[27063] in Public-Access_Computer_Systems_Forum
FYI France: Google, views from France
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Jack Kessler)
Wed Sep 16 20:21:35 2009
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FYI France: Google, views from France
Book review:
"L'entonnoir : Google sous la loupe des sciences de l'information=20
& de la communication" ["The Funnel: Google under the Information=20
Science microscope"], by Brigitte Simonnot and Gabriel Gallezot=20
eds., preface by Herv=E9 Le Crosnier, postface by Cory Doctorow=20
(Caen : C&F =C9ditions, May 2009) 246 pages, ISBN 2-914825-05-X,=20
http://cfeditions.com, in French.
On the eve of the GoogleBooks Settlement "fairness hearing" --
=09[in-court in Manhattan on October 7, see
=09http://www.fyifrance.com/f102009b.htm]
-- here are some new views, from France, on the Google phenomenon=20
generally, and on how it works and/or is said to, and on whether=20
it works or not -- written by French information scientists,=20
French generalist thinkers, and even a talented scifi writer...=20
remember that Wm. Gibson invented the Internet...
This is a book well worth reading -- for librarians, digital and=20
other, and for information scientists, and for anyone who thought=20
the French were "behind" in any of this, and for anyone who=20
believes Google or the Internet or anything else in our new=20
digital world will scale up easily & obviously to international=20
and trans-national applications -- also for anyone interested in=20
the French and the way they approach a problem, also for anyone=20
who reads -- and there is good constructive criticism to be=20
found, here, from some old friends who know the USofA very well.
After its Preface and an Introduction, the book is presented in=20
three parts --
* Practices -- user studies -- considerations of students, and of=20
journalists, and of some Google-usage techniques which neither=20
group nor many others really know about -- interesting to compare=20
all this with practices in the US and elsewhere, some=20
similarities and some differences;
* Methods -- education, and "relevance" -- how do we learn the=20
new digital techniques, and how do we teach them to others -- and=20
the famous/infamous "PageRank" which informs us grandly that the=20
top 20 or so, in the enormous heap retrieved by Google, are the=20
items which we really did want most to see... ; and, finally,
* "Discours" -- semantics, semiotics, even a little residual=20
structuralisme -- this is where the French are at their best,=20
abstract thinking applied to pragmatics, quotes from Barthes and=20
Foucault, eine kleine mind-stretching -- What is "googling"?=20
Google the great sword-swallower! The "rhetoric" of Google, its=20
"discours paradigmatique"... -- if you are not into this sort of=20
thinking you are not into France, or the French, and you may miss=20
some of the "intuitions fulgurantes" which this sort of thinking=20
really can provide, very often... and besides, as one of Google's=20
partner-competitors would advise, "Think Different"...
And finally, the book's Postface presents some good fun: a scifi=20
tour de force, on sort-of the general subject, by Cory Doctorow=20
-- of whom, per the blurb,
=09"... his books and notices appear regularly in SciFi
=09conferences... founder and animateur of Boing-Boing, one
=09of the most-read blogs on the planet... columns in
=09journals and reviews everywhere, from Wired to The
=09Guardian, by way of Locus, Radar, Fortune and The New
=09York Times..."
So much for Outline, now for some interesting Details --
* "La vie num=E9riques par le petit bout de l'entonnoir" -- In his=20
Preface, Herv=E9 Le Crosnier warns that Google's secrecy still is=20
troublesome, all the moreso now that its global reach is=20
expanding more than ever before. He refers ironically to "the=20
wisdom of the algorithm"... It is much to expect, going forward,=20
that readers everywhere will continue to trust such secrecy, in=20
procedures increasingly their sole source of what they read.
The metaphor used by the writers of this particular book=20
interests him, Le Crosnier says: Google has inspired many=20
metaphors -- here it is organizing information and placing it=20
into hierarchies, for us, but at the end of a funnel -- so,=20
should we enter-in, and at what price, what sort of Faustian=20
Bargain should we accept, for the advantages Google provides?
Also, Le Crosnier worries over the individual tailoring done by=20
datamining: Google obtains the profile of each of us, this way,=20
but also the "profiling" of all of us, and is that a good thing?=20
And is it a price worth paying, for what we get?
And is it even accurate: in the final analysis, Le Crosnier=20
warns, real life lies outside of the GoogleFunnel -- certainly=20
as-viewed from its narrow-most end, as we users are called upon=20
to view it -- even real digital life still is somewhere "out=20
there".
He makes a powerful point. We need to understand both the myths=20
and the limits of Google's effort, Le Crosnier believes, for=20
there always are myths, and limits.
* "Introduction" -- The book's editors, Gallezot and Simonnot,=20
wisely remind us that teaching is about procedure, not substance:
=09"The frequent use of search engines does not lead
=09students to question the foundations of the information
=09revolution, or to improve their understanding of
=09information and documentation. It gives them an illusion
=09of autonomy."
They write with some scepticism of "indicateurs scientom=E9triques",
from which datamining is derived. [They should know that early=20
"content analysis" counted the number of times Goebbels said the=20
word "democracy" in his speeches, trying to draw conclusions from=20
that...] They mention the user who knows only a search engine,=20
becoming lost in its process as though swallowed by the engine:=20
the user who wants to drive the car but doesn't care how it works=20
-- that is the average Internet user, in fact, now and probably=20
forever.
* "De l'usage des moteurs de recherch=E9 par les =E9tudiants" --=20
Editor Simonnot, in her own rigorous article, presents the=20
results of user studies at her university at Metz: she knows the=20
UK and US literature well -- she worries, as US researchers do,=20
that her students now use search engines exclusively, primarily=20
Google, and seem unaware of information alternatives such as=20
ejournals and online catalogs / OPACs and other databases --=20
their information-searching knowledge is not additive, she adds,=20
"they don't re-use data or data sources already-found, they tend=20
to begin from zero on every search".
Even though students have had no information-searching training,=20
they believe that they know how to use the search engines: so=20
very few even know that the Invisible Web exists, she says, much=20
less how to reach and use it -- quality of searching is sacrificed
for ease-of-use, and for "speed", her studies show. She worries=20
that France now has a new generation which knows only Google.
* "Les sources cach=E9es du journalisme" -- P=E9lissier and Diouma=20
Diallo say much the same thing of professional journalists, also=20
based upon a user study, one they undertook at Lib=E9ration when=20
that journal was undergoing its sometimes-painful transition to=20
ejournal status: "some journalists, hoping to gain time and save=20
effort, could not bring themselves to 'look beyond' the famous=20
'20 first responses' offered by Google to their search requests",=20
they say.
I was reminded of the many branch offices closed during the 1970s=20
and 1980s by US journals, which found it increasingly inefficient=20
-- they thought -- to maintain such overhead in "the field", when=20
both research and writing increasingly could be done back at the=20
home office with occasional forays "out"... although such forays=20
"out" materialized less and less, they also found...
The US State Department offers a governmental example of the same=20
phenomenon, perhaps, with local embassies doing far less "intel"=20
and "field work" than in the past: now the folks back in DC do=20
all that, with occasional forays "out" -- foreign service folks=20
on-the-spot in embassies spend more time entertaining local=20
generals and hopeful business-people, from within the high-walled=20
& razor-wired & otherwise ferociously-guarded "compounds" which=20
recently have become the US diplomatic and informational presence=20
abroad. So maybe there, too, the function formerly-performed by=20
eyes & ears on-the-ground now increasingly gets confined to Google.
Other highlights -- it is an interesting book, if only for the=20
many ways in which perceptions of seemingly-scientific and=20
value-free / wertfrei Google differ, outre-Atlantique, from=20
whichever side you begin --
* For example, "plus les journalistes sont usagers du web, plus=20
leur fonction se bureaucratise", say P=E9lissier and Diouma Diallo,=20
in their article above. I don't know whether that's true -- the=20
Web has greatly added to the breadth and depth of some people's=20
writing.
But journalists I suppose having been creatures of the=20
"eyewitness report", they may indeed have lost their unique eyes,=20
recently, if all they see now are the same screens we all use --=20
particularly those "embedded" reporters who nowadays "report" on=20
the writings of one another about America's overseas wars...=20
Perhaps there is nothing left but office hierarchy games, then:=20
per Professor Peter, d'accord, on se bureaucratise.
* "Outils de recherche: la question de la formation" -- Alexandre=20
Serres and Olivier Le Deuff, too, make the to-me-important -- and=20
very French -- point that,
=09"... the understanding of research tools justifies, we
=09believe, turning to the history, linguistics, economics,
=09law, even philosophy... of information.
=09"Knowing a few important events in the history of
=09information tools enables us, for example, to avoid
=09'presentist' illusions and to see these tools in their
=09proper historical contexts."
-- yes, how often we all have wanted to know the historical=20
background, confronted by some "Wow!" presentation by some techie=20
who we're convinced simply has "reinvented the 'wheel'" -- and=20
how much better to know the flaws from before, so they won't=20
plague us now as we cope with his latest iteration.
* "PageRank: entre s=E9rendipit=E9 et logiques marchandes" -- Among=20
the several insights here, something fundamental,
=09"The principal characteristic of the global Net is not
=09that it makes so much information available, but that it
=09brings in millions of users to make information and
=09document searching part of their daily activity..."
There is not so much "relevance" but an "illusion of relevance",=20
these authors say -- also, an "illusion of completeness".
* "Tout ce qui brille n'est pas Chrome" -- Kudos to Olivier=20
Ertzscheid for his just-plain-wonderful article title...
* "Le 'googling', un branchement sur l'imaginaire de l'internet"=20
-- To Philippe Dumas and Daphn=E9 Duvernay, as well, for their=20
article title too... "We note that only 'google' has yielded up a=20
verb," they say, "one does not conjugate 'Yahoo!' -- or 'MSN'!"=20
["I am about to have been MSNing..."]
* "Le grand avaleur"... Google as Gargantua...
"Google n'est pas googol", this author announces: I wonder if=20
anyone in France has considered in this connection, or even has=20
heard of, "Barney Google, with the great big googly eyes"? For=20
that matter Barney G. may be unknown in Brin & Page's young US=20
generation, too. Yet I can't help wondering whether the famous=20
old ragtime song, and Jerry Colonna character, might not have as=20
much to do with the US popularity of Google's name as math, or=20
the name of the old Russian mathematician, ever did.
"Z6PO", too: I am sure the name of the Lucas robot in question=20
would be rendered "C3PO a.k.a. See-Threepio a.k.a. Threepio",=20
wouldn't it? Inquiring minds would like to know...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C-3PO
http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/C-3PO "Wookiepedia, the Star Wars wiki"
-- details, details... so, "google it"... don't "MSN it"...
* "La rh=E9torique selon Google"... bien s=FBr, rhetoric it is...=20
nowadays more fashionably called "le marketing", a.k.a. "the hype"...
* And finally, en guise de postface, "Scroogled" -- great title, too...
I cannot be fair to all the book's contributors, by summarizing=20
or even just excerpting each of their various and varied articles=20
here -- least of all to the scifi author of the Postface, whose=20
piece must be read in toto to get both gist and flavor -- but=20
read his piece, read the others, read this book -- reasonable=20
minds can differ, and it's all good input, sometimes best in fact=20
when it's different.
A quick appreciation before-I-go, though, of the book design=20
talents of Les Taffin, Nicolas and Juliette, who once again have=20
greatly enhanced my enjoyment and understanding of a book from=20
France. Without their imaginative and excellently-executed=20
chapter heading pages here, my poor francophone talents might not=20
have known, literally, where to end or to begin.
And three General Notes:
1) They don't do Information Science in France the way it is done=20
in the US -- at least not exactly -- which in the current=20
instance anyway is a Good Thing.
2) I do agree with these French folks that Google needs to be=20
de-constructed a bit, if only because it cannot be _con_structed=20
-- that "secret algorithm" problem, again -- all those hidden and=20
complicated formulas and approaches and biases and methodologies=20
-- the infamous if commercially-necessary secrecy posing such=20
difficulty for academics, as well as for Google itself, in=20
discussions now under way over the development of GoogleBooks,=20
see http://www.fyifrance.com/f102009b.htm
How can we possibly allow a process so arcane, and for whatever=20
good reason so hidden, to decide for us what we all shall read=20
and know?
3) The French are a disputatious lot -- confrontation is their=20
fort=E9 -- if you don't love "animated" discussion, sometimes=20
_very_ animated, France and the French are not the best places to=20
look for input.
But this is "constructive criticism", at its very best, from old=20
friends who know us, nous les am=E9ricains, extremely well.
Since Tocqueville and Lafayette and long before, the French have=20
cared, and have offered to us in the US well-informed and candid=20
comment -- a commodity not always available from other=20
non-anglophone friends overseas -- and good input, invaluable now=20
in a "globalization" era for, once again, scaling-up techniques=20
we've developed here at home, to suit overseas users.
Jack Kessler, kessler@well.com
=09=09=09=09--oOo--
FYI France (sm)(tm) e-journal ISSN 1071-5916
*
| FYI France (sm)(tm) is a monthly electronic
| journal published since 1992 as a small-scale,
| personal experiment, in the creation of large-
| scale "information overload", by Jack Kessler.
/ \ Any material written by me which appears in
----- FYI France may be copied and used by anyone for
// \\ any good purpose, so long as, a) they give me
--------- credit and show my email address, and, b) it
// \\ isn't going to make them money: if it is going
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in advance, and share some of the money which they get with me.=20
Use of material written by others requires their permission. FYI=20
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(PACS-L archive), or http://www.lib.berkeley.edu/Collections/FYIFrance/
or http://www.fyifrance.com . Suggestions, reactions, criticisms,=20
praise, and poison-pen letters all gratefully received at=20
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=09Copyright 1992- , by Jack Kessler,
=09all rights reserved except as indicated above.
=09=09=09=09--hjlm--
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