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CIAO DATE: 3/99
International Relations in Cyberspace *
George Mason University
International Studies Association
40th Annual Convention
Washington, D.C.
February 16–20, 1999
With the convergence of computer and telecommunication technology a new era begins for the research and practice international relations. This era is marked not only by new technology, but by a new global cultural configuration that will affect relations among citizens across the whole world. Barriers to interpersonal communication are being dismantled and the practical access to vast amounts of information is becoming commonplace. At the present time, the primary vehicle for this transformation to the Cyber Age is the Internet. This backbone of networked computers provides people with a multimedia interface to Internet called the World Wide Web (WWW or the Web). The Web is a “graphical user interface” (GUI) that displays the multimedia resources of the Internet in the computer window presentation that has become the industry standard following the efforts of Xerox PARC, Apple Computers, and Microsoft. The Web, along with other up and coming user interfaces, is changing the way people and nations interact throughout the world. To join in, all you need is a computer, a phone line, and a modem to connect the two.
In order to appreciate the impact this technology is having on the world, we must understand what it can do and how we can use its capabilities to enhance our efforts to better understand the world around us and help make it a safer, healthier place to live. Internet users surf the World Wide Web in order to access Websites and view the Webpages contained within them. They do so to learn, be entertained, conduct business, and communicate with friends, colleagues, and strangers. In the following pages we will discuss the strategies and tactics that make for a good Website. As we engage in this discussion, we must remember that within the field of International Relations there are basically two types of participants, researchers and practitioners. As such, the strategies and tactics for Websites servicing the distinct purposes of these users will vary somewhat.
Website Strategies: Understanding the Purpose of a Website
When creating a Website, it is crucial to identify the strategic purpose of the site. What do you wish to accomplish with your efforts? Before you wade into the mire of incorporating the many software applications that add functionality to a Website, you must have a clear sense of what you want your site to offer and why people would want to use it. This is equally true for those surfing the Web. To avoid getting lost in distraction, the surfer should have some sense of what they wish to accomplish with their efforts, or surrender to serendipity. The latter is recommended for entertainment and exploration, the former for more serious endeavors.
Four strategic purposes stand out as the keys to the successful Website. The focus of these strategies is to get users to find the sites they seek and find reasons to stay and use them. Achieving these strategic goals is the mark of a great Website. Although, since we are still at the dawn of the Cyber Age, we tend to be satisfied with sites that are less than great for the moment.
Website Tactics: Implementing Strategy
Each of the strategies discussed above must be implemented. For each, there are multiple options for achieving the goal. Additionally, new options are being developed on an almost continual basis. When developing a Website, it is important to use good tactics for the implementation of the site’s strategic purposes. This requires careful attention to both the aesthetic and functional characteristics of the site. When form and function follow from each, the result produces an elegant efficiency where Websites are compelling to use with quickly accessed resources.
Drawing in Users.
In order to successfully draw a user in, four things must happen. First, the user must know the site exists. Second, the user must access it. Third, the initial screen must catch and hold the eye of the user. Fourth, the desired resources must be quickly accessible. If any of these do not happen the user is likely to flee the site searching elsewhere for fulfillment.
Websites must be marketed to attract visitors. Traditional forms of advertising such as print, radio, and TV advertisements are possible vehicles for this marketing, but they are generally expensive and may not have sufficient exposure to the right audience. 1 Banner advertisements on popular Websites are the WWW equivalent of a commercial. Space may be purchased on heavily trafficked sites like Netscape, Yahoo!, Microsoft, Lycos, and HotBot. These approaches are better suited for commercial Websites. The type of Website most appealing to the international relations research and practitioner is most likely not a money-making site. Instead of advertising, per se, these sites are most likely found via a search engine, links page on another related site, or word-of-mouth from people in newsgroups, chat rooms, class rooms, and conferences.
Once a user accesses a site, they must be hooked into staying. To achieve this a site should load into the browser quickly and have an a appealing presentation. These two requirements seem obvious, but they can often be difficult to reconcile. Pretty pictures can create an appealing presentation, but since pictures are memory intensive they take longer to load. Using GIF formatting for pictures can reduce the image’s size, but at the cost of resolution. JPEG formatting is higher resolution, but it makes larger files. One trick that is often used is to divide a picture into three sections and let them load side by side separately. This can speed up the process.
Some sites use graphics where bounded sections of the image is a link to another page. The most common example is a clickable map, where clicking the cursor on the outline of a state or nations takes the user to a page devoted to that geographical location. This provides compelling interface for users. A good example can be found at newspapers.com, by accessing their list of US newspapers (http://www.newspapers.com/npcom1.htm), the user is greeted by a map of the country. Clicking on any state will call up a list of links to electronically published versions of newspapers throughout that state. Accessing the menu of international newspapers produces only a list of country names. While still functional, it is not as aesthetically pleasing. Still, it is important to consider the tradeoffs. A map of the world would be large and the user would have to know exactly where a country is located for it to work. Also, due to scaling problems, some nations may appear very small on such a map. Note that the below the US map on this site is a pull down menu alphabetically listing the states found on the map. This provides a good compromise, allowing users who do not know where a state is located to access it through other means.
Another way to maximize the initial impact a Website gives is to design the front page so that it appears complete on a typically sized computer screen. It is frustrating to access a Website using a 15 inch monitor when the page is optimized for a 17 inch monitor. Crucial information and navigational links may lie outside of what is visible screen on the smaller screen. This can be most distracting. From the front page, it should be obvious how to access all of the principle resources of the Website. Two tools that further enhance the first page is a link to a site map and a search engine. The site map should provide a simple hyper-linked flowchart of the contents of the entire set. The search engine should ideally provide full text search of the site’s contents, but at a minimum it should provide keyword searches. Many of the well-known Web search engines companies allow Websites to build their search engine into the site for free. These can be set up to allow users the option to restrict the search to the site’s internal content or search the entire Web.
Communication.
A Website should provide users the opportunity to communicate with others regarding the themes found in the site. At a minimum, an email address should be provided to allow users to direct inquiries to the Webmaster. Even more useful, email addresses for the various staff that support the Website should be provided. This allows users to resolve any questions regarding source or format of information available on the site.
Websites also offer users the opportunity to communicate with others having similar interests. Because a site tends to be focused on a theme, it becomes a gathering point for those sharing an interest in that theme. Such an opportunity should not be wasted. There are several ways a Website can facilitate communication among its audience. List-serve, bulletin boards, and chat rooms are the three basic approaches. A list-serve is a group mailing list. E-mail is sent to the entire group at once. Any person receiving mail from the list-serve can respond to the entire group or to the individual author of the e-mail. While popular, this approach tends to fill mailboxes regularly. An alternative is to use a bulletin board. The newsgroups on Usenet are a common example of a bulletin board. Messages are posted to a centralized archive and users simply have to point their browser to the right URL address to read them. This reduces the strain on participants’ mailboxes, but it makes the content of the postings more publicly accessible. The final approach is to use a chatroom application. A chatroom is a real-time, scrolling text-based discussion. Users log on and join in. It can be fast paced and there can be a lot of “noise” in the discussion, but the conversation can be quite dynamic and, with the right group of people participating, it can be quite constructive. Some Websites have their own chatroom built into the site, others are available through publicly accessible networks using Internet Relay Chat (IRC). Websites can also set up a chatroom on site that is connects with IRC, allowing users to choose whether to access via their Web browser or an IRC application.
Online networks like PeaceNet and ConflictNet have used multi-level chat arrangements to facilitate conferences and negotiations. An inner room allows the principal participants uncluttered opportunity to chat. An intermediate room is accessible by support staff to the principles. An outer ring allows open public discussion. The arrangement can allow all participants to read all of the rooms, but it restricts who can post to each room. This model can accommodate political town meetings, debates, and negotiations quite effectively. Currently, ConflictNet and PeaceNet can be found on the Institute for Global Communications (IGC) Website (http://www.igc.org/igc/).
Information.
A good Website provides useful or entertaining information that is easy to use. The Web is like a vast ocean of information and it is easy to drown in the stuff. There are several ways, some high-tech, some low-tech, to make the information on a site more usable. First, let us consider a list of links to related sites. Alphabetizing the links is a good start, but it is better when a site gives you more guidance. Some sites will categorize the links (see http://www.cfcsc.dnd.ca/ and http://www.carleton.ca/polisci/intrel.html ). This allows to find similar sites, allowing more flexible and greater opportunity to find the information users seek. Other sites will annotate the links instead of, or in addition to categorizing them. Some will even include critical comments in the annotations (for an site with critically annotated and categorized links see http://www.towson.edu/~roberts/107/p107ir.htm). As you might imagine, the larger the list, the more difficult the task of annotation, especially critical annotation.
A high-tech approach to making the information usable is to provide a search engine. Companies like Infoseek offer powerful software that lets you place a large number of files into an archive and conduct full-text searches of the content. This is a truly powerful ability and it is possible only through the power of computer processors. An example can be found on the International Monetary Fund’s site (http://www.imf.org/ ).
The best search engines allow you to choose among search targets (full-text, title, keyword, and source) and it allows you set multiple search parameters, including some words and excluding others. HotBot’s super search is a good example of this type of search engine (start at the homepage http://www.hotbot.com/ and click on the “more search options” button).
In general, a Website should strike a balance in the relational structure of the individual pages in the site. Information should be accessible quickly and easily. This means a user should not have to go too many pages deep into a Website to get the desired information. A flatter organization of the site can ease the user’s efforts. Menu’s that link directly to content should be a click away from the site’s homepage. Whenever possible, the number of steps to get to the end should be minimized. While there will be times when a deeper hierarchical structure is necessary to effectively contain a large and complex set of archives, such layering will always come at the cost of access speed.
Hyperlinking to the World.
A good Website can provide an infinite number of ways to connect to other information and people. In addition to providing menus of links to related sites, search engines can be used to broaden the search for related Websites. The companies that provide these search services are shaping how we use the Internet.
Search engine sites are becoming very powerful entry ports to the World Wide Web. Many search engine companies allow other Websites to incorporate their search engines on the site free of charge. For a fee you could get that search engine company to customize the engine to your site, allowing the user to search within the site or throughout the Web. Additionally, these search engine companies (InfoSeek, Excite, HotBot, Yahoo! and others) offer web-based e-mail and other services. Netscape also offers a similar package, but since they are not a search engine company, they simply provide you with a menu of all of the other search engines within the comfort of their own homepage.
In essence, each of these companies is building the Internet equivalent of America Online, meaning you pay for direct access to the Internet and then join the free community or you pay to join an online community that provides indirect access to the Internet. Both offer news services, entertainment schedules, clubs, chatrooms, and pager service to compliment e-mail. Though AOL is the largest of such communities. With over 40 percent of the online population, it’s content and potential is dwarfed by the rest of the Internet. It draws users by delivering a simpler interface. But most members of AOL rarely, if ever, venture beyond the internal AOL network.
These new portal sites are competing to provide a better launchpad for accessing the Internet. But, any Website can be designed to function as a portal to the Internet. The way these sites make money is by selling advertising and additional services. Maintaining a good Website can demand a strong staff of Web designers, writers, analysts, and data-processors to compete for users. There are ways to make the site pay for itself. At the same time, any individual can create and maintain their own Website for very little money and a bit of time. These private Websites can be every bit as good as the major sites. Perhaps the best example of a low-budget, high-content site belongs to Matt Drudge (http://www.drudgereport.com ).
If we think of bookmarking a suite of launch pads, including both general and personal interest sites, we can maximize our effective use of the Internet. Researchers, practitioners, teachers, students, and amateurs can create their own homepage with key links and a built in search engine or they can create buttons at the top of their Web browser to go to your favorite places in cyberspace. Either way, if you choose your portals carefully, you can reduce idle time online and maximize effective surfing.
The difference between a good Website and a bad Website are tremendous. As a result, the quality of an individual’s experience online is greatly influenced by the sites they visit and the tools they use to navigate the Web. Because anyone can publish a Website, there will always be a wide range of quality among Websites. This means that the user must always be critical in their use of the net. The criteria for a good Website set out in here should provide a good start to any journey into Cyberspace.
Endnotes
*: Prepared for presentation at the 40th annual meeting of the International Studies Association, Washington, D.C., February 16–20, 1999. Back.
Note 1: A most notable exception is the success found by Victoria’s Secret, Monster.com, and Hotjobs.com during the Super Bowl in January, 1999. These companies paid $1.6 million for 30-second ads on one of the most widely viewed television programs in the world. In response, the day after the game, VictoriasSecret.com set a single day record for hits and Monster.com and Hotjobs.com went from unknowns to high-profile in one fell swoop. As more people go online, these traditional means of advertising will become more effective. Back.
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