" if readers are able to deconstruct any messages of hate that come their way, much of the messages' power is reduced. "
7/30/05
"I Have a Voice"
In The Life's
LGBTQI Youth Media Conference
World Wide Web
Jane Pirone
Agenda:
WWW Overview
Conscious Consumption - empowering yourself
Active Participation - use what exists
Building a Site - make your own
WWW Overview back to top
The power of the web/internet is awesome and unprecedented. Previously, participating in the creation and dissemination of media was enormously expensive, requiring investment of substantial capital. Obviously, throughout time, there have been examples of clever folks using ingenious tactics to create alternative media (zines and street art/graffiti are good examples), but the reach of these efforts were limited geographically. Until the web, the average person did not have the ability to reach millions of people GLOBALLY for minimal cost.
Regularly updated web stats can be found at ClickZ.
Many of the Web/Internet's qualities, specifically the abilities to be INTERACTIVE and to publish & distribute timely, cheaply, and globally, provide us with two very unique opportunities that we don't have with traditional media -
Interactivity basically means the ability to have an "exchange" - where the user has the ability to be involved at a very active level and participate in the creation of the content. More traditional media - like TV and Radio, considered "broadcasting", is a "one to many" model that has no ability for interactivity. The telephone - considered "one to one" is highly interactive, but you can only reach a single set of ears at any given time. The Internet, however, has the potential of Many to Many - and this power of interactivity is the power of the internet.
Some of my work:
Drummergirl -- paper | website
Not For Tourists -- website | GFN article | Advocate article
Examples of others utilizing the web:
OutProud
PlanetOut Inc
A Bit of Fanish
DIana's Sept. 11 site
Gay News Blog
Three Operating Principles of the workshop
As web consumers (and I don't just mean e-commerce), we need to critically evaluate and analyze what's on the web, how we are using it, how we find it, and how it influences us. The majority of commercial sites make money in two ways - by capturing our eyeballs or selling us products. What companies we support by giving them our attention or money is one of the easiest types of activism and power our community has at its disposal. To be a conscious consumer, we need to be AWARE.
Searching... is it safe? search engine overview | search engine tips
Part of the problem of searching is finding the meaningful stuff we're looking for - as oppossed to getting 4 billion results and then having to weed-through and evaluate each one - especially when you're searching general or vague topics that can return results that aren't of interest. An example is the large number of pornography sites you discover when searching the word "lesbian". It helps to have editorialized lists of resources that you can turn to - both for providing links to other lists or sites that are likely to be what you're after (btw - this is why hierarchical indexes can be beneficial). For instance, OutSmart magazine has a list of Queer Youth Resources that's pretty good http://www.outsmartmagazine.com/issue/i03-02/yrwebsites.php
Critical Evaluation
Get started by asking yourself these questions as you surf:
Who owns the site?
What's their agenda?
Are they a "reputed" source (do you or others trust them)?
What is
the business model (how do they make money), if any?
Becoming aware of how to analyze what you're viewing critically can empower you. You can apply FAIR's analysis of what's wrong with the news to help you assess what you come across on the web. This helps us understand why a variety of INDEPENDENT voices is important in the dissemination of information. Many of these same issues perpetuate the difficulties of Hate, Stereotypes, and Misinformation that the LGBT community faces.
How to battle HATE, STEREOTYPES, and MISINFORMATION:
What is Hate? http://www.media-awareness.ca/english/issues/online_hate/what_is_hate.cfm
" if readers are able to deconstruct any messages of hate that come their way, much of the messages' power is reduced. "
Read up on the 10 ways to fight hate, so if you come across it, you know what to do! http://www.tolerance.org/10_ways/index.html.
Media Stereotyping - http://www.media-awareness.ca/english/issues/stereotyping/gays_and_lesbians/index.cfm
"Gross and Gerbner argue that the commercial structure of the mass media limits the opportunity for representing diverse characters. Too often networks and film companies shy away from portraying gays and lesbians for fear of alienating or offending advertisers, investors, and audiences. "
GLAAD is committed to battling misinformation -- http://www.glbtq.com/social-sciences/gay_lesbian_alliance.html.
Raise AWARENESS & expose culprits by using your skills at identifying questionable sites and bringing them to the attention of your community and its allies. Help debunk much of the hate, stereotypes and misinformation by ACTIVELY Participating...
Active Participation back to top
Use what's already there for your voice to get heard...
Building a Site back to top
There is nothing more satisfying (ok, there are lots of more satisfying things) than having the skills to make your own website. If you are experienced in authoring HTML (HyperText Markup Language) documents, and in using FTP (File Transfer Protocol) utilities to copy HTML documents to Web servers, then what follows will be easy and you will need a more advanced tutorial. If you are new to Web publishing, this all may seem tricky at first, but stick in there and don't panic and you'll have a website in no time. The complex and ever-changing technology behind the www can be intimidating and one of the biggest barriers for many people. WIth anything, the more familiar you become with the topic and its language, the easier it will feel. If you find yourself wondering what some acronym really means or how something actually works, try this helpful website - http://computer.howstuffworks.com/internet-channel.htm.
Making a WEBSITE:
There are 3 basic steps to making a website.
1. Planning & Designing -- make sure to read:
http://info.med.yale.edu/caim/manual
2. Producing
3. Maintaining
In this workshop, we're going to cover the production...
In Production, there are 4 technical steps you need to perform to make a website.
I've included detailed instructions for each step, but before we go through them, let's cover some terminology and basics of the technology behind the www.
http://public.web.cern.ch/public/Content/Chapters/AboutCERN/Achievements/WorldWideWeb/WWW-en.html
http://public.web.cern.ch/public/Content/Chapters/AboutCERN/Achievements/WorldWideWeb/WebInternet/WebInternet-en.html
http://public.web.cern.ch/public/Content/Chapters/AboutCERN/Achievements/WorldWideWeb/HowWorks/HowWorks-en.html
http://www.learnthenet.com/english/html/13wworks.htm
http://www.learnthenet.com/english/html/16addrss.htm
Step 1 – Setting up your web host/server & selecting a DOMAIN:
Very, very simply and basically, when you think of how the web works, think of two sorts of people – those that seek information and those that provide it. People seeking information on the web (called CLIENTS), need two things; their computer connected to the Internet (usually through what's called an ISP – Internet Service Provider – like AOL, or Verizon or TimeWarner), AND a special software program called a browser (the most ubiquitous browser these days is Microsoft's Internet Explorer - IE) that can request web pages from a web server and then display them (think of html as a recipe that the browser interprets and translates into something displayed in the browser window). When people speak of the term “client”, they are referring to someone using a program (in this case, called the browser) to communicate through a network to seek and retrieve something that resides on a server.
Those other folks, the ones that provide information on the web, need a more sophisticated set-up to host web pages anyone on the web can access. If you were a super-techie person and had the right software (web server software), and a fast, always-on web connection, you could actually make web pages available to the world right from your own machine at home. However, there are serious drawbacks to doing this, and the majority of the world rents space on machines in specially air-conditioned rooms, running special software, maintained by specialists, with very superb internet connections so that their website will be accessible on the web ALL THE TIME. These special places are called web hosts, and there are many to choose from.
Some folks choose to use these commercial web hosts (either a monthly paid service like AOL or Earthlink or CI Host, or one of the free ones i.e. geocities or tripod). Others are able to access hosting space through their schools and institutions.
The most basic difference between hosts is cost. The drawbacks to absolutely free hosts are that 1. you will most likely have banner and pop-up ads on your site, and 2. you will not be able to register and use your own domain. The drawback to close-to-free hosts is that if you want to leave and take your domain name elsewhere, it will cost you. CNET - a good source for reviews, identifies a couple of reasonable deats - http://reviews.cnet.com/4520-6028_7-5890390.html.
These days, when you work with a host, they will usually register your domain for you - sometimes free and with no catches. Read about domains at http://www.internic.net/faqs/index.html. Picking a Domain name can be tough at this point as most common names are taken. Have fun and be creative with your name. Most folks choose between .com, .org, and .net, based upon what they're doing with their site. When dealing with hosts, just make sure that 1. you are actually the one that owns the domain name when it's registered, and 2. there's no fee if you choose to move it to a different host. Two hosts that I'm fond of are norex.ca & vervehosting.com. There's a lot to assess when you choose your web hosting package - from space, to type of server, to bandwidth, to email accounts. As a guideline, the $5 per month "starter" package on vervehosting is perfectly fine until you start getting really greasy!
Once you register with a host, you will get access to a control panel for administering your space, and a HOST NAME, USER ID & PASSWORD that you will use to UPLOAD your work to your server space.
Steps 2 & 3 Create Your web pages and test them!
The web is comprised of, among other things, .html files. When your browser requests a website (by you typing in a url or clicking on a link), basically what's happening is the browser communicates with the server that corresponds to the physical IP address of the URL you typed in or clicked on. Think of the IP address as similar to your street address or phone number – that there's actually a physical machine sitting in physical space at the other end of the connection. So your browser initiates a connection with that server and requests the specific “resource” you're after (hence URL standing for Uniform Resource Locator). The way the browser can find and communicate with a web server is by following a set of very strict rules (aka protocol). This is why you type in http:// before the url – you are specifying what set of rules everyone is following. That set of rules is called the Hyper Text Transfer Protocol. http://www.learnthenet.com/english/html/14wbpganat.htm
If you simply type in a domain like http:// www.janepirone.com , you should notice that you haven't requested a specific file (as you would have typing in www.janepirone.com/sample.html ). This is because the software that is operating on the server has a set of defaults – it will always serve a hierarchy of file names if one was not specified. On most servers, when someone types in a straight domain, the server automatically looks for an index file (it needs to be named index.htm or index.html) and that's what the browser will then receive – the .html file of your homepage. The index (or homepage) is what we need to make - and it's best to make it first - but only after planning out your site. I CANNOT emphasize enough the importance of planning out your website BEFORE you start making it!
Think of your homepage as a recipe that your browser will translate into what someone will see on their screen. When you create an .html file, you're really creating a set of instructions of what is to be displayed. You do this with what's called a mark-up language, By following the specific rules of the mark-up language, you get somewhat predictable results. These files are saved in the specific HTML format. In general, there are three options to creating and editing HTML documents:
If you have never created Web pages before and don't know any HTML (hyper text markup language), I strongly advise that you acquire and use specialized HTML editing software. The reason for this is that you can create what you want your pages to be like as though you were working with a graphics program, but you don't need to type any of the code (or markup language) yourself – the program does it for you. Beginners can save themselves a lot of grief by simply using the right tool. Dreamweaver is the absolute best tool. There is a 30 day trial you can download from macromedia. If you are a student, you can buy the full version from www.journeyed.com for $99. Believe it or not, this is a great price. If you spend any money at all to make web pages, don't waste your money on anything else! As an alternative, you can download Netscape's Communicator 4 which includes it's web editing program Composer FOR FREE - this is an excellent option for not spending any cash!
Regardless of what you use, it's a good idea to start picking up some HTML -http://hotwired.lycos.com/webmonkey/96/53/index0a.html?tw=authoring
There's two ways of going about creating html pages - modifying something that already exists, or creating something from scratch.... I will show you some modifying.
Linking from one file to another...
Making additional html pages is exactly like the steps you went through to make your index page, you just name the file differently - for instance, "webtutorial.htm". Make sure you keep track of EXACTLY what file names you use (this is why planning beforehand and making a flowchart with filenames will be helpful).
Now check your work:
Free online training courses for Netscape Composer, Microsoft FrontPage, and many other software products are available at Penn State 's Web-Based Training site: http://wbt.cac.psu.edu
Step 4: Upload Your Home Page
Once you've edited and tested your personal home page, you need to use an FTP (File Transfer Protocol) program to copy it to your web server. Don't forget, even though you are creating your .html files on your home or school machine, it is not suited to host webpages or make them available to everyone on the web. On the flip side, you can't work on developing your .html files with your web server. SO, every time you create a new web page or make changes to existing pages, you MUST transfer them (upload, copy, etc) to the web server that's hosting your site. Also, don't forget that if you use graphics you also have to upload ALL the graphic files that you added into your .html page.
FTP
To get your web pages from your local machine to your web server, you will need to use a program called FTP. You will also need your host name, your USER ID, your Password, and the location of the files you want to upload.
If you do not already have an FTP program, you can download one from the web:
For PC: http://www.coreftp.com (this is the one I use).
For MAC: http://fetchsoftworks.com
About FTP
http://www.imagescape.com/helpweb/ftp/ftptop.html
To actually FTP (this is with WSFTP- other FTP programs may be slightly different):
Once the files have been successfully uploaded to your web server you should test it with a browser – open IE, type in your URL and see what happens! Don't be discouraged if it doesn't work the first time! Go through the instructions and try again.
Common problems include:
Resources:
http://www.lynda.com/resources/links/#web_intro
http://info.med.yale.edu/caim/manual
www.webpagesthatsuck.com
www.webmonkey.com
http://www.zeldman.com/