[Air-l] counting google hits

[Heidi haLevi]

> You can influence googlefight's *queries*, no doubt, but not its
> results, as
> you yourself say:
>
> > you can
> > influence exactly what google searches for.
> --------------------------------^^^^^^^^^^^^
>
> Just like the results SPSS delivers depends, of course, on the data file,
> which you can manipulate as you like it. Does that make SPSS an unreliable
> tool?

uhm...
may i nonchalantly point out here the vast difference between changing the
content of the data file and changing the content of the query run on the
data file?

not to mention the difference between a closed data file (obtained -
ideally - by methodologically sound sampling), which cannot be actually
manipulated and remain valid (except, of course, in how you arrange the
variables, which data you include or
exclude... which is a whole other level of argument) and an "open data
file", (i.e., the field itself).
heh - kinda neat to consider the internet under that title: an open data
file.

of course, in the case of googlefight, the data file is one step further
away from us, mediated as it is with a predetermined (and single) form of
query (number of links) on the content of the data file.

on the other hand, we *do* have access to the data file. though, not
directly through the googlefight, but rather indirectly by our influence on
the internet content. but to be significant, it has to be a form of
collective influence (i.e., cultural, national,
etc.)

thus - as with every statistical analysis - the form of the query should be
carefully matched to the research question as well as to the form of the
data and of the file. in this case, the data sample is actually the
population/field, and google's particular form of the 'data file' (or the
determination of which variables are accessible for measurement and how) is
closed and not within our reach, and also determines the possible "statistic
analyses" - which are very primitive (though certainly always statistically
significant).

an interesting situation, to be approached and used with caution.


Heidi Dawn haLevi

MA Research Psych.
Bar-Ilan University, Israel
....................................
Information and
Experience Design
...................................
New Media Education
--
No virus found in this outgoing message.
Checked by AVG Anti-Virus.
Version: 7.0.308 / Virus Database: 266.6.2 - Release Date: 04/03/2005