From Citizen to Consumer

The chart above, which I produced using the Google Ngram Viewer, shows how use of the term "citizen" has declined, while use of the term "consumer" has increased.

In the context of discussions about public policy, I prefer being referred to as a "citizen" rather than a "consumer." To me, the word "citizen" connotes an agent who acts and makes decisions within a matrix of rights, responsibilities and ethical values that's greater in scope than the economic decision matrix implied by the word "consumer." This is not to claim that people make consumer choices based on economic calculus alone, but rather to suggest that deviations from this calculus tend to be seen as just that -- deviations -- when the agents making choices are thought of as "consumers" rather than as "citizens."

However, the nuanced meaning of words and the cloud of associations they evoke change over time. In her book A Consumer's Republic: The Politics of Mass Consumption in Postwar America, Lizbeth Cohen discusses how the identification of American citizens as "consumers" shifted during the 20th century from a grounding in ideas of civic responsibility and democratic values to an insular emphasis on personal benefit. Such shifts in meaning can not only reflect change but also create it, as words have the ability to shape perceptions. (Cohen also has written a short article summarizing the main points of her book.)

In their book Citizens or Consumers? What the Media Tell Us about Political Participation, Justin Lewis, Sanna Inthorn and Karin Walh-Jorgenson describe the results of their research based on empirical data from 5,658 news stories that were published in Britain and in the United States. Stuart Allen, series editor, describes the book as follows:

"This book enters squarely into the current controversy about the declining number of people engaged in the conventional political process. Based on the first comprehensive study of the way citizens are represented in the news, it provides powerful evidence that while the news media may not be responsible for this decline, they are doing little to help remedy it. Although many people do have clear ideas about politics and matters of public policy, the authors argue, the news media are much more likely to present citizens as passive, incoherent or or disengaged. Their research into news reporting suggests that the idea of the citizen has been more or less eclipsed by the figure of the consumer. So while we hear a great deal about the 'consumer confidence' on which economies depend, we hear very little about the 'citizen confidence' on which democracies depend."

Perhaps it's time to reverse the trend and bring the word "citizen" back into our daily discourse.

Google Custom Search Engines

Google provides tools for creating a Customized Search Engine (CSE) that can be embedded in blogs and other websites to provide specialized searches. In this blog, for example, I might wish to provide an Astronomy search that would respond to a query for "tadpole" with a list of web pages providing information about the galaxy by that that rather than web pages about immature frogs.

Blogger has a Search Box gadget that can be configured to search over a list of links, such as the Space Exploration links listed on the side panel of this blog. I could use that to create a search that would query only the websites in the list, and this might give the kind of results I wanted in most cases. If I wanted to have a search feature like this within a post rather than on the sidebar, I could do that quickly and easily by visiting the webpage for Google's on-the-fly CSE to find code that I can add to my posting using the HTML editor.

The Blogger search box and the on-the-fly CSE are both limited to searching linked sites. With a little more effort, it's possible to create a CSE that is more finely tuned. Using Google's CSE wizard lets you create a gadget that you can embed using an automatically generated code snippet. You can later manage your CSE, editing and refining as you gain experience with its workings. Using this method, I've created a CSE for an Astronomy search and provided a gadget below that you can use to try that CSE. I haven't yet gone much beyond what the wizard creates, so you may or may not find the kind of information you're looking for. To see how it works, try searching on "tadpole," "egg," and "mice" -- and have fun comparing the orange links returned by the CSE with the sponsored links that appear above and to the right of those.

Searching Google+

When a Google+ post is public, that post is available on the Internet for anyone to see.  This allows public posts and their comments to be found using a search engine.

Suppose Ann Able adds a comment about Yosemite Falls to a post that Bob Baker puts on Google+ asking about places to hike and camp in California.  Later on Ann wants to find that comment.  If Ann remembers it was Bob who made the post, she can go into Bob's profile and look through his posts until she finds the one that includes her comment.  But suppose Ann doesn't remember who made the original post -- is there a way she can search Google+ to find her comment?  Yes there is, provided that Bob's post was public.  Using the Google search engine, Ann can enter a query that looks like this:

site:plus.google.com "Ann Able" "Yosemite Falls"

This will result in a search across all public posts on Google+ for those that include Ann's name and the keywords she provided.  The search results will show a list of all the public posts and profile pages (a) that people named Ann Able have created, commented on or shared, and (b) that also include the phrase "Yosemite Falls."  If that's a short list, Ann should be able to find her comment easily.

This same technique can be used to search for public posts and comments on a specific topic.  For example, if Ann is interested in what people are saying in public posts on Google+ about earthquakes, she might use the search query:

site:plus.google.com "earthquake"

Going back to the original example, suppose Ann wants to look at all the comments she's made on Bob's public posts.  So she tries this:

site:plus.google.com "Ann Able" "Bob Baker"

This gives her a listing of all posts and profile pages throughout Google+ that somewhere include the names Ann Able and Bob Baker.  Suppose this turns out to be a long list, in part because there are other people named Ann Able and Bob Baker.  Ann can narrow her search to the posts and profile page of the Bob Baker she knows by using Bob's ID number rather than his name.  To find that number, Ann need only look at the URL for any of Bob's posts or Bob's profile page; the ID number appears in the URL immediately after https://plus.google.com/.

For understandable reasons, these techniques only work for public posts.  Posts that are shared on a limited basis cannot be found in this way, even by those with whom the post was shared.  In the future, Google may provide a way for Google+ users to search both the public and the private posts that have entered their stream, or all the posts they have made, or all the posts they have commented on.  At this time, however, I'm not aware of any way to do these things.

Savvy Google Searching -- and Beyond

In much of life, what you find depends not only on where you search but also on how you search.  This is certainly true when using Google to search the Internet.  Choosing your keywords and hitting the search button is the first step to finding the information you seek.  If it's also your last step, you may be overlooking features that can greatly improve your search experience.  Next time you do a search, check out the left-hand panel that appears with the search results.  Finding information that's outdated?  Try clicking on "Past year" or "Past month" or whatever time frame fits your search best.  Not finding quite what you wanted?  Try checking out "Related searches."  When planning a vacation, try changing your location to the city you plan to visit before you start searching for restaurants, hotels, events, etc.  I'm not going to give detailed instructions and screen shots.  The left-panel features of Google search are pretty intuitive, so it will be quicker and easier for you to just try them out.

Those who'd like to become Google power searchers, might want to check out Google's search features and then work through some master lessons on search.  If you've got a specific question about Google search, the help pages can be helpful.  And finally, if you're a webmaster, you'll want to keep track of how the pages in your site are ranked by Google.  Page Rank Checker is a convenient way to do that.

Beyond Google Search

There's useful information on the Word Wide Web that can't be found using conventional search engines.  At MakeUseOf, Saikat Basu reviews some alternative methods in 10 Search Engines to Explore the Invisible Web.  Most of the resources described are not what I'd consider search engines, but they are definitely worth knowing about.

Pseudonymous Blogging

In my last post, I mentioned pseudonymous blogging.  Boing Boing! has an article by Maggie Koerth-Baker on Pseudonyms and Science.  It provides a thoughtful and concise explanation of why pseudonyms make sense for certain kinds of blogging.  The article also provides links to further discussions of pseudonyms on the Internet.

Writing under a pseudonym was not invented with the Internet.  The custom of "pen names" is well-established.  I am entirely comfortable with Lewis Carroll, Andre Norton, George Eliot, and Mark Twain.  What I fail to understand is why pseudonymous blogging on the Internet is considered by some to be inappropriate.  As far as I know, no one is being forced to read pseudonymous blogs, which is perhaps more than can be said of Tom Sawyer.

Two Profiles, Five Photos, One Google

Last week I created a Blogger account so I could explore the interaction between Google+ and Google's blog platform.  There is a profile associated with my Blogger account, and new blogs I create show a link to this profile by default.  My Blogger profile is separate from my Google+ profile, and I think that is a good thing.  I like that my Blogger profile can use a photo that's been customized to fit in with the color scheme of my blogs.  I also favor making pseudonymous blogging available and easy.  However, it would be nice to have a box in the Blogger profile editor that says "use my Google+ profile" -- as an option, not a requirement.

Before I decided to get fancy with colors, I figured I'd save some server space by using in Blogger profile the photo I'd already uploaded for my Google+ profile.  Turns out that's not possible.  While Blogger allowed me to specify a profile photo by URL, Blogger doesn't simply use that same photo.  I know this because I ended up with four more copies of the photo in my Picasa Web Albums!

If I want my photo to display properly in my Blogger profile, I probably need to leave the copies Blogger has created and placed in an album called Blogger Pictures.  Having this separate album makes sense, as it keeps me from accidentally deleting my Blogger photo while pruning Picasa Web Albums -- though I'm not sure why four copies of my photo are necessary.

So far, as to interaction with Google+, I'm not seeing much difference between Blogger and any other blogging platform.  That may change over time.