This research aims to explore (using Google search data) how political, economic, and social factors affect public interest in surveillance topics across 26 EU countries. It will test if wealthier, more democratic countries show greater interest in surveillance, with political and economic variables potentially influencing this interest.
Abstract
When Edward Snowden, the computer analyst and whistle blower, shared revelations regarding top-secret US National Security Agency documents – concerning the PRISM global data surveillance program – it transpired that, since 2007 and without the knowledge or consent of their users, companies like Google, Facebook, Microsoft and Apple have provided the NSA with their data, such as IP addresses, logins, passwords, sent messages, photos, posts and videos. Snowden’s revelations widely covered in the media – including social media – sparked a debate about the global reach of surveillance, and additional material published later by WikiLeaks only confirmed the scale of the problem; the right to privacy on the Internet is not respected. Despite growing and affirmed threats of surveillance practices (more associated with totalitarian regimes than democracies), the amount of data that we share on the Internet is constantly increasing; hence, it seems important to know the additional determinants of such a state of affairs. These revelations confirm that we have a rather illusive sense of control over our data and that those to whom (in good faith) we give our information also have little control over its dissemination – this is why it is extremely important to monitor interest in these topics of surveillance, including the role of macro determinants which can influence it. From a methodological perspective, aspects of working with Google data and tools will be demonstrated – which might be important for scientists interested in working with Internet sources of Big Data and result in influencing the development of the field of Internet research in social sciences.
Substantive objective of the proposed research project is to check whether political, economic and social macro-determinants differentiate public interest in topics of surveillance. Comparative analysis will be conducted in 26 EU countries, for which data about public interest in topics of surveillance was estimated based on the number of searches for these topics in Google. We are going to verify the hypothesis that in countries with a higher level of economic development and democracy there is greater public interest in surveillance than in other countries, with a part of the impact of political and economic variables being possibly influenced through general and established interest in politics.
Methodological objective is to develop a technique for analysing Internet data from Google search engine for research in social sciences. The proposed research project is the first in Poland, in which analysis will be conducted using Google Keyword Planner tool. This project will provide a description, which will enable a wide range of researchers in the social sciences to use this tool.
The project “Economic, political and social macro determinants of public interest in online surveillance. Google Big Data in comparative sociology” was funded by the National Science Center (Preludium, 2017/25/N/HS6/01169, Anna Turner grant), with support from the Cross-national Studies: Interdisciplinary Research and Training Program (CONSIRT, www.consirt.osu.edu), of which the authors are members. CONSIRT is a program of the Polish Academy of Sciences (PAN) and Ohio State University (OSU), based at the Institute of Philosophy and Sociology of PAN and the Department of Sociology at OSU.
Project date: 2018-2022