Do You Believe Everything You Read on the Internet?

Module 4 Discussion

I rarely use Internet sources for research; I will peruse statistics on government websites, but I know better than to trust the analyses of bureaucrats and politicians. That being said, I do depend on the Internet for news: CNN.com, Google News, Yahoo News, even local television and newspaper websites. "Distinguish between Primary and Secondary Sources" has certainly made me look at network, cable and print news in a different light. While it is true that reporters try to interview primary sources, the people who have actually experienced events, news anchors spend more and more time interviewing secondary sources, reporters and others who analyze rather than directly experience or participate in news events. The readings for Module 4 made clear the fact that even well meaning secondary sources make sense of events through the filters of personal background and political affiliation; their psychological filters need to be taken into account as I watch the news.

The article, "Evaluating Information Found on the Internet", may have empowered me to give the Internet another chance. Because it is so difficult to distinguish truth from fantasy on the World Wide Web, because adult men masquerade as little girls, because Kenyans offer me thousands of dollars if I can only lend then a few hundred, and because even I blog as my dog, I have given up using the Internet for anything but entertainment. By following the article’s suggestions for doing background research on web pages, I may be able to separate some wheat from chaff and find valuable information. In particular, I was fascinated by the suggestion that the web programs, dnslookup and whois, could be used to research website creators.

I was most moved and excited by Alan November’s article, "Teaching Zack to Think". November not only says what steps should be taken to do “meta-Web” analysis, but he shows his readers how to do it. I am incredibly excited by the idea of using the “links” command on browsers to discover who links to particular websites. I also appreciate November’s suggestion to do a multi-search engine investigation of web page authors and publishers.

When I was a child, my friends and I liked to play detective. We would sneak around neighbor’s houses to spy on the people who lived inside and “get the goods on them”. I still have a bit of the detective in me. I think I would have great fun checking up on websites, finding out why they exist and who links to them, and who and where their creators are.

Quickly! The game’s afoot, Watson!


References

Kirk, E. (1996). Evaluating Information Found on the Internet. Johns Hopkins University Libraries. Retrieved from http://www.library.jhu.edu/researchhelp/general/evaluating/index.html

November, Alan. (1998). Teaching Zack to Think. November Learning. Retrieved from http://novemberlearning.com/resources/archive-of-articles/teaching-zack-to-think/

UC Santa Cruz University Library. (2010). Distinguish between Primary and Secondary Sources. How to Do Research in the Library. Retrieved from http://library.ucsc.edu/help/howto/distinguish-between-primary-and-secondary-sources.doc