Society of the Query Reader

Looking up something online is one of the most common applications of the web. Whether with a laptop or smartphone we search the web from wherever we are at any given moment. ‘Googling’ has become so entwined in our daily routines that we rarely question it. However search engines such as Google or Bing determine what part of the web we get to see shaping our knowledge and perceptions of the world. But there is a world beyond Google – geographically culturally and technologically. The Society of the Query network was founded in 2009 to delve into the larger societal and cultural consequences that are triggered by search technology. In this Reader which is published after two conferences held in Amsterdam in 2009 and 2013 twenty authors – new media scholars historians computer scientists and artists – try to answer a number of pressing questions about online search.