Website Analysis

Group Members: Vishnu, Sarah, Cody, Eric P.

1)

A) “Professional” Source:   http://www.mcspotlight.org/company/

This website focuses primarily on research and highlighting controversial issues about the corporation.

B) “Popular” Source:  http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/7501092/ns/business-us_business/t/after-years-influence-mcdonalds-still-felt/#.Tq6w7UMg_UA

This website, MSNBC.com, features an article written by the Associated Press about McDonald’s influence.  It mostly discusses the history of the company and how it grew to where it is today, but also begins to delve into some of the negative aspects of it such as obesity.

2)

A) This site seems to focus its efforts and information on propagandists. It uses information on

the environment and a heavy reliance on sensitive issues of health in order to perhaps cast

McDonald’s in a negative light.

B) The audience for his site is the general American public.  It has an average use of language and doesn’t address anyone specifically, but assumes that the reader has been to McDonald’s and knows about the company and the influences it has made.  It has a slightly attacking tone at times.

3)

A) The top of the home page has dozens of McDonald’s food items, like hamburgers, chicken sandwiches, and French fries. Scrolling down a bit, the eyes land on an image of Ronald McDonald with his mouth covered by the word grease. This imagery serves to let readers know that they are about to find information about the faults of McDonalds. The site also uses a warning symbol in order to inform readers that propaganda is present in a given article.

B) The website has graphics in its header, as well as a picture of the first McDonald’s restaurant.  It relates to the topic because it follows the history of the company that the article discusses.  The graphics do not draw attention away, but some of the advertisements do distract the reader.

4) 

A) After reading through several of the article pages within the organization’s database, we found it to be more based on propaganda than fact. Questionable citations (e.g. “29/10/01 . Unknown . Yahoo . U.S.A.”) or a complete lack of citations (e.g. ending the article with a simple “this is complete unadulterated fact”) cause the site to lack reliability. It seems that the site is highly bias, as they use only facts that make McDonald’s look bad. No article present on the site highlight any traits of McDonald’s that one would deem beneficial. The majority of articles are based on political and corporate hierarchy or health problems associated with the corporation.

B) The information seems credible because of the source.  The author seems well versed in the history and facts about McDonalds, which shows that sufficient research was performed about the company.  He uses quotations from a variety of people as references, such as an owner of several McDonald’s chains and a customer at one of the first McDonald’s restaurants.  All of these aspects solidify his credibility.

5) 

A) At first glance, the website seemed reliable and well-organized by a reputable group. After looking into the site and delving into the individual articles, we found that these initial interpretations were far from correct. One could, therefore, argue that information on the Internet can be useful and much of it may, in fact, be true; however, as a general rule of thumb, a critical eye and a certain level of skepticism must be maintained when doing research online.

B) Initially McDonald’s was a groundbreaking idea when it first opened, especially the drive-thru.  It discusses the fast-paced food production assembly line that it created, the availability of cheap food that it produces, and the extent to which it has grown today.  It also talks about some of the negative impacts, such as the low wage “McJobs” that it creates, problems with obesity, and hitting on Americans’ desire for bigger and better things.  While this source is useful initially to learn the basic information about McDonald’s, it does not go into specific detail about any one aspect of the topic.  Sources must be evaluated wholly and must be viewed in the larger picture.

6) Our “professional” website included random facts and cited websites improperly.  The information used didn’t seem totally reliable.  Our “popular” website had solidified information with a variety of sources, which generated a great deal of facts as well as quotations.  Though the second choice was the more popular source, it also happened to be more professional than the first source. The popular website appealed more to the general public and was fairly neutral in its portrayal of McDonalds, while the professional website was very one-sided.