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substantively and linguistically (as an active agent). Firstly, the user is empowered by the use of the modal verb can: you can find tools (“Answers about Privacy and Security” 2015) you can manage (“Answers about Privacy and Security” 2015) you can control (“Answers about Privacy and Security” 2015) people can discover (“Ten Things We Know to Be True” 2015) “Can” is a modal verb that expresses possibility (epistemic modality) (Baker and Ellece 2011, 71). In these examples, can stresses user choice, since can allows the user to decide whether to manage, or not manage, to control, or not control. According to Paul Baker, “relatively powerful groups seem to be paired with modal verbs which give them more freedom and choice,” such as might and can, “while more controlling modal verbs,” such as should, “are used with less powerful groups” (Baker 2006, 160). It thus seems that the user is discursively ascribed power in two ways: by being an active actor, and by the use of model verbs denoting possibility. Yet, I would argue that possibility also expresses uncertainty, undermining user agency: “you manage” and “you control” sound stronger than “you can manage” or “you can control”. In conclusion, it seems that the discursive construction of user agency is ambiguous. The user is presented as a beneficiary, a passive actor, and/or as in need of Google’s products to obtain power, while at the same time the user is discursively constructed as having choice, as actors that should be served, which ascribes them power. Also, it seems that the relation between Google and its users is complex. Both are discursively ascribed with power. If we step away from the text and look at the context, it seems that the relationships between Google and its users can be described as relationships of interdependence. Users trust Google and are dependent on Google; yet, Google is also dependent on her users. This complex relation of power is reflected in the ambiguous discursive construction of user agency and the discursive construction of Google itself. While Google represents itself, as I have argued earlier, as powerful, they render themself also as submissive: serving the user etc. This may also be a rhetorical technique to reassure the user of Google’s good intentions; again, this only stresses the complex mutual dependency of Google and her users. 3.2 Absence replaced by the technical imaginary From the former section, it may be clear that Google expresses to be concerned with its users, that Google takes “great care” to “serve” her users (“Ten Things We Know to Be True” 2015); yet, there is near to total absence of topics of transparency, discrimination, or bias—topics that are considered important by scholars and media critics and concern the user. In the preliminary, exploratory word frequency analysis, it was found that topics that were key in recent discussions in academic literature were not, or barely, mentioned by Google (Table 2, Figure 5, Figure 6): 37PDF Image | peek into the discursive construction of the Google Search Algorithm: A critical discourse analysis
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