lab+10

// Using the criteria of Transparency and Functionality in slides 8 and 9 (From Lab 9 Slides), do a media analysis on content (i.e. articles) displayed from two major online information sources (i.e. Google News, About.com, Wikipedia, Yahoo Answers, MSN.ca etc). //

In any online website 2 very important factors are the functionality and it's transparency. Functionality is the forms and techniques used by the website to help the user get around. Functionality can either be very clean and clear offering users and ease of usability. On the other hand functionality can slow down the navigation through the web site with such things as pop-ups, broken links, and bad search. Transparency of a website looks more at how clear and explained the sites information is. This could include things like where the content comes from, if it is relevant and up to date and if there is help and search options available on the site.

An information source I will look at to further explain these concepts is Wikipedia. Wikipedia is used by millions of people around the world to find relevant information on a huge range of topics. The information on this site is trusted by users because it is updated continuously by other users. On the main page there are links to recent relevant topics in the news for people just browsing. This adds to the stickiness of the website. The functionality is very good on this site as the search bar is easily found on the home page. After searching the desired topic users are brought to a well organized page of information listed in categories relevant to the topic and also various links to click on in the information throughout the page. Also wikipedia does not have any ad pop ups or distracting advertisements covering the site, and is mostly information filled. Although the functionality is excellent in wikipedia the transparency is debatable. Although the website provides endless amounts of information, the sources of that information are not always checked and can sometimes be hard to establish as valid, as the information can be edited by anyone around the world regardless of their credentials, or lack of.

Another information source website I will look at is Google News. The functionality of this website is excellent. There is an easy to use search toolbar which will bring up many topics with the keywords typed in, if the user knows exactly what they are looking for. For browsing it's functionality is also excellent as it it divides all news into categories such as Canada, world, entertainment, business, sports etc. This makes it easier for users to navigate through the site to find the relevant topics of interest to them. This site also stores the users previous searches using data mining techniques so that the next time the user is on the site it will already have suggested stories of interest. The transparency of Google News is much better than wikipedia as it does source all of the articles back to usually credible newspaper websites or other credible sources. Also time and dates of the articles are usually accessible to that the reader knows how old the news is.