Can algorithms bias our opinions?

About the project:

'searchforBias' (a shorter version of "Algorithm audit of the impact of user- and system-side factors on web search bias in the context of federal popular votes in Switzerland") is a Swiss National Science Foundation-funded project (2023-2027). It is conducted at the Institute for Communication and Media Studies at the University of Bern. The project team consists of Dr Mykola Makhortykh, Victoria Vziatysheva, Vihang Jumle, and Maryna Sydorova. The project uses a mixed-method approach to investigate how Swiss citizens use search engines to find information about federal popular votes and whether search engines’ performance in this context is subject to different forms of bias. The project aspires to make three contributions towards research on political communication and information retrieval: 

• Introduce a more nuanced conceptualisation of algorithmic bias in the context of politics-related information searching;

• Examine the impact of user and system-side factors on exposure to biased search engine outputs;

• Trace the relationship between users’ individual characteristics and factors which can amplify algorithmic bias.

 Read our team's latest publications below: