English and ICT

Using the Web – Reading the Internet

Reading printed text usually involves making meaning from words which are read in a linear way. However, when reading websites, a reader must make meaning from information presented in different modes (visual, verbal and auditory). Moreover, s/he must use hyperlinks to connect with other parts of the same website or with other websites. Readers must therefore draw from a range of navigational skills, which involve:

Selecting and using search engines to identify useful sites;
Evaluating the results of a search to decide which sites are relevant;
Being able to interpret and combine information presented in different ways (verbal, visual and auditory) in order to make meaning;
Understanding navigational features, e.g. drop-down menus, breadcrumbs.
Using generic skills for navigating screen based texts, e.g. scrolling, cutting and pasting, finding key words;
Using facilities within internet browsers, e.g. favourites/bookmarks, back/forwards buttons, search histories;
Using hyperlinks to move between parts of the same website or connect with new websites (and do so selectively).

The increasing amount of material accessible through the Internet has various implications for the type of material available and the way it is used. Experienced users of the web recognise that all sources are not equally reliable and view what is presented critically. The key to effective use of the web is the ability to read critically in order to evaluate the reliability of information presented and detect the author’s perspective.

Importantly, there are ways in which the features of web-based texts may prompt us to interact differently with and around Internet-based texts. This often has particular implications for our relationships with knowledge.

Firstly, as Burbules (2002) argues, hyperlinks also offer new ways for the reader to engage with knowledge. He notes that the order in which links are experienced impacts on the meanings attributed to the different sites visited. As different readers will use hyperlinks to take different paths through texts, they will arrive at different kinds of meaning. Moreover, he describes 'getting lost as a potential learning moment' (Burbules, 2002:75). Information searches are driven by preconceptions about what is important in a subject. (We ask questions based on what we know and what we feel it is important to find out.) These preconceptions are inevitably influenced by prior knowledge and existing interests or biases. Internet searches, however, can lead to unexpected sources of information that prompt the reader to gain a new perspective on a topic of interest.

Secondly, unlike printed texts web-based texts are easily revised and updated to reflect current developments or introduce new ideas, products or perspectives. As information is open to continual review, the reader’s relationship with websites and the information they present is often more dynamic. Internet-users may return to sites regularly, or use opportunities for interaction (such as online chat, email, discussion boards, etc) to share their perspectives or associated information with others. Whilst inevitably framed by the web-designer (with consequences for the status given to opinions aired) these opportunities implicitly acknowledge readers as active in making meaning; their perspectives are published alongside those of the author and other readers.

Interestingly, the ability search widely from such a vast number of sources has prompted a number of practices that are not geared to searching for information as such. Googlewhacking (trying to pick two key words which will produce only one search result from the Google search engine), for example, are a playful response to the affordances of the Internet.

Reference

Burbules, N.C. (2002) ‘The Web as a Rhetorical Place’ in Snyder, I. (ed.) (2002) Silicon Literacies: Communication, Innovation and Education in the Electronic Age. London: Routledge Falmer.