Abstract:
This research is aimed studying the role of search engine mechanisms (SEMs) with Thai-language service in the process of content selection. The study relies on the following research methodologies-documentary analysis, in-depth interviews, and experimental research in information search - for data collection. The research has these findings: 1. Most of the SEMs studied are portals of which search engine is one of the services; 2. The essence of user's agreement of foreign SEMs is similar; that is, to deny responsibility and guarantee on content disseminated to the users through the website. Thai SEMs, however, do not have clear users agreement; 3. Full SEMs use four major means o' data selection and collection; that is, 1) automatic data collection by web crawler; 2) registration of websites in the SEMs' databases; 3) and payment to have the websites included in the database; and 4) search through the database of web directory; 4. The ranking of search results in different SEMs relies on similar criteria; that is, the number of links, anchor text, web page structure, the updatedness of the webpage, quality and quantily of content in the webpage, payment, and popularity of the web page. 5. Foreign SEMs do not filter websites before adding them onto the database and creating indices. However, there is an available mechanism for users to set their filter template themselves. This filtering approach could only screen out sexually explicit content. On the other hand, Thai SEMs will filter content in the process of adding information to the databases by the data manager; 6. Factors related to the content selection and filtering of SEMs include the following: technical attributes of the Internet, the operation of SEMs, the use of keywords in website search, and culture of individual countries; 7. Based on the in-depth interviews of SEMs' users, their experiences in SEMs' usage could be summed up as follows: a. objective in information search is mainly to support their needs in accordance with with their sociodemographic characteristics; b. www.google.com is the most frequently used SEM; c. users prefer SEMs that have capacity to search in multi-languages; d. most users of SEMs are satisfied with the accuracy of the search; e. the ranking of search results is related to the preciseness of the search; f. the consideration on the reliability of content obtained through SEMs depends mainly on the websites and the sources of search results; 8. Most interview subjects, particulary students, pay little attention to and do not understand the procedure of information search in SEMs. They also could not perceive, notice, or separate the general results from results obtained from payment to SEMs. 9. Most interview subjects think that SEMs still lack transparency in their data collection process. Nevertheless, they will still continue to use these SEMs.