I'd suggest poking around in the research area of Information Retrieval (IR), as testing search engines, their algorithms, search terms, and accuracy/number of results would be more in their purview and you could likely borrow a protocol they have used and apply to your particular research topic. While I am in Library and Information Science (LIS), IR is not my specialty. However, if you have access to the Library, Information Science & Technology Abstracts (LISTA) or Library Literature & Information Science Full Text databases you might be able to find something there. Otherwise, particular journals, such as the Journal of the Association for Information Science and Technology, Information Retrieval Journal or maybe the Journal of Documentation might be good places to start looking. Otherwise, I'd suggest contacting your neighborhood librarian :) Hope this helps! ~Jon Jonathan M. Hollister, MSLIS Doctoral Candidate School of Information Florida's iSchool Florida State University http://jonathanmhollister.com "Please note: Florida has very broad public records laws. Most written communications to or from state/university employees and students are public records and available to the public and media upon request. Your e-mail communications may therefore be subject to public disclosure." ________________________________________ From: Air-L <air-l-bounces@listserv.aoir.org> on behalf of Alex Halavais <alex@halavais.net> Sent: Friday, October 16, 2015 4:16 PM To: aoir list Subject: Re: [Air-L] research protocols in search engines I am afraid that I don't have a good answer to this question. I am, however, intrigued by the phrase "algorithmic distortion" in search as it suggests the existence of an un-distorted search. Just as a lense is made to distort light, a search engine is made to distort the corpus it is searching. I wonder (paging Innis) if there is a case for the existence of unalgorithmed data. It seems unlikely... On Fri, Oct 16, 2015 at 3:34 AM, Donatella Selva <donatellaselva@gmail.com> wrote:

Dear Aoirsts, I am trying to find some common research protocol to use search engines for social research. In particular, I am interested in the following topics: - how to compensate for algorithmic distorsions - how many pages of results must be consulted

I am sure the community of Aoirsts could help me :) Thank you in advance and have a good day!

Donatella Selva Postdoc researcher at Centre for Media and Democratic Innovations Luiss University, Italy @donaselva _______________________________________________ The Air-L@listserv.aoir.org mailing list is provided by the Association of Internet Researchers http://aoir.org Subscribe, change options or unsubscribe at: http://listserv.aoir.org/listinfo.cgi/air-l-aoir.org

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-- // Alexander Halavais, Sociologist, Semiologist, and Saboteur Extraordinaire // Associate Professor of Social Technologies, Arizona State University // http://alex.halavais.net/bio @halavais _______________________________________________ The Air-L@listserv.aoir.org mailing list is provided by the Association of Internet Researchers http://aoir.org Subscribe, change options or unsubscribe at: http://listserv.aoir.org/listinfo.cgi/air-l-aoir.org Join the Association of Internet Researchers: http://www.aoir.org/