Political news in search engines : Exploring Google’s susceptibility to hyperpartisan sources during the Dutch elections

Abstract

The research enquires into the susceptibility of Google’s search engine to provide users with questionable information when querying political parties and their issues during the run-up to the Dutch provincial and European parliamentary elections. Which rankings has the search engine assigned to problematic sources when querying political parties and their issues? Are there particular political issues and party spaces where these sources are prevalent or entirely absent? Do the ranks and amounts increase as the elections draw near? In all, it was found that hyperpartisan sources are rather pervasive in the search-demarcated political space, but far more so for certain actors and their issues on the far right of the political spectrum.