Final Paper

Feingold

Today’s society is bombarded everyday with artificial colorings, flavorings, and preservatives. One non-profit organization, who is working to inform the public of the health issues associated with afore mentioned is the “Feingold Association of the United States”. Their website www.feingold.org will be analyzed based on their content, audience and the physical characteristics of their site. The “Feingold Association” is volunteer run and was founded in 1976. Their website was started in 1996. They’re dedicated to helping people incorporate a healthy diet program that improves behavior, learning, and health.
The Feingold home page has a white background with dusty blue, sea foam green and a medium shade of blue accenting the links and main menu. It's a fairly simple layout with three button links along the top. Underneath there are pictures of success stories and a video that browsers can watch. The main menu is displayed as a column along the left side of the page. Under success stories and the video “Feingold Part 1 (of 2)” the rest of the page has three columns. Throughout the main bodies of text on the page there are links which are in red. The middle column has general information, and the right column displays materials that can be purchased as well as providing more information about dyes. The site is easy to navigate. However there are a few links that will take users away from the main site, and they will have to navigate back to previous pages using the back button. If a user were to click “Success Stories” for example the “Feingold Association” title bar at the top of the page, should work as a link to the home page and does not. Users have to scroll down the menu bar on the left side of the page to find the “Home” link. The site may take a while to read through because this site is extremely text heavy.
The purpose of this site is to inform the public about the harmful substances that are in our food and the medical conditions/side effects that can occur afterward. They promote that this is not a diagnosis or a prescription, but a healthy diet and does not replace medication. The volunteers contact companies and look for foods that are free of synthetic colorings, flavorings, Aspartame, and synthetic preservatives BHA, BHT, and TBHQ. When users purchase a membership they will receive a shopping guide, a book with detailed information about Dr. Feingold and the programs itself, as well as an online ordering guide and a fast food guide.
The site does a fairly good job of presenting its content to browsers, considering it is managed by volunteers. The website manager has put links along the top of the page that seem more significant because they’re larger than the links on the main menu, they are “Join-Renew-Order Materials”, “Free eNewsletter”, and “Contact Us.” The main menu is organized nicely so that users can look up information about the organization as well as view numerous resources. On the home page they have a list of problems that the program has helped. Those links are listed in red which helps to grab the browser’s eye and make them focus on that information. For instance if users were to click the first link “Attention Deficits, Hyperactivity (ADD/ADHD)”, it would take them to a page of information on that condition. This page explains the connection between diet and behavior; provides charts, and pictures drawn by children before and after they started the program. There are also more resource links at the bottom of the page, in addition to the date that the page was updated which was 2/15/10.
The information that is listed on this site is extremely important to the welfare of all people. The dyes and preservatives that are in the majority of the products that we use everyday are made from petroleum. Artificial flavorings are made from natural and synthetic chemicals, and companies are not restricted by any means on how they choose to flavor their products. “The synthetic dyes are allowed to contain harmful contaminants like lead, mercury, arsenic, and benzidine (a carcinogen)” (www.feingold.org). Volunteers at this organization are continually updating the information on this site, they also send out monthly emails to members that feature companies that sell pure natural products. The volunteers also inform members when a company’s product is no longer acceptable. If a member has a question about a product they can go to “Contact Us” on the home page and find all the numbers they would need to reach assistance.
The people that would interact on this site the most would be parents, medical professionals, and educational professionals or anyone that is looking to improve their health. This site is user friendly and they have a video where a woman is explaining products and the program right on the home page. Families can easily contact the organization to send them their success stories too. This site is reaching out to families and people of all ages to make a change for a healthier self. Many children these days are diagnosed “ADD” or “ADHD” to quickly, if more health care professionals knew about this we would not have so many children and young adults on medication with ten other side effects. This site is about educating everyone and they want you to spread the word about them. They offer materials for educators to purchase. Parents can also print off pamphlets to give to their children’s teachers, so that they can learn to identify the symptoms and discuss it with parents.
The majority of the site is information, however as a parent looking for a solution I found this very thorough. They have studies, success stories, and my son's pediatrician recommended this program to us. This program is basically just going back to the way food used to be, when it was pure and free from additives. This isn't just for kids. It's for anyone that is experiencing any of the symptoms that would like to improve their health.

"Michael Wesch's lecture on YouTube"

I was really impressed with the lecture. I really liked when he was discussing when he posted his video and continued to use it as an example throughout the process. His class did a really good job of being honest and connecting with people from all over. I am suprised that, people would just reply with videos of themselves. I think that some people have a hard time connecting with individuals and it helps them to be able to put something out there for anyone to reply back to them. The problem with that is, due to the internet people can pretend they are from anywhere they want and lead the person on.

Since I rarely view "YouTube" videos I am not familiar with the process of how a video becomes top rated. Even after watching this lecture, I still find that "YouTube" can be a waste of time.

My YouTube video

For our video Chris and I weren't trying to do anything to fancy, since neither one of us has a lot of experience with this. We were even trying to shoot it in one take to eliminate editing. That part didn't happen. We decided to do a silent video that focus on the absurd prices of books in the campus store. We looked for the most expensive books and we also found a few that were pretty cheap also.

YouTube articles

YouTube: the good, the bad and the interesting and The YouTube-ification of Politics were both interesting articles. It does seem like as soon as someone comes up with a new social network that people are willing to jump all over it. Especially with "YouTube" because it seems like everyone wants their 15minutes of fame and they are willing to do anything in a video and post it on the web for attention. Granted some of these videos are posted by some people with talent to catch the eye of people in the business, and give them an opportunity that they may not have had otherwise. However some of what is posted are videos of kids just messing around with their friends and the just want all their friends to see this funny video. Some of the people post their videos on "YouTube" really do consider themselves professionals though.

As for people getting involved in Politics, I think it's great. Most young people are naive and don't really know how to question what the people running for office are saying. I think that this is a way to help us question what the Politicians are saying when they contradict themselves, and forces them to address an issue head on. I'm sure it's not how they would like to deal with issues, but the people have a right to know the truth. A lot of young people don't think it's important to vote, and this is breaking through to them to be more relatable.