"We assume a collective responsibility to advance and strengthen the interdependent and mutually reinforcing pillars of sustainable development - economic development, social development and environmental protection." --The Johannesburg Declaration on Sustainable Development (source)

This project will give you an opportunity to examine a virtual public space (a website) and to analyze the ways in which that space both represents and invites a culture(s). By studying the underlying social, cultural, economic, environmental and political values embedded in the spatial, visual and textual messages of that site, you will be able to trace the outlines of the culture it both reproduces and hopes to attract in terms of a sustainable society.

Rationale: As your textbook, Reading Culture, points out, “culture includes all the social institutions, patterns of behavior, systems of belief, and kinds of popular entertainment that create the social world in which people live” (2). Reading (a.k.a. analyzing) a culture asks you to find patterns in what is often familiar (the patterns of behavior and systems of belief), and to bring to light and reflect on the commonplace aspects of what is often taken for granted. Since virtual space is increasingly becoming a web of common public spaces for all sorts of social, business, governmental, educational, and other types of purposes, it offers a good opportunity for analyzing culture. That is, it is both new enough to be somewhat less the natural order of things, but becoming common enough to be well on its way there.

Your first written project in this course will require you to draw on readings from the text-book, online discussions, class notes on culture, tacit knowledge and transactional communication, and your own experiences to explore the spatial dynamics of a commercial or organizational website.

For your analysis, you will need to choose a website that is relatively sophisticated (multiple links, graphics and other design features) and also represents a local and accessible material space (i.e. it really exists in the physical world). The site you choose should also be one that is relatively new to you or that you have not had much prior experience with. This will be necessary for doing the next report.

Most of the ASU departments (English department, law school, library, Memorial Union, facilities management) programs (first-year writing, human evolution & social change, women & gender studies), student organizations (student government, State Press, Arizona outing club) have their own websites and will be easily accessible later. You might also consider local businesses and organizations on and around the campus for this project. Changing Hands, Four Peaks, Tempe government, Twin Palms Hotel, and so forth, would also be good choices if you are not already overly familiar with them. You might also consider sites that directly invoke sustainability in various ways, such as, Living in Paper, Global Institute of Sustainability, Southwest Center for Education and the Natural Environment, SRP, Valley Metro, Riparian Institute, Pueblo Grande Museum, just be sure that you will have access to the material site for the next report

Your assignment is to explore one of these virtual sites, taking note of the underlying cultural, social, economic, and political values you find embedded in the spatial, visual, and textual messages in the way the organization presents itself through its website. You will also need to take note of your experiences in exploring the site not only as a user, but also as a researcher being consciously aware of your own purposes for being there. Ultimately, you will write a 3-5 page analytical report on your observations of the website, describing your experiences in exploring it, and coming to conclusions about the tacit and embedded cultural assumptions both in the site itself, and in your expectations and interpretations of it.

Work closely through the following sections to help you generate the notes and analysis you will need for drafting your first report.

PART I

Topic Choice Heuristic

1. Jot down your personal, professional and academic interests. Do any of these make you think of a particular location? Review the list above and add to it to reflect your own interests.

2. There are many ways to go about picking a site. Here are a few suggestions. You can either locate a physical site and then go on the web to see if it has a website, or conversely you can surf the web for sites and then see whether a site lists locations or check the phone book for a local location. You can move back and forth between the web and a list of physical sites (e.g., from the phone book). Enter key words based on the interests you listed into a search engine. Review the hits you receive. On one or more of the sites that come up (or on sites you are already familiar with), follow any links attached to those pages for additional relevant sites. (You can also search journals and magazines devoted to your interests that list URLs for websites, and surf these.) MAKE A LIST OF SEVERAL POSSIBLE WEB SITES.

3. Based on your search, identify several possible web/physical sites that you can explore for this project. DO NOT SIMPLY TAKE THE FIRST ONE YOU COME ACROSS. You will be studying this site for the semester, so make sure that you are really interested in learning more about it.

Research and Analysis Heuristic

Before you analyse the website, read thorough The Johannesburg Declaration on Sustainable Development. Write detailed notes about what sort of informative websites you expect to look at and what your expectations are for those sites (consider sites that are generally unfamiliar to you). For example, if you are going to look at the local restaurant, Caffe Boa, what are your own feelings, perceptions, and personal knowledge about this restaurant and restaurants in general? What do you know about food service, food preparation, restaurant management and marketing, wines, menu design? What knowledge do you have of cuisine and the cultural values that define what food and dining mean? As a business, what role or responsibility, if any, would/should Caffe Boa have in contributing to sustaining the local community? Based on your preconceptions, what would you expect the Caffe Boa official website to look like? What sorts of information would you expect to see presented in this site? How would you expect this information to be presented and communicated? Who is it being communicated to? How? Why?

Jot down your responses to the following prompts BEFORE you spend anytime visiting the Website you have selected. DON’T SKIP THIS PART; YOU WILL NEED THESE RESPONSES TO WRITE YOUR PAPER. (Don’t limit your responses to the small spaces provided below; write as much as you can as quickly as you can.)

1. What do you already know about the “social organization” for which the website you are about to examine was constructed?

2. Based on your knowledge (however extensive or limited), what do you expect to find on the website?

3. What purpose do you expect the website to serve?

4. Who (which group or groups) do you expect the website to be aimed at? Do you consider yourself a member of the primary audience to whom the website is likely to be aimed at?

5. Who (whether an individual or multiple individuals) do you expect authored the website?

When you go to the website, write detailed notes about your first impressions. What do you see? What kinds of information are offered? Pictures? Lists? Statistics? Testimonials? Anecdotes? Quoted and cited sources? What are your initial reactions to the website? What aspects are you skeptical about? Why? What aspects seem reasonable and sensible to you? Why? What information is new to you? Does the website have any relevance or importance for you? To the extended community? Why? Why not? Who would this website be relevant or important to? Who might challenge or disagree with aspects of this website? Why? How?

Initial Observations of the Website

1. List the full URL for the website:

2. Jot down the following data:
Domain name (is it an “org,” “edu,” “com” etc.):
Organizational Logo and Title (What is the title of the site and what if any logo appears?)
Names of Links (How many and what kinds of links, if any, appear?)
Signature and Credits (who maintains the site? when was it last updated? who is credited with contributing to it?
Advertising (are there any ads? if so, what kinds?)
What does the above data suggest to you about the purpose, audience and author(s) of the site?

3. What is your first impression upon entering the site? What strikes you immediately?

4. To what extent did the website contain what you expected based on your responses to Part I above, and to what extent did it have aspects you did not expect, and what is missing that you thought it would/should have? What surprised you when you visited the site?

PART II

After your initial examination, reexamine the website more closely to see what additional observations you can make about what is being presented and take note of your reactions to your more detailed analysis. Follow links and take note of information presented on associated and affiliated websites and their relationships to the original site.

Respond to the following prompts.

1. Does the website provide you with choices about where you can go or does it limit (direct you in specific ways) your movement through its pages? Explain. What does the freedom or limitations suggest about how the author(s) are imagining the audience and the purpose for the website?

2. Does the website invite you to participate interactively (e.g., send email, fill out a survey, post to a guest book, etc.) or does it expect a more passive “read only” interaction from the viewers? What does this aspect (whether interactive or passive) suggest to you about the purpose and audience for the website?

3. What kind of relationship does the site seem to want to establish with its viewers? (Look at the images, the text messages, the visual use of space, the kinds of information both visual and verbal, the kinds of links, etc. to help you answer this.)

4. What kinds of visual images appear on the site? What purposes do they serve (e.g., guides for navigation, content information, supplement to the text, or other)?

5. It is perhaps easy to describe what is there on the site; it is more difficult but equally important to consider what is missing. What do you notice is missing?

6. Have you noticed anything new since your last visits to this site? What? Why do you think you didn’t notice it the first few times you visited the site.

Part III

Write an analytical report on your observations, analysis and interpretation of the website, drawing conclusions about its representation and invitation of American culture and sustainable development.

Please note that you are not being asked to summarize, evaluate, or critique the website. You are being asked to explore, observe, analyze and present your findings

Hint: Don’t try to do the research all in one go. The more you look, the more you will see, and the more complex and interesting this project will become. Keep lots of notes on your research, and as you revisit the site, look back on previous notes to see if you notice anything new or different about what you are seeing and then take notes on your notes.

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