Dynamics in Search Engine Query Suggestions for European Politicians

TL;DR

This study analyzes how Google search query suggestions for European politicians vary across countries, over time, and by gender, revealing patterns of stability and similarity influenced by political roles and demographics.

Contribution

It provides a novel dataset and systematic analysis of query suggestion dynamics for European politicians across multiple countries and contexts.

Findings

Query suggestions are less stable over time in politicians' home countries.

Suggestions are more similar across countries for male politicians and political leaders.

Gender and political role influence the stability and similarity of search suggestions.

Abstract

Search engines are commonly used for online political information seeking. Yet, it remains unclear how search query suggestions for political searches that reflect the latent interest of internet users vary across countries and over time. We provide a systematic analysis of Google search engine query suggestions for European and national politicians. Using an original dataset of search query suggestions for European politicians collected in ten countries, we find that query suggestions are less stable over time in politicians' countries of origin, when the politicians hold a supranational role, and for female politicians. Moreover, query suggestions for political leaders and male politicians are more similar across countries. We conclude by discussing possible future directions for studying information search about European politicians in online search.