Defining, categorizing the CNN and PBS sites is, as is the case with many sites, a difficult task. Both are online sites for news media organisations, however the areas within these sites that we are concerned with are probably best categorized as electronic exhibition/teaching resource sites with minimal archive and gateway properties. (1a) Both sites direct their information at novice learners, high school students or interested members of the general public, as opposed to experts or academic researchers. The authority of the information provided comes from the fact that both organisations are well-known news providers and thus have both a professional, albeit commercial, tone in their production and presentation of information. (2b)Neither CNN nor PBS have developed hypertextual links, there is not even any ordering of the information in an easily cross-referenced way. In adopting a television format, they do not even allow people to come across things by accident, unless the user trawls through each individual episode or runs various key-word searches. An examination of the categories/episode listings does not offer much insight into the actual content of the sites. History, knowledge and information are approached in a very straightforward standard television/high school manner. There is no presentation or interaction with historical arguments; information is displayed with a standard narration. Engagement with the complexities of the context or content is non-existent. While both organisations have taken great care to provide historical, contextual narratives they in fact say very little about the events and their wider implications. It is what is left unsaid that has the greatest need to be examined.
The fact that one has to rely upon search functions indicates an inherent hierarchy. Following the sites’ linear narratives is the easiest option, while finding primary sources is certainly not impossible, it is not the easiest way to navigate oneself around the information. PBS’s decision to put all primary documents together under one category, with one or two links into them from other information is an interesting one. The creation of a category indicates a certain level of value placed upon primary sources, yet the absolute lack of engagement with these sources in some ways negates this.
The use of well-established television narrative forms and presentation is an interesting development for the web. The material that both CNN and PBS present has taken television guidelines and morphed them with a few principles of libraries and hypertext, creating an unique situation, where the sites do not easily fit into any existing category. A major weakness for both sites is the reliance on the search function in order to access information, rather realising a structure that utilizes the properties of hypertext. Another theme, a common thread across information on the web is that the level of information, argument, discussion and analysis is quite low. While both sites make a serious effort to give grounded historical context and depth to the material, they deal with the complexity of situations by referencing it and then moving quickly along, which is better than ignoring it altogether, however not desirable either. When using the internet one can feel like a modern day flaneur. We are all outsiders, making our own way around - one person rarely has the same experience twice, or the same experience as another. Hypertext embraces this notion and offers grand possibilities of never-ending trails of information, research, ideas, however what we are experiencing on the internet at present has yet to fully realise this potential.
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