‘I’m not bad, I’m just … drawn that way’: media and algorithmic systems logics in the Italian Google Images construction of (cr)immigrants’ communities

ABSTRACT

The paper aims at creating a bridge between media and migration studies and critical algorithm studies. By adopting a media ecological approach and a mutual shaping of technology and society perspective, in this paper, we explore the factors that lead, especially in Italy, to discriminant and stigmatizing image search results, related to specific groups of immigrants living in the country. We performed a content analysis of Google-Images search results with regard to the largest immigrant communities hosted in France, Germany, Italy, and the United Kingdom. Results show that the depiction of Romanian, Albanian, Moroccan, and Algerian immigrant communities on Google.it is flattened on a univocal stigmatized representation that shows them as criminals, which is not the case in other countries. Most of these stigmatizing images derive from local online newspapers, which questions the interplay between newsmaking choices and routines, and algorithms logics.

KEYWORDS:

• Media and migration studies
• critical algorithm studies
• algorithms
• Google-Images
• newsmaking
• SEO

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 https://migrationobservatory.ox.ac.uk/resources/briefings/migrants-in-the-uk-an-overview/. We used the term ‘Polish People’ to disambiguate the semantic of the terms ‘Poles’ or ‘Polish’ leading to images of sticks and nail polish.

2 https://www.insee.fr/fr/statistiques/3633212#:~:text=En%202019%2C%206%2C7%20millions,4%20%25%20de%20la%20population%20totale; UK https://migrationobservatory.ox.ac.uk/resources/briefings/migrants-in-the-uk-an-overview/.

3 https://www.destatis.de/EN/Themes/Society-Environment/Population/_Graphic/_Interactive/foreign-population-top10.html. We used the article ‘die’ to disambiguate the semantic term ‘Polen’ leading to images of geographical maps of Poland and the main tourist attraction in Poland.

4 https://www.oberlo.it/blog/motori-ricerca-piu-usati.

5 https://ignitevisibility.com/google-ctr-by-ranking-position/.

6 https://developers.google.com/search/docs/advanced/guidelines/google-images. https://yoast.com/image-seo/ and https://www.searchenginejournal.com/on-page-seo/image-optimization/#close.

7 https://www.google.com/search/howsearchworks/algorithms/.

8 For Alt text, for instance, see https://accessibility.huit.harvard.edu/describe-content-images.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Francesca Ieracitano

Francesca Ieracitano (PhD) is Assistant Professor in the Department of Communication and Social Research of Sapienza University of Rome (Italy). Her main research interests focus on the mutual shaping of society and technology with regard to: the interplay between media logic, but also algorithmic system, and the social construction of ethnic discrimination; the role of gender scripts and stereotypes in the online dating; the interaction between young and old users in digital platforms. She also investigates digital dating violence among tennagers; the effects of online hate speech on young users, and the media ideologies related to digital disconnection. Her work has been published in the following Journals: BMC Public Health; Children & Society; Information, Communication and Society, New Media and Society. Social Science Computer Review.

Francesco Vigneri

Francesco Vigneri is Adjunct Professor at the Department of Law, Economics, Politics and Modern Languages of the LUMSA University in Rome, where he teaches Intercultural Communication. His research interests revolve around the role of traditional and digital media in the development of social representations, with particular regard to migrant communities, and their interference in intercultural dialogue and policy-making. He is co-author of articles presented at conferences such as the University Association of Contemporary European Studies, the International Communication Association, the International Association of Francophone Sociologists (RéDoc), among others - and published in national and international journals.

Francesca Comunello

Francesca Comunello is a Full Professor in the Department of Communication and SocialResearch, Sapienza University of Rome, Italy, where she teaches “Internet and Social Media Studies” and “Gender and media studies”. Her research and publications focus on the intersections between digital technology and society, including digitally mediated social relations, ageing and digital communication, gender and digital platforms, digital media and disaster communication. Her work has been published in Journals like New Media and Society, Information Communication and Society, Media Culture and Society, International Journal of Press/Politics, The Sociological Review, Ageing and Society, American Behavioral Scientist, and Violence Against Women, among others.