ABSTRACT
This chapter presents an initial contribution towards answering the broad questions by reviewing how voters use search engines in today’s constantly evolving media landscape. It examines whether voters have used search engines to fulfil informational needs that were not immediately addressed by established news outlets in democratic elections. The chapter discusses comparable news popularity indexes were created by searching the main collections of national newspaper articles and TV news transcripts on Lexis Nexis. It shows that American and Italian Google users were able to take advantage of search engines in ways that challenged the traditional dominance of established media organisations in the electoral information space. Undoubtedly, looking at searches for information about political leaders is only one of many possible ways to investigate the ‘search agenda.’ One possible explanation could be that British voters used search engines to learn about party leaders before each debate and check their statements, background and policy positions in ‘real time’ during the debates.
