Choose two different websites that you visit regularly. How does each of these websites establish itself as a place (a "site") to visit? Compare and contrast the ways each site uses the conventions of the web, the computer, and the material world to create its space. Which approaches are more or less successful? Why or why not?
As a source for analyzing the way in which online communities use conventions of old and new forms of media to establish themselves as places of cultural significance, I have chosen to focus on two online news publications: Slashdot and The Onion. Both sites are presented as online news portals but with very different attitudes in their content as well as their employment of old and new media conventions. Slashdot is presented as an aggregation of news stories from other websites of interest to the technologically savvy subculture. Meanwhile, The Onion is presented as a sort of farcical online newspaper.
Both of these sites blend the ways in which the old media allowed the reader to access the content with newer techniques made possible by the computer and networked systems. The content in each site is laid out as a collection of stories spread out across several page allowing for the random access of traditional print media. This ability is augmented, however, with the concept of hyper linking, allowing the reader to view only brief synopses of stories with the ability to automatically jump to a complete text of those stories of particular interest to him or her. The customizability of content is a way in which these sites improve upon the manner in which content can be accessed. Large back-end databases allow the user to see only stories that pertain to a certain category, are from a specific date set, or contain certain keywords in their titles or text.
The manner in which content is delivered from creator to end user is another manner in which each of these sites borrows from old and new media styles. At Slashdot, none of the stories contained on any of their pages actually originate from anybody affiliated with Slashdot. Instead, the community members and moderators that post articles actually post brief synopses of and links to some news article they read on another site which they though might be of interest to fellow community members. In this manner, Slashdot acts as an aggregation service, with new content being provided on a real time basis as community members post articles. Contrarily, all the articles at The Onion are written and compiled into a single, weekly issue, much like printed periodicals.
The ease of intractability and networkability provided by the computer as a medium allows both of these sites, but especially Slashdot, to function as mini-communities, with people able to give feedback both to the content providers and fellow readers. Slashdot employs a weblog-style comment system, allowing users to post feedback to stories in real-time as well as view others’ comments. The Onion, however, employs a much less intractable system, allowing readers to communicate feedback via email.
