Airing Grievances Online: Search Engine Algorithms and the Fate of Minorities at Risk

Abstract

ABSTRACT This paper examines the role search engine algorithms have in ethnopolitical mobilization. Offline, the news media are vital in a minority at risk (MAR) group's message dissemination. As Tarrow (1994) Tarrow, S. 1994. Power in movements: Social movements, collective action and politics, Cambridge, , England: Cambridge University Press. [Google Scholar] explains, they are a valuable “external resource.” We argue search engine algorithms perform a similar external resource function mediating what sites get reported as top-ranked search results. The paper addresses whether an association exists between the number of MAR advocacy Web sites protesting a MAR's plight within a search engines' (Google) top 30 search results and the level of grievance a MAR group experiences or the available open opportunity structures. We hypothesize and find that a MAR's grievance level—rather than the availability of open opportunity structures—is vital in explaining the role of search engines in ethnopolitical mobilization.