After listening to our guest speaker, Chris Nolan, the class was assigned to evaluate a website which we could choose from a specific list. The one I chose was www.whitehouse.org.
Do not do this.
The website, after a little bit of browsing, is obviously not the official website of the white house. The first red flag should have been that an official government website has the ".gov" domain. While I was perusing the website, which is clearly a spoof on Bush's politics and platform, I tried to look for the authors of specific "articles" only to find that there were no bylines. What I did find though was that at the bottom of the website there was an icon for "chickenhead.com" which I can only assume is the organization responsible for this lovely website.
This website obviously has no credentials other than being somewhat informed about what Bush's politics are supposed to be and then blowing them out of proportion for satirical purposes.
As far as design goes, it seemed a little busy and crammed, but overall easy to navigate. There were plenty of easy to find links, though I must admit I was a little wary to click on any of them for fear of destroying my computer. I felt a little like I was reading a tabloid-- you're kinda curious but at the same time you sort of feel like you're poisoning your brain.
There wasn't anything I particularly liked about the website. At first glance one might actually think it is a legitimate website, as long as he didn't read anything on the site, look at the advertisements or any of the website content.
