with human
editors, tends to favor the Big Five TNMCs, thus creating a Western-centric bias in search.
Cornière and Taylor (2014) investigate bias in Internet sites with their own advertising, a feature
that the Google algorithm penalizes. Walker highlights the role of linking in creating favorable
or unfavorable page rankings in Google.
Google's position as “owner” of Internet search places it in a unique position as
gatekeeper. Organizational forces such the imperative to maintain its rank as the top search
engine raise questions as to the objectivity of data accessibility when filtered through a company
which is rapidly acquiring a monopoly on the search industry. Additionally, with the
organizational gate of the sale of advertising via AdWords as the primary source of revenue for
13
GOOGLE, INC. AS INTERNET GATEKEEPER
the company, questions arise as to how information is filtered to favor advertisers, and how user
data is incorporated in sales to advertisers.
The inner workings of Google’s search capabilities revolve around the function of its
algorithm design. For every given search term, Google’s automated algorithm is engaged in
order to decide what information to present to the searcher (Granka, 2010, p. 365). Search
engines are designed to fetch relevant content based upon user input, and content retrieval is
triggered based upon user-input keywords. A search engine has to first identify relevant content,
and then rank order the most pertinent results. Some of the techniques Google employs in order
to provide search results include linguistic cues, popularity cues, and user behavior cues (p. 366).
Perhaps most importantly, search engines such as Google do not reside in a vacuum, and are also
subject to the political climates in which their services are positioned. In addition to the
algorithm, search engines are subject to governmental policies in the countries in which they
operate. Google’s actions in China in the mid-2000s serve as evidence of mandated search
engine bias in the face of strict governmental control of consumer access to topics regarded as
politically sensitive or inappropriate. Forced to either cooperate with the Chinese government’s
censorship policy or be denied access to China’s market, Google initially opted to tailor its
search results to generate only content that did not violate China’s list of blacklisted terms and
references. In order to accommodate Internet censorship, “search engines [are] architecturally
altered to serve political regimes” (Jiang, 2014).
Additional examples of search engine bias can be found in the existence of human
editors, or those that take action to remove themselves from the scope of search, thus creating a
potential skew in search results. In the EU, the “Right to be forgotten” act enabled EU citizens
14
GOOGLE, INC. AS INTERNET GATEKEEPER
to opt out of Google tracking, with the result being an impact on PageRank and content filtering
for those audiences (Neroth, 2014).
Google’s impressive command of the business of Internet search enables the company to
dominate in the field. Singlehandedly, Google controls over half of the global market share for
search (MarketLine, p. 21) and commands over 180 Internet domains (Google.de, google.ca,
google.cn) for search in 130 languages (Ten things…, n.d.). With such extensive scope, any bias
present in Google search impacts an audience on a global scale.
Evidence of bias present in Google search can be found in numerous instances. In a
comparison of Google to Baidu, a leading search engine and Google rival in China, Jiang (2014)
found “little ranking similarity” (p. 221) between the two, suggesting each had its own biases
and thus created “different social realities” (p. 221). Bui (2010) found that the “popularity cues”
of search engines favor the Big Five TNMCs—Comcast, Disney, News Corp., Time-Warner,
Viacom—thus creating a bias to U.S.-oriented news and entertainment. Likewise, Fortunato,
Flammini, Menczer, and Vespignani (2006) and Walker (2002) identified that in-linking and
PageRank created a cycle reinforcing the most popular sites, with the tendency to perpetuate
more frequently visited webpages in search results, while placing less-than-equal importance on
lesser-traveled sites.
The potential effects of search engine bias from a globally positioned company are many.
For one, globalized audiences receive different search results based on location, leading to
inconsistent content retrieval dependent on geographic location. Additionally, search results
skew to favor U.S.-based media companies, resulting in a top-heavy, Western-oriented flow of
data that may disregard cultural difference and preference in developing countries. Lastly,
15
GOOGLE, INC. AS INTERNET GATEKEEPER
targeted ads can obscure “pure” search data, yielding search results that are non-objective and
trend toward desired objectives of advertisers.
Censorship in China. There is a significant body of literature on Google and China.
Despite its rapid international growth and subsequent market dominance, Google has
encountered resistance in China, whose ruling Communist party severely limits its citizens’
abilities to freely access information (Eko, Kumar, & Yao, 2011; Lu, 2011, Jiang & Chang, 2008;
Lee, 2010). While Google initially stood firm against Chinese censorship by threatening to pull
its services out of China entirely in 2010, it has since tried to negotiate a presence in China –
redirecting Chinese users to a Hong Kong-based Google network, for example, and creating
warning messages to Chinese Google users that they were searching for a phrase considered to
be politically sensitive (Eko, Kumar, & Yao, 2011; Lu, 2011). These measures were all objected
to and subsequently obfuscated by the Chinese authorities, who assert that Google’s intrusion
will complicate U.S.-China relations. Jiang and Chang (2008) and Eko, Kumar, and Yao (2011)
investigated how companies such as Google frequently acquiesce to the governing ordinances of
the country, self-regulating in order to remain a competitor and economically viable in foreign
marketplaces, including China. Lee (2010) and Lu (2011) examine Google's strategy to move to
the front of the competitive pack in the Chinese market, which involved tailoring its company
mission to favorably align with China's media objectives. Lee posited that United States-based
Internet companies have vested interest in achieving and maintaining economic relevance in
overseas marketplaces, and do so by strategically manipulating their objectives to fit the context.
Thus, Google finds itself a gatekeeper facing the gates of another gatekeeper—the political
policies of China. Companies like Google and others may agree with the altruistic goals of
maintaining network neutrality, including open access to information and unbiased search ability,
16
GOOGLE, INC. AS INTERNET GATEKEEPER
but these companies also operate in diverse global economic climates whose governmental
regulations are substantially different from those found in the United States and other Western
nations (Eko, Kumar, & Yao, 2011). In order to maintain presence in China, for example,
Google has found it necessary to cooperate with the country's various political and legal
regulations, including participating in the control of Internet content. Conversely, Google
emphasized freedom of expression and information in its dealings with India, representing the
company's willingness to tweak its business practices to suit particular media situations (Eko,
Kumar, & Yao, 2011).
In environments such as China, “virtually all aspects of the life of the citizen [are
regulated by the government]” (Eko, Kumar, & Yao, 2011, p. 3). This includes regulation of
Internet access, and the “activities of multinational information technology corporations such as
Google, Inc., in particular, within the framework of their national political logics” (p. 4). A
perceived threat from countries including China is that U.S. “governmentality,” a core principle
of Google and other companies, is “not used to sow seeds of discord that could undermine the
development aspirations of the country . . . U.S. governmentality, in which Google is grounded,
consists of a “basket” of principles and values including: government of the people, by the
people, for the people, free enterprise, the marketplace of ideas, laissez-faire capitalism, and the
free flow of ideas, goods, and services” (p. 4).
China arrived relatively late on the scene of Internet access, establishing connectivity in
1994, and considers the service to be a component of economic infrastructure rather than a
medium for political communication (Eko, Kumar, & Yao, 2011). Because of this approach,
China “has a gateway model of Internet regulation . . . the Chinese government has created a
closed, national Intranet that it protects with a censorious architecture of information technology,
17
GOOGLE, INC. AS INTERNET GATEKEEPER
regulatory agencies, Internet Service Providers, and an Internet police squad . . . in short, the
government is the gatekeeper who controls access to the global Internet for the billion plus
Chinese citizens” (p. 4). Rather than embracing the ideologies of open information access
through network neutrality, China's concerns focus on principles grounded in the Communist
Party, including the stance that media exists “as instruments of socialist propaganda
dissemination and economic development” (p. 4) and must thus remain highly regulated.
Therefore, although the Internet is utilized for economic functions, China places high importance
on retaining the country's status quo via restrictions on content access.
In order to retain presence in nations like China, companies like Google must acquiesce
to government mandates on information access. China's implementation of the Golden Shield
Project, also referred to as “The Great Firewall of China,” signified its government's
commitment to censorship through nationwide control and restriction of Internet communication.
Google's initial establishment of presence in China took the form of Google.cn, but because the
servers were housed within China, government censorship regulations applied to the content
retrieval of Google.cn. Following its inception within the Chinese market, Google was
subsequently blocked multiple times by the government, but was restored based upon customer
demand (Eko, Kumar, & Yao, 2011). Subsequently, Google “was faced with an ethical dilemma:
obey Chinese law or leave the booming lucrative market” (p. 7), with the company eventually
making the decision to remain in China under collaboration with government regulations on
content censorship. This decision generated criticism from many Western parties, who viewed
Google's entry into the Chinese market as “unethical because Google willfully obeyed the unjust
laws of China” (p. 7).
18
GOOGLE, INC. AS INTERNET GATEKEEPER
Google's collaboration with Chinese governmental demands of content censorship is
illustrative of gatekeeping theory and the subsequent business decisions companies must make in
order to remain viable in arenas where content censorship takes precedence. As a public search
engine, Google serves as an information broker, with the capability to influence search returns
based on the algorithms employed in the generation of search results. A second level of
gatekeeping is introduced when Google chooses to abide by government policies in nations that
encourage a restricted approach to citizen information access. Google's company motto consists
of the phrase “Don't be evil,” but its acceptance of Chinese censorship policies indicates a
compromise in this philosophy.
Google, Inc. as gatekeeper. Google, Inc. meets all of the requirements of serving as a
gatekeeper of Internet content. Even with the so-called democratization of the Internet, with any
user now having the potential to serve as her own gatekeeper, the enormity of the Internet
requires users have some means with which to filter information. Google, Inc. manages two
different gates: its proprietary algorithm and varying governmental policies in the 180 countries
served by Google Search. Global Internet users of Google Search, as the gated, are subject to
multiple layers of gatekeeping by the time they use Google Search. The first gate, the Google
algorithm, automatically performs the gatekeeping mechanisms. The second gate, governmental
policies, adds human editors’ preferences to an adjusted Google algorithm. With both types of
gates, gating mechanisms are triggered either due to the nature of the information or the nature of
the gated.
While navigating both automated and human gates, Google, Inc. performs the
gatekeeping mechanisms of selection, deletion, localization, display, and shaping (BarzilaiNahon (2008). The mechanism of selection occurs as a result of the Google algorithm favoring
19
GOOGLE, INC. AS INTERNET GATEKEEPER
so-called popular and credible sites, judging these by the number of links to these sites.
Localization occurs as content is filtered based on a searcher’s location, with content varying due
to local and/or national location. The revenue-generating AdWords program operates as a
display mechanism, with paying advertisers given featured listings in search results. The
mechanism of shaping happens as content selection differs based on the individual user’s
relationship with Google (logged-in as a user; geo-targeted ads). Deletion and censorship are the
mechanisms at work in Google, Inc.’s decision to radically alter search results due to
governmental policies, particularly as seen in China.
Internal and external forces on Google, Inc. as a TNMC influence the use of gatekeeping
mechanisms. Internally, the corporation faces the economic imperative to maintain and grow
market position for stockholders. Externally, Google is experiencing growing competition from
other Internet gatekeepers, including other global Internet search providers (Baidu) and social
networking platforms with search functions. Finally, the external forces of differing nation-state
policies on privacy, content, and censorship drive Google, Inc. to use various gatekeeping
mechanisms to maintain market dominance.
As a result of Google’s gatekeeper role, globalized audiences have inconsistent
experiences based on localization, governmental policy, and value to advertisers, potentially
obscuring valuable/needed information. Due to the favored selection of Big Five media
companies, Google Search creates a bias toward Western-centric TNMCs. The display privilege
given to AdWords customers influences not only content seen by users but the display of more
“organic” search results taken by the AdWords space. This bias is particularly evident in China,
where an added layer of gatekeeping, the specific, censoring policies of the Chinese government,
are privileged over the wants and needs of the gated or the logic of the algorithm. Thus, in
20
GOOGLE, INC. AS INTERNET GATEKEEPER
China, to maintain its position as a gatekeeper to the Chinese consumer market, Google willingly
betrays its stated commitment to an open, accessible Internet.
Conclusions
As an undisputed powerhouse of Internet search and a myriad of other services, Google
commands tremendous influence as a transnational media company that serves as a broker of
information retrieval. In light of its nature and structure as informational gatekeeper, Google
must consider the additional impacts of relationships with other global partners who approach
the concepts of open search versus information censorship differently. As evidenced by the case
study of the company's presence in China, Google violates its own company creed by treading
toward information censorship in the name of economic benefit and expanded market scope.
The perceived willingness of companies such as Google to acquiesce to data censorship
mandates sets a dangerous precedent toward the future of data retrieval, and potentially
jeopardizes the future of unbiased and unfettered information access, a hallmark advantage of the
Internet in its current network-neutral state. In this era of an educated gated population, if
Google wishes to maintain its role as gatekeeper of the Internet, the company will have to
address these issues and face the demands of the gated.
21
GOOGLE, INC. AS INTERNET GATEKEEPER
References
Barzilai-Nahon, K. (2008). Toward a theory of network gatekeeping: A framework for exploring
information control. Journal of the American Society for Information Science &
Technology, 59(9), 1493-1512.
Barzilai-Nahon, K. (2009). Gatekeeping: A critical review. Annual Review of Information
Science & Technology, 43, 1-79.
Bui, C. (2010). How online gatekeepers guard our view – News portals’ inclusion and ranking of
media and events. Global Media Journal. 9(16), 1-41.
Cornière, A., & Taylor, G. (2014). Integration and search engine bias. RAND Journal of
Economics (Wiley-Blackwell), 45(3), 576-597. doi:10.1111/1756-2171.12063
Eko, L., Kumar, A., & Yao, Q. (2011). Google this: The great firewall of China, the IT wheel of
India, Google INC., and Internet regulation. Journal of Internet Law, 15(3), 3-14.
Farzad, R. (2014, February 12). Google at $400 billion. A new number 2 in market cap.
Bloomberg Businessweek. Retrieved from http://www.businessweek.com/articles/201402-12/google-at-400-billion-a-new-no-dot-2-in-market-cap
Fortunato, S., Flammini, A., Menczer, F., &Vespignani, A. Proceedings of the National Academy
of Sciences of the United States of America, 103(34), 12684-12689.
Granka, L. A. (2010). The Politics of Search: A Decade Retrospective. Information
Society, 26(5), 364-374. doi:10.1080/01972243.2010.511560
Google Inc. (n.d.) MarketLine Analysis. Retrieved from
http://ezproxy.queens.edu:2331/bsi/companyinfo?sid=a46b60e2-0d7b-40f3-8e27765bedb9339a%40sessionmgr4001&vid=5&hid=4109&bdata=JnNpdGU9YnNpLWxpd
mU%3d#db=bth&authdb=dmhls&AN=5B199F61-608D-4923-B4A3-F5EE15285ADE
22
GOOGLE, INC. AS INTERNET GATEKEEPER
Jiang, M. (2014). The business and politics of search engines: A comparative study of Baidu and
Google’s search results of Internet events in China. New Media & Society 16(2), 221233.
Jiang, Y., & Chang, T. K. (2008). State requirement and media behavior: The institutional
isomorphism of Google in China. Conference Papers -- International Communication
Association. 2008 Annual Meeting, 1-32.
Lee, M. (2010). Revisiting the Google in China question from a political economic perspective.
China Media Research, 6(2), 15-24.
Lewin, K. (1947). Frontiers in group dynamics: Concept, method and reality in science; social
equilibria and social change. Human Relations, 1, 5–40.
Lewin, K. (1951). Field theory in social science: Selected theoretical papers. New York: Harper.
Lu, J. (2011). American Internet companies' predicament in China: Google, Ebay and MSN
Messenger. Javnost-The Public, 18(1), 75-91.
Ming-Hone, T., Yu-De, L., & Yeah-Huey, S. (2011). A grounded theory study on the business
model structure of Google. International Journal of Electronic Business Management,
9(3), 231-242.
Neroth, P. (2014). Challenge of balancing privacy with censorship ends up in Google’s
lap. Engineering & Technology, 9(7), 16.
Rapoza, K. (April 5, 2013). Just how big is China? Bigger than you think. Forbes. Retrieved
from http://www.forbes.com/sites/kenrapoza/2013/04/05/just-how-big-is-china-biggerthan-you-think/
Shoemaker, P. J. (1991). Gatekeeping. Newbury Park, CA: Sage.
23
GOOGLE, INC. AS INTERNET GATEKEEPER
Shoemaker, P.J. & Vos, T.P. (2008). Media gatekeeping. In M. B. Salwen & D.W. Stacks (Eds.),
An integrated approach to communication theory and research (2nd ed.) (pp. 75-89). New
York: Routledge.
Steiber, A., & Alänge, S. (2013). A corporate system for continuous innovation: The case of
Google Inc. European Journal of Innovation Management, 16(2), 243-264.
doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.1108/14601061311324566
Ten things we know to be true. (n.d.). Retrieved October 5, 2014, from
http://www.google.com/about/company/philosophy/
Walker, J. (2005). Links and power: The political economy of linking on the web. Library
Trends, 53(4), 524-529.
Westley, B. H., & MacLean, M.S., Jr. (1957). A Conceptual Model for Communications
Research. Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly, 34, 31-38.
White, D. M. (1950). The “gate keeper:” A case study in the selection of news. Journalism
Quarterly, 27, 383–390.
24