T3: Presidential Debates and Google

Google Debate Search ResultsGoogle has just announced that they are partnering with Fox News Channel to bring more information to people following the Republican presidential debate tonight. If you do a Google search for “Fox News Debate” anytime after the debate starts at 7pm ET (that’s 6pm for Central Time), you will see three types of information spotlighted in the search results:

  • Fuller responses from the candidate’s campaigns: The campaigns can now spotlight long-form texts, videos, and photos to add more information to the candidates’ real-time responses.
  • Google trends data: Google will highlight user search behavior as well–anything from real-time graphs of which candidate’s names were searched the most during the debate to trending search terms.
  • You-tube user questions: Three prominent You-tubers have been tapped to ask additional questions of the candidates.

Just to be clear, viewers of the debates will still need to do their own fact-checking of the candidates responses. Luckily, Andersen Library has resources to help you investigate candidate’s platforms, debate claims, and broader issues.

A great resource for this is CQ Electronic Library. Created and hosted by CQ Press, the CQ Electronic Library (CQEL) is the definitive reference resource for research in American government, politics, history, public policy, and current affairs. A wealth of CQ Press resources and years of journalistic and editorial expertise are combined in CQEL (pronounced SEE´quell). It also offers a range of tools for discovering, understanding, and making use of its authoritative content.

You can also find out more from our guides to resources on government, economics, and sociology.

FDLP logo Andersen Library is a federal and Wisconsin depository library with federal and state government documents on a variety of current and relevant issues available to you in various formats (print, DVD/CD-ROM, online). Check out your government at Andersen Library!

About Diana

Diana is the Reference & Instructional Technology Librarian at UW-Whitewater. She can introduce you to a variety of technology to help improve your teaching, learning, research, and professional development. Ask her about Zotero, tea, or technology. She is the liaison librarian to the departments of Psychology and Social Work.
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