The Internet Encyclopedia (Volume 3)

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Research WL040/Bidgolio-Vol I WL040-Sample.cls June 19, 2003 17:13 Char Count= 0

EVALUATION OFINTERNETCONTENT 209

Currency

Maintaining a Web presence is an ongoing task, and there

are numerous Web sites that went up with a bang three

years ago and have not been updated since. The very best

sites will tell you up front when they were created and

when they were updated. Individual articles, reports, or

bits of information may also have dates. The current re-

search is not necessarily the best, but it is necessary to

know if it is current or not before that judgment can be

made.

Coverage

The extensiveness of coverage is another quality to scru-

tinize when evaluating an Internet resource. Bias will of-

ten be reflected in the error of omission rather than the

inclusion of erroneous information. This is often true of

commercial (dot-com) and organizational (dot-org) sites

that want the user to see it their way. Providing a con-

trast of perspectives would be counterproductive to their

purpose.

Language

Always subject a new or dubious site to a quick se-

mantic analysis. Is the language excessively descriptive,

comic, inflammatory, or hyperbolic? Such language tends

to represent bias or opinion. In addition, be wary of un-

substantiated claims, for example “The Harvard Law Re-

viewclaims... ” without identifying information describ-

ing volume, issue, date, or page numbers.

Page Structure

There are different philosophies in Web design, and these

vary depending on the target audience; hence it is difficult

to definitively advance one mode of design over another.

However, any design that impedes access is not desirable.

Information is only useful if it is available. Excessively

busy or chaotic Web sites, sites that are poorly organized,

and sites whose design features (color, layout, frames, ta-

bles, graphics, animation, Flash, and other multimedia

devices) interfere with navigating the site and succeed in

obfuscating the information they are purportedly trying

to promote. There are also page designs that will attempt

to lead researchers to certain information and away from

clues to intent.

Links

The “About Us” or related links often provide definitive

information about the mission, philosophy, perspectives,

and goals of a Web site host. Even spoof and spurious

sites can often be exposed this way. Examine e-mail links

and related links for clues. The quality and destination of

links can often inform one as to the quality of a Web site’s

content. Numerous broken links can indicate the site has

not been updated recently or is ill-maintained.

Source Code

Viewing the source code of a Web page is often less re-

vealing than it once was due to the increased use of Perl,

Javascript, ASP, and other scripting languages. Web page

creators can now, utilizing scripting language, direct spi-

ders to one page, and browsers to another, thus allowing

search engines to classify a site by different terms and con-

cepts than the page the user sees. The growing invisibility

of the page source will no doubt continue to increase. It

can still be extremely insightful to view source code. An

examination of the page title, the metatag field, filenames

for linked pages and graphics, and comments can often

reveal the true intention of a page.

Misinformation

There is copious information on the Internet that is

patently false, some of it by blameless error, some of it

by spurious intent (Piper, 2000). Spurious information is

problematic because the creators of the information de-

sire to deceive, either for monetary gain or support of a

political ideology or other personal rationale.

Counterfeit Web sites and/or credentials are the most

common manifestations of spurious information. Coun-

terfeit Web sites mirror the appearance of an authentic

site but contain false information. A deviation of direct

counterfeit is an authentic site that has been cracked

(hacked) and legitimate information is replaced with

false, or disinformation. The armed conflicts in the Mid-

dle East and the former Yugoslavia have germinated hack-

ing of this nature. Investors have also been victimized by

spurious Web pages that counterfeit authentic investment

news, such as the fake Bloomberg’s page touting the ac-

quisition of ParGain in April 1999.

E-mail fraud, which is an electronic extension of mail

fraud and targets specific audiences often using Inter-

net mailing lists, is also a major problem. As might be

expected, the elderly are often victims, and the content is

often health or financially oriented. E-mail and mail list

information is particularly subject to fraudulent claims,

and identities can be easily counterfeited. If doubted,

these should be verified by legitimate sources.

Spoofs

Spoofs are deliberate parodies, often of existing sites or

topics. They are often political in nature, but they can be

for instructional or recreational purposes as well. While

spoof sites vary considerably with regard to profession-

alism, intent, and scope, they are generally open about

their intentions. Their purpose is most often to parody

perceived exaggerations or errors in the original informa-

tion.

The most common way that parody or spoof pages de-

ceive a legitimate researcher is when underlying pages on

a spoof site are returned by a search engine without refer-

ence to a home page. These decontextualized pages, often

featuring only a fake report or article, are lacking the dis-

claimers that often accompany the home page and can be

misleading even to experienced researchers.

Alternative Views

The Internet provides a more direct mirror of social

norms, ideas, and prejudices than any previous medium in

history (National Council of Civil Liberties, 1999). This re-

sults in an unprecedented array of published alternatives