The third essay, a website analysis, is pretty much along the lines of the video analysis essay. The task is the same, the object of the analysis different. The sentence summaries of chapters five and seven are due by midnight tonight. Responses to those summaries are due by midnight Monday. The draft is due Wednesday, responses to the draft next Friday, and the essay is due for grading on Monday, August 4.

For starters, read chapters five and seven, which should provide some good springboard passages to kick off the analysis. The springboard passage should set up a claim about the website, that it's a worthwhile resource, that it's too biased to be any good (and bias in and of itself is not a bad thing because we all have biases; if a site advocates a candidate, a position, a point of view, it's biased, but if you ever have advocated for anything, you know that a bias, your bias anyway, can be good; outright deception, on the other hand, isn't good), it lacks substance despite looking nice, it's unusable or what have you. Chapter seven in particular should give you some ideas in this vein.

Many of the analysis criteria from the Savvy Voter can be used for this analysis as well. For instance, there will still be a mythology, whether it's a candidate or organizational mythology constructed by the site. There will be depicted actions, though we'll see still images of them rather than moving images. There will be props, background locations, emotion communicating faces, clothing, supers and code words and appeals. There might be some other things you'll see.

Additionally, you can look at a variety of other elements, such as the bias of the site (for good or ill), the usability or layout of the site (for example the class site is in a typical inverted 'U' with information down each site and some menus and a banner across the top--a very standard layout, as is the inverted-L), how the site does or does not connect to other sites (internal or external links--internal means they want to limit your access to desired information, theirs), who is behind the site and what authority they have on the issue (this is usually found in the "about us" section), the site's layout, the site's intended audience and how well they are served, the quality of the information on the site (or lack there of, which brings us to a variation on eye candy).

Once you decide on a site, if you respond to all, or nearly all, of the website analysis guideline (follow the link within the assignment) points, you will have a lot of raw material to work with and a good idea about which elements hold the most promise for the analysis. The sites I've provided links to all worked when I last checked. If you have another site that seems to fit with the assigned task, one that is not listed, you can probably use it but run it by me first just in case it's not a good fit for the expectations. Otherwise, if there are any questions that remain after reading this and the assignment material, let me know.