What Do Search Engines Say About Refugees?

• In Event: Rich Global Perspectives on Peace Education

Abstract

Search engines’ autocomplete function quickly displays suggestions for the searcher before the searcher finishes typing. In this study, the authors typed keywords on Bing, Google, and Yahoo, related to refugees and recorded what was suggested by these search engines. Two coders (the authors) independently coded the suggestions as either negative, neutral, or positive in light of the following question: “In this suggestion, are refugees portrayed in a negative, neutral, or positive manner?” Results showed that most of the suggestions were neutral along with some positive and negative suggestions with regard to refugees. Findings of this study will provide informative suggestions for Peace education to implement proactive plans to change the negative portrait of refugees in search engine results.

Authors

• Burhanettin Keskin, University of Mississippi

• Maryam Sadat Sharifian, James Madison University