Fourth International Conference on Communication & Media Studies

Abstract

Search engines play a vital role in locating, organising, and spreading knowledge in China. Although there is a growing interest in China’s search engines, relatively few studies have examined their role involving nationalism. In order to determine search engines’ socio-political implications, this paper compares top thirty search results from Baidu, 360 Search, Sogou Search and Google regarding the “Meng Wanzhou Incident”, focusing on overlap, ranking, and bias patterns. Furthermore, this study also analyses the differences between Wikipedia and China’s online encyclopaedias concerning the “Meng Wanzhou Incident” in terms of content, sources and their main arguments. This paper finds: 1) Chinese search engines and online encyclopaedias favour their own services’ in ranking, which implies that different search engines can construct diverse social realities; 2) China’ search engines are rarely linked to their competitors’ websites, thereby offering a unique and selective content bias; 3) search engines’ national biased knowledge raises search bias concerns; 4) Chinese online encyclopaedias offer a strong biased argument by using an emotive writing style and a single source of references. Overall, this paper finds that Chinese search engines service the Chinese government’s self-interest by rendering biased social realities; moreover, they produce a logic of “imagined communities” to promote and stimulate nationalism.