Website 2

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Website 2 Criteria for website comparison:  Authority:“authority reveals that the person, institution or agency responsible for the site has the qualifications and knowledge to do so – authorship, contact information, credentials”  Purpose: “what is the website meant for – content, specific audience, is it organized and focused, outside links, domain”  Coverage: “is the site selective or comprehensive, are topics explored in depth, information value, outside links or not”  Currency: “how often is the site updated or maintained?”  Objectivity: “is the information biased?”  Functionality  Attractiveness

Universities 1. Universiteti i Korçës"Fan S. Noli", Korçë, Albania - http://www.unkorce.edu.al/en 2. University of Gothenburg, Gothenburg, Sweden - https://www.gu.se/english 3. Universidad Tecmilenio, Mexico - http://tecmilenio.mx/en

Cultural background The University websites that we are looking at are located in three different areas of the world with the aim of analysing not only structural, content and visual differences but also the impact that cultural factors might have on a website.

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The three universities are located in Albania, Sweden and Mexico. As we can see fromm the chart below, these three countries have quite different cultural values and this might play an important role on the way the communicate and the way the website is structured. For instance, in the Albanian website you can feel the power distance as a large portion of the site is built to give information for the university structures, the rector, the organigram and the regulations. On the other hand the Swedish university places the individual in the center of its attention and offers a very personal experience.

Authority Authorship and credentials revealing the institution responsible for the website is clear in all three chosen examples. Contact information can be easily found for both the Albanian and Swedish universities at the bottom of the page. A phone number, address and email contact is included. On the other hand the Mexican university does not provide direct contact details, it offers the possibility of filling in a contact form instead. Purpose and Coverage For all three university websites we chose to analyze the English language websites. University websites are mostly meant to be aimed at current students, prospect students and researchers. While searching for the Gothenburg University website on the internet we immediately come across their English homepage. By navigating through the different sections of the website we notice how their website is very simple yet effectively designed. On their Education section they try to showcase their core values and beliefs that aim to attract foreign students and researchers. Browsing through their academic catalogue one can find all the important details of the programs and courses, admission requirements, student life, student housing, etc. The information is well-structured and backed with testimonials of their alumni. Their research section offers access to a wide range of publications as well as information that might concern future doctoral students. The Albanian university website has a reasonably easy to find English version, however most sections are not fully translated to English. There are no study programs that are offered in the English language thus the aim of the English website is mainly to give basic information. There is a lack of description of the programs they offer; upon clicking on a study program you get automatically redirected to an external .pdf file that lists the subjects and the contact moments. There is no section that offers useful information to prospect students regarding housing and accomodation, student life, facilities etc. While on a first impression the website looks very thorough and comprehensive, a lot of sections about regulations, faculties and departments are either incomplete or unaccessible. Tecmilenio University in Mexico also offers an English version website however, upon acessing it, the majority of the information remains in Spanish and most links are broken or redirect to Spanish language versions. Descriptions about their study programs are available but they are rather short

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and very general. Information regarding subjects and study plan is very limited and superficial. There is no information section for prospect students regarding student life and facilities. Currency The Gothenburg Univerity Website is actively publishing articles regarding their research results, events and current-issues debates in both their English and their Swedish language websites. Their website is updated with recent videos, publications, announcements concerning students etc. The University of Korça in Albania is actively publishing articles in Albanian language, however the articles in the English version of the website is pretty dated (Dec 2018). The study programs and the general information sections are updated both in Albanian and in English language. The Tecmilenio University does not have a news section in English language on its homepage. The Spanish language version also shows rather old publications. In the lower part of the homepage there is a university calendar that still shows information about September 2018. A lot of links are broken and the sites does not give the impression that it is actively maintained. Objectivity All three websites tend to present their information objectively but we should acknowledge that by their nature they do not have much room to include any sort of bias in their websites. They do however tend to portray their programs, staff and achievements in a positive light with the intent of properly marketing to future students and researchers. Functionality We define as website functionality the ease with which a visitor can navigate a website and get the information they are looking for. Gothenburg University website is well designed, it gives a good first impression and invites you to stay longer in the website even if you are not looking for something in particular. Design is consistent throughout the sections. Links and buttons in the site are clear and simple to understand. Navigation is fast and simple. Next to the information website there is the Library, the Student portal and the Staff portal, all in one place and easily accessible. The website of University of Korca in Albania has an overall outdated feeling. Navigation through the website is slow and as we said earlier a lot of links are broken and a lot of pages are missing. Information regarding study programs is very superficial. The design is consistent and simple. The main section is rather chaotic and distracting. Student and staff portals are easily accessible from the homepage. The Tecmilenio University seems to have the less functional website of the three. There are no obvious website sections and the homepage seems like an unfinished work. A lot of buttons and links are broken dropdown menus do not work properly and the access to the student and staff portals is complicated and counter-intuitive. Attractiveness The Gothenburg university website strikes you immediately with its cured and modern look. It is easy to orientate yourself and quickly find what you need. It provides an aesthetically pleasing balance of images and text and the choice of the colour theme gives it a serious and professional look.

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The University of Korca in Albania has some cured sections and some less cured ones. Unfortunately the homepage section belongs to the second group. The text parts are not properly placed and are deformed upon say, resizing your window. Also images are not proportional and occupy a big part of the page. The selection of fonts and icons is not uniform throughout the site. It is also rather dated and gives it a bland look.

Tecmilenio University in Mexico gives a very chaotic experience. The color theme is rather well chosen but it still does not match the professional look that the Gothenburg University offers. Images and text are not proportionally placed in the site and the first impression is that you will have to struggle a lot to find the information you are looking for.

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Web Shops The web shops we will compare are AliExpress, Bol.com and Amazon.

AliExpress is owned by Alibaba and based in China. It helps small businesses to sell their products worldwide. Bol.com is based in the Netherlands and owned by Ahold Delhaize. Amazon was founded by Jeff Bezos and is the largest e-commerce marketplace in the world.

Authority Authorship, contact information and credentials can be found on the web sites. To find the contact information of AliExpress you have to click a link that guides you to the site of Alibaba Group (the mother company) there you can find all the contact information. If you want to contact Bol.com, you have to make use of the “Service & Contact” page where you can ask questions through chat. The same applies to Amazon, they also make use of a chat if you want to contact them. Purpose and Coverage All 3 web sites are online retailers, aimed at customers and suppliers. AliExpress makes it easy for suppliers to sell products worldwide. AliExpress itself does not own/manufacture/warehouse/ship any products, it is merely an intermediary. After you buy a product, the supplier takes care of the shipping. AliExpress sells almost everything, from clothing to electronics, to food etc. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AliExpress Bol.com is the leading webshop in the Netherlands for books, toys and electronics. It only delivers to Belgium and the Netherlands. People can sell products too, as second hand (e.g. used schoolbooks) but starting businesses can work together with Bol.com to sell their products making use of the clients of Bol.com https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bol.com Amazon started as online bookstore but currently you can also buy electronics, software, videogames, apparel, furniture, food, toys, jewelry etc. Same as for Bol.com, Amazon also offers the ability for customers to sell second hand products on Amazon and small businesses can offer their products to customers via Amazon. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amazon_(company)

Currency

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All 3 webshops are non-stop updating their web sites with new products, new prices and ongoing sales. All products have sufficient information, customers can leave additional feedback about the product. Objectivity The products are described objectively, obviously the suppliers try to use a positive bias otherwise people would not buy the products. The product feedback as described by the customers is done subjectively, it is the customers own experience of the product. Functionality All 3 webshops are easy to work with and to find requested information. The search box is centered on top and in the middle of the home page, after typing in the key word of the product you are looking for, you get a list of all the products that share that key word. If you select a product, you get information about the product and the supplier (in case the supplier is not the web shop itself). Attractiveness All 3 web shops look very similar: the search box in the middle on top of the home page with next to it all the categories, the flash deals/deals of the day, products selected out for you based on previous searches, products related to products previously looked for, products that are trending and products that you might be interested in. The dominant colors on AliExpress is red and orange, the same colors as in the logo. There is a lot of

text on the web site, this is very common on Asian web sites. To us Europeans this may look chaotic at first, but you get used to it after a while.

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The background color on Amazon is blue, the boxes with the different products are plain white. The web site looks well organized and everything is clear.

Bol.com makes use of a variety of colors, the background is white. This gives the web site a modern look. Conclusion The 3 webshops we have compared look very similar, with only minor differences. They all try to reach the same kind of customers or more or less sell the same kind of products.

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News Websites Belgium: https://www.demorgen.be China: http://www.sohu.com/ Us : https://www.nytimes.com/

Authority

The authorship of the institute responsible for the site is clearly visible for all three news sites. Both the American and Belgian news sites also credit the author of each article. The Chinese site on the other hand does not, as it only refers to the institution itself. Contact information is also provided for all three sites. A phone number, address and e-mail address is all included. Social media such as Facebook and Twitter is also included for the Belgian and American sites.

Purpose and Coverage The purpose of all three of these websites is to inform, to entertain and to provide the readers with the latest news. It helps them become more informed citizens and make better decisions by giving lots of facts. However these sites differ a lot from each other in terms of look and content. For example, the Chinese news site tend to fill its pages with huge amount of content such as texts, animated ads, images and videos. They give the impression that they have a lot of content by presenting a huge set of information on their homepage. As a result their pages are also much longer compared to the other news sites. Content categorization also seems to be a popular thing in China. This can be seen in the large number of category options. These categories vary in many different subjects such as sports, movies, fashion and even gaming. The site seems to focus more on the entertainment aspect rather than providing relevant information. Subjects such as politics are barely mentioned or not explored in depth at all, while subjects such as gaming and sports are very popular and cover most of the homepage. The website also consists of a huge amount of links which opens a new window by clicking it. The Belgian news site also tend to fill up their pages by using larger fonts and a lot of images but to a much lesser extend compared to the Chinese site. The message of each article is very direct and the facts are clearly stated without giving much context, as a result the length of the pages are also much shorter. The site has 3 categories ; Politics & Business, Culture and Lifestyle each also has its own subcategories. Subjects about politics, business and finance are very popular and are extensively displayed on the homepage. The site does not have any links. The American news site on the other hand is much more simplistic in terms of looks. It minimalizes the use of images and focuses more on providing a title with some key points of the article. Just like the Belgian site the messages of each article is very direct and the facts are clearly stated however

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the information in one article very often refers to another article, indicated with a link. The site has various categories but just like the Belgian site, politics and business are amongst the more popular ones. Currency For this criteria we will look at the maintenance of these sites. All three of these sites are updated daily with the latest news. Each article are indicated with the exact date and time of posting. On all three sites you also have the possibility to search up old articles with the search bar. Objectivity The Chinese news site is without a doubt very biased. Due to the communist part of China we can safely assume that there has been some kind of censorship of what there is allowed to be shown on the site. Political subjects are barely mentioned and never explored in depth. The political party in China is always displayed in a good light and any form of controversy has been blocked. The Belgian and American sites try to be as objective as possible but it is apparent that both these sources have a slight left-centred liberal bias. These sites often provides factual information that uses specific words attempting to influence an audience appeal emotions or stereotypes to favour their causes. These sites are in general trustworthy but in some cases require additional proper investigation. Functionality All three of these sites are fairly easy to use and navigate through. They all have a homepage with the most popular and relevant information. The categories are nicely ordered and makes it for the readers very easy to find their preferred subjects. The search bar is also an option in case you can’t find an article you’re looking for. The American site is the only site with multiple language options, offering the site in English, Spanish and Chinese. The Belgian and Chinese website is only available in their own language which are Dutch and Chinese. Both the Belgian and American site also have a limited daily amount of articles you can read without being subscribed. The price for the Belgian site is 19 euros/ month, while the American site asks for 8 dollars/ month. Attractiveness

The Chinese site as mentioned earlier has a lot of content on their pages. Its filled with a lot of texts, images, videos and animated ads. When you first visit it, it can be a bit overwhelming due to the sheer amount of information. Flash and animated content is heavily used resulting in long pages with a lot of colourful images. The colours used on the websites are also more colourful and use a lot of colour combinations. Cute icons are also commonly used. The Belgian site has a creative approach yet formal. On its homepage it uses big fonts and large images to attract its readers. The articles itself are all nicely structured and makes use of high quality pictures. The categories and sub categories are all very attractive and beautifully divided in different blocks. Red is a recurring colour on the site and its often used to indicate titles.

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The American site takes a more formal and simplistic approach. This site focuses more on interesting titles and facts to attract its readers. It makes use of simple colours such as black and white and has a fairly basic theme.

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Social media Intro For the sites comparing social media we chose the most diverse sounds there are regarding this topic. Therefore we chose for the following sites Facebook.com: Facebook is the most widely used social media site with its 2.32billion monthly users. Its user activity is slightly declining but is it is by far the most used social media site in the western world.

Wechat.com: WeChat is the equivalent of Facebook in China and other parts of Asia. Because of its culture and the control of the internet by the government they cant access Facebook and therefore have their own social media.

Vk.com: VK is a social media site used primarily by Russians. They use VK instead of facebook primarily because of their culture.

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Authority First we look at the authority of the websites. This entitles the power and influence the owners of the website has on its website and in the case of social media sites on its users. Therefore this is a pretty serious topic because we are talking about the private data of users. In our first site “Facebook” the authority the website has on its users is big but still limited in comparison to other sites. In the western world the society limits big social media companies of doing anything they want with our data. Next to this censorship is also not an issue in the western world since we have laws against it. In the Chinese base WeChat This is much more of a n issue since the company is partly controlled by the government and the Chinese government is very strict on sharing any political expressions. Therefore any post with a political view that is bad for the image of the country is removed. Moving on to the authority of VK or VKontakte This is the Russian based equivalent of Facebook. Here there is also a big problem with user data where the company can track your location and use all other types of information regarding your personal life. In short VK is based on Russian law and Russian law is pretty lose on topics such as Copyrighting, IP and personal data. Therefore when using VK be aware of these issues. But this is in an extend true for any social media site. Purpose Here we look at who the website is meant for. And this is similar for all of the chosen websites. Any Social media site is and especially these is targeted toward s the mass market and a large amount of consumers. There is some different in the geocentric take on users but in general the more users the better no matter where they are from. This is also related to the business model of these sites because social media sites are only as powerful as the users that are on the site. When a social media site does not have any users the whole concept of the site is useless. The sites are also targeted towards advertisers. Without them there would be no sustainable way of keeping the site running. Advertisers keep the site running by giving the company money in return for advertisements on their site. Coverage Social media sites are in general very comprehensive since there is a lot of information on there but you have to be selective in the way you look at this information. Social media can be full of answers to your questions but most of the time these are answers from other users and since you don’t know if these statements are based on facts you should not trust some of the posts. You should always

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backcheck statements on social media. If you want a public opinion on something then there is a lot of valid information you can find on these sites. Currency Content The frequency of updates happening on the content of the websites is not measurable but it is faster than you could ever imagen. For example Facebook receives more than 2800 image posts every second. As you can see on these sites it is more about quantity over quality. But that doe not necessarily mean there are no quality posts on the site. It is just that you have to really check and look for it. Site The sites in general of these social media platforms het regular updates but these are just structural. They are not related to the content on the website. Objectivity Information on social media sites is not bias at all because of its nature. The sites are used to express opinion and there might sometimes be a factual statement these statements are overwhelmed by the big mount of opinions. If we compare the three Facebook is actually the most bias of them all since the other have a certain influence by the government where the government deletes posts they don’t find fitting to their beliefs. The best example is with WeChat where students did a study by posting regular politically tinted posts which got deleted over time. Therefore you should not browse these sites for any factual information. Functionality All three sites are made to communicate with other people but there are other functions that entail these apps. WeChat is one of the best examples of this. In Recent years they have gone from an app solely used for chatting to a so called “all in one” app where you can now manage your wallet, book travel destinations, ask for a cab and much more. Vk and Facebook are somewhat less expansive but do have other apps that take care of these functions. Attractiveness Attractiveness Is all relative. Especially when talking about social media sites. In this case the one where you can find all your friends is the most attractive of them all. Of course this is only part of the story because if a site is not user friendly there will not be any users in the first place. All tree sites have a pretty intuitive and simple interface but nevertheless we as westerners all use Facebook and therefore we are all leaning towards this Social media site. The offer of WeChat that promises you it is the only app you have to download for any daily activity is also very attractive but there is still the issue of the censorship.

Sources Universities http://www.unkorce.edu.al/en

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https://www.gu.se/english http://tecmilenio.mx/en Web Shops https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AliExpress https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bol.com https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amazon_(company) News websites https://www.cxpartners.co.uk/our-thinking/international_differences/ https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/8119/b1c92a5ae54d3cbc3bcc0857b4886ce9b973.pdf https://www.researchgate.net/publication/254007584_Cultural_differences_across_governmental_ website_design

Social medum https://www.statista.com/statistics/264810/number-of-monthly-active-facebook-users-worldwide/ https://www.echosec.net/what-is-vk-and-why-should-you-care/ https://www.brandwatch.com/blog/facebook-statistics/ https://www.cnbc.com/2019/02/04/what-is-wechat-china-biggest-messaging-app.html