Search atlas: Visualizing divergent search results across geopolitical borders
Open accessAbstract
The internet is full of invisible borders—geographic, linguistic, cultural, political—that circumscribe the information each user sees. Search engines shape such “information borders” by tailoring results according to geolocation, language, and other user profiling. We present Search Atlas, a tool paired with visualizations that enable users to see and cross these borders. For instance, how do search results for the same query differ for Brazilian, Turkish, and Indian users? Given a query, the tool displays multiple lists of Google search results, highlighting distinctive words for each set of parameters. Then, we provide visu- alizations that juxtapose and cluster Google results across countries, revealing new information borders and regions that can vary widely depending on the query. By exposing the partial perspective of a search engine, Search Atlas invites users to experience the internet from divergent positions and to reflect on how their online lives are conditioned by technologi- cal infrastructures and geopolitical regimes.
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Search results for the same query differed across different countries.
“Along similar lines, Ochigame and Ye (2021) developed Search Atlas (https://searchatlas.com/), a tool to highlight how search results for the same query differed across different countries.”
From Expanding on the Frames: Making a Case for Algorithmic Literacy (2023) · cites this paper as Ochigame and Ye (2021)
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Loyola Marymount University, & Archambault, S. (2023) · Communications in Information Literacy · doi:10.15760/comminfolit.2023.17.2.11 · Cited by 19 · see citing works
Human-Centered Evaluation and Auditing of Language Models
Liu, Y. L., Deng, W. H., Lam, M. S., Eslami, M., Kim, J., Liao, Q. V., Xu, W., Novikova, J., & Xiao, Z. (2025) · Proceedings of the Extended Abstracts of the CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems · doi:10.1145/3706599.3706729 · Cited by 7 · see citing works
- Authors
- Ochigame, R., & Ye, K.
- Affiliations
- Massachusetts Institute of Technology (US)
- Carnegie Mellon University (US)
- ORCID
- Ochigame, Rodrigo
- Venue
- Designing Interactive Systems Conference 2021
- Publisher
- ACM
- Published
- 2021-06-28
- Pages
- 1970-1983
- OpenAlex
- W3175919895
- Cited by
- 23
- References
- 4
- Citations by year
- 2026: 4 · 2025: 4 · 2024: 2 · 2023: 6 · 2022: 6 · 2021: 1
- FWCI
- 3.11
- Type
- conference paper
- Language
- en
- Open access
- hybrid
- doi.org
- Licence
- Locations
- Designing Interactive Systems Conference (publishedVersion, cc-by-nc-sa)
- DSpace@MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) (submittedVersion, cc-by-nc-sa)
- Topics
- Physical Sciences › Computer Science › Information Systems › Information Retrieval and Search Behavior
- Physical Sciences › Computer Science › Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition › Data Visualization and Analytics
- Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Privacy, Security, and Data Protection
- Keywords
- search result visualization, personalized search, Google search results, user profiling
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