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An in-depth exploration of the political economy of the Chinese technology company Baidu which, along with China's other tech giants Alibaba and Tencent, has emerged as a leading global Internet company.Baidu - not Google - is the dominant search company in China, the largest Internet market in the world, whose impact on the political economy is no longer limited to China, but the broader global market, and in particular the US economy. This book outlines the intense competition within the search engine market and illustrates the inter-capitalist dynamic in the contemporary Chinese Internet sector, and highlights Baidu's uniqueness on the global stage as it pivots to Artificial Intelligence (AI) and expands into other industrial sectors. ShinJoung Yeo offers a window into the intensifying geopolitical shaping of the global Internet industry, and the contention and collaboration among multinational firms and states to control the most dynamic capitalist economic sector - the Internet.An important and timely analysis for anyone interested in the political economy of the global media, communication, and information industries, and particularly those requiring a better understanding of the Internet industry in China

Intro -- Cover Page -- Title Page -- Copyright Page -- Dedication Page -- Contents -- Acknowledgments -- Introduction -- 1. Searching for Profits -- 2. Situating Search -- 3. Laboring Behind Search -- 4. Digital Welfare Capitalism -- 5. Market Dynamics and Geopolitics -- Conclusion -- Notes -- Index -- About the Author -- Back Cover.

"Once seen as a harbinger of a new enlightened capitalism, Google has become a model of robber baron rapaciousness thanks to its ruthless monetizing of private data, obsession with monopoly, and pervasive systems of labor discrimination and exploitation. Using the company as a jumping-off point, ShinJoung Yeo explores the political economy of the search engine industry against the backdrop of the relationship between information and capitalism's developmental processes. Yeo's critical analysis draws on in-depth discussions of essential issues like how the search engine evolved into a ubiquitous commercial service, it's place in a global information business that is restructuring the information industry and our very social lives, who exactly designs and uses search technology, what kinds of workers labor behind the scenes, and the influence of geopolitics. An incisive look at a pervasive presence in our lives, Behind the Search Box places the search engine industry's rise and ongoing success within an original political economy of digital capitalism"--

An in-depth exploration of the political economy of the Chinese technology company Baidu which, along with China's other tech giants Alibaba and Tencent, has emerged as a leading global Internet company. Baidu - not Google - is the dominant search company in China, the largest Internet market in the world, whose impact on the political economy is no longer limited to China, but the broader global market, and in particular the US economy. This book outlines the intense competition within the search engine market and illustrates the inter-capitalist dynamic in the contemporary Chinese Internet sector, and highlights Baidu's uniqueness on the global stage as it pivots to Artificial Intelligence (AI) and expands into other industrial sectors. ShinJoung Yeo offers a window into the intensifying geopolitical shaping of the global Internet industry, and the contention and collaboration among multinational firms and states to control the most dynamic capitalist economic sector - the Internet. An important and timely analysis for anyone interested in the political economy of the global media, communication, and information industries, and particularly those requiring a better understanding of the Internet industry in China.

This article focuses on the case of Google, the newly emerged US Internet industry and global geographical market expansion. Google's struggles in China, where Chinese domestic Internet firm, Baidu, controls the market, have been commonly presented in the Western mainstream media in terms of a struggle over a strategic information infrastructure between two nation states – newly 'emerging' global power China countering the United States, the world's current hegemon and information empire. Is China really becoming an imperial rival to the United States? What is the nature of this opposition over this new industry? Given that the search engine industry in China is heavily backed by transnational capital – and in particular US capital – and is experiencing intense inter-capitalist competition, this perceived view of inter-state rivalry is incomplete and misleading. By looking at the tussle over the global search business, this article seeks to illuminate the changing dynamics of the US-led transnationalizing capitalism in the context of China's reintegration into the global capitalist market.

This is an Accepted Manuscript of a book chapter published by Routledge in The Routledge Handbook of the Political Economy of Science on 2 May 2017, available online: http://www.routledge.com/9781138922983.

The Internet and new media are often seen as constituting open spaces where cultural empowerment and free-flowing expressive creativity find emancipation from top-down political-economic power. However, this one-sided perspective is insufficient, if not even invalid: the democratization of art does not cease to confront structural obstacles in cyberspace, as isshown by this case-study of Google's overt interventions into art and culture. Google is working to digitize museum collections at its own expense, and is making art work widely accessible on the Internet. We show how this widened access itself, however, functions as a Google market strategy for turning cultural production into a site of profit-making. Google is quietly reorganizing cultural spaces on a global scale, to incorporate them into its more encompassing business of information.

Rapid technological change has caused some to question the need for the Federal Depository Library Program (FDLP). We argue that the traditional roles of FDLP libraries in selecting, acquiring, organizing, preserving, and providing access to and services for government information are more important than ever in the digital age.