‘Google this!’ How performative links and search engines organise information disorders in a climate obstruction network

Sammanfattning

In recent years, information disorders, including on environmentalissues, have grown in strength and influence, making researchinvolving detailed analyses of how they are organised increasinglyimportant. This article focuses on a Swedish climate obstructionnetwork and investigates the keyphrases (search queries) theysuggest people should google. An analysis of keyphrasessuggested between 2014 and 2022 on the network’s blog and inother publications shows how these suggestions function akin tohyperlinks in organising an alternative media ecosystem. The articleintroduces the idea of ‘performative links’ as a way to conceptualisehow strategically recommended keyphrases operationalise datavoids. Performative links encourage users to ‘do their own research’by suggesting specific keyphrases as search queries. They connectthe technical properties of web search engines with society’sdemands for individual responsibility and media and informationliteracy, and they help to promote data voids and feeds intoinformation disorders. The analysis of the keyphrases suggested bythe studied climate obstruction network focuses on how thesekeyphrases are composed, where they are published, how theyspread, and what search results and thus information they result in.The findings indicate that performative links are crucial incontrolling cross-media alternative media ecosystems. They exploitideological dialects to construct and maintain data voids but alsoamplify the climate obstruction message and its reach. The articleconcludes by emphasising the need for more research oninformation disorders across different media and platforms, as wellas the potential risks associated with performative links and data voids.

Nyckelord

search engine; online search; climate denial; climateobstruction; media literacy; data voids

Publicerad i

Information, Communication & Society
2025

SLU författare

• Rödl, Malte

  • Institutionen för stad och land, Sveriges lantbruksuniversitet
    

UKÄ forskningsämne

Biblioteks-och informationsvetenskap

Publikationens identifierare

• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/1369118X.2024.2445640

Permanent länk till denna sida (URI)

https://res.slu.se/id/publ/140364