Ok so I thought I’d try to apply the exercise we did yesterday in class (structuralist examination of punk and Native American fashion) and apply it to an “interactive artifact.” I decided to do it on the first webpage that I had up on my browser. Surprise surprise, it was the Facebook news feed. Well that makes it easy, as I don’t have to spend time describing what it is, as I assume everyone in a college class knows about Facebook 
.
Step 1: denotation
Images
portrait photos
photos of people/things/places
Textual signifiers
fan
friend
comments
hours/minutes update
status
feeds
Design
minimal
white
textual emphasis
Interactions
clickable names of people
clickable comments
Step 2 – pull out the connotation
Feeds, status, when updated -> wire services, up to the minute news.
Portraits / headshots -> personals / self advertising.
Minimal design, textual emphasis -> news and information is all that matters.
Step 3 – further distilling
Site plugs you into the 24/7 news pulse. “All the news, all the time.”
Important events aren’t just created by others locally, nationally or internationally, it’s your actions too.
Your input matters, you matter.
Conclusion
The goal of this exercise was for me to see if I ran across any problems doing this analysis on something interactive. Questions did arise, which I’ll outline below:
1. By doing this exercise with an interactive website, I wasn’t sure if I should just focus on one page or the site as a whole. I suppose it can be done eitherway depending on what the unit of analysis is.
2. Going with #1, should I interact with the page, if so, what parts, and how far should I drill down.
3. Similar to our examination of punk fashion, I feel like this exercise is simplified by the fact that I already have a good understanding of social networking sites. How would my analysis of an unknown website work out, would the results be relevant and on target?
4. Is something that is clickable or “interactable” a signifier?
5. Is design a signifier? At first I wasn’t sure, but then I remembered or discussion of how the cut on a piece of fashion can be a signifier of haute couture, so I’ll say yes.
That’s about it. Comments or feedback? At a later date I’ll go back and do this exercise again but with a site that I’m not as informed with.
2 comments
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October 5, 2008 at 6:59 am
rajasee17
Hi Dan, regarding your q1, if you are analyzing an interactive website, I think its essential we take into consideration not just the current page but also the potential interactions the elements of that page would lead us to..
regarding q2, i would consider anything and everything that’s within the context of social n/wking through facebook, e.g. pokes, gifts, wall, invitations, dynamic updates, to name a few…
regarding q3, i think its really essential to have some established understanding and familiarity with what(artifact) you are critiquing and the underlying theory/background information associated with it (e.g. movie critic -> film theory), to do valuable constructive criticism…
q4 : I dun see why a clickable/interactable can’t a signifier?
q5: what do you mean by design? are you referring to the layout design, information design, icon design or something else?
I think we all should take up such short exercises…will be definitely helpful!
great start Dan!
January 28, 2009 at 9:44 pm
structuralist reading of Facebook « Danoliver’s Weblog
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