Information Architecture and the Construction
of Ideology: A Proposal for a Qualitative Study of a School District’s Web
Pages
Stephen P. Victor
Doctoral Candidate
Department of Curriculum and Instruction
College of Education
University of Houston
Houston, Texas, USA
steve@svictor.com
Abstract: The Internet has only begun to be seriously
studied, yet it promises to be a fertile area for research. This paper proposes
a qualitative study of a public school district’s Web pages to analyzed possible
messages taught about the nature of knowledge and the role of the schools
in its formation and transmission.
Introduction
The Internet, particularly the interconnected, globally
distributed system of hypertext documents known as the World Wide Web,
has only begun to be seriously studied, yet it promises to be a fertile area
for cultural research. The Web has become a powerful tool in education, and we hear increasing calls from politicians and
educators to provide teachers and students the opportunity to use the Internet
for instruction and learning.
Much has been written
on the overt impact of the Internet on the curriculum, but what is the role
of the Internet in the transmission of what has been termed the “hidden curriculum”
(Apple, 1990)? This paper summarizes a proposal for a qualitative
analysis of a public school district’s Web pages. The study will analyze the
potential messages—both overt and hidden— presented in these pages about the
nature of knowledge and the role of the schools in its formation and transmission.
Brief Summary of
Literature Review
For the purposes of this summary, I will provide
only a brief description of my review of the literature on information architecture.
In this review, I suggest a definition of information architecture,
reviewed the theoretical underpinnings of the field, propose a four-phase
model of information architecture (Victor, 1999), and suggest the instructional
application of its principles. I list here only some of the topics addressed
in my review:
Theoretical
Background
Information
Theory and Information Design
Perception
and Cognition
Hypertext/Hypermedia
Theory
Constructing
an Information Architecture
Business
Process Analysis
Information
Analysis
Task
Analysis
Contextual
Analysis
The Information
Architecture Process
Guidelines
for Constructing an Information Architecture
An
Information Architecture Model
Instructional
Applications of Information Architecture
The
Social Construction of Knowledge
Information
Design, Objectivism, and Constructivism
What clearly emerges from the literature review,
I believe, is the importance of considering user or learner needs at every
stage of the process. Sound information architecture, then, is user-centered.
The four phase model of information architecture I describe (Design, Develop,
Deploy, Document) may be viewed as a framework for research into the processes
of creating user-centered information: design of information (needs, audience,
and task analyses), development of information (writing, graphical production,
page/screen layout, programming), deployment (implementation and evaluation
of the information product), and documentation of the product (to feed into
future expansions and revisions).
Furthermore, information architecture can serve
a rhetorical or ideological function in its use as a tool for the reproduction
of culture. Because of my interest in theorizing the practice of Web design,
I will present below a fuller treatment of the portion of my literature review
dealing with information architecture and ideology. I hope readers will bear
with what might appear to be—indeed could very well be—a tangential excursion
into unusual areas of cultural studies.
Information
Architecture and Ideology: A Theoretical Framework
Overview
Any rigorous analysis of cultural activity—including,
of course, education—must be grounded in some sort of theoretical framework.
This section examines the work of two researchers who have applied theoretical
and methodological principles to the study of certain aspects of culture.
Hebdige (1979) uses the punk rock movement of the early 1970s in Britain as
the starting point for an analysis of the role of style in the formation of
cultural identity. Maboudian (1999) examines the role of school Web pages
in presenting/defining gender identity. For Hebdige most particularly, cultural
artifacts (clothing, musical forms, machinery) are appropriated by subcultural
groups from a “mainstream” milieu and transformed, given radically new, often
hidden value and significance. Maboudian examines the use of a relatively
new cultural form—the Internet Web page—as an instrument for propaganda by
a large urban public school district. Each writer shows in a unique way how
cultural production may be used in powerful ways in the construction of individual
and group identity.
Dick Hebdige (1979) adopts an almost purely
theoretical approach in discussing his subject: the meaning of style in the
development of subcultural groups. While he chose as his immediate area of
study the punk rock movement that arose in Britain in the mid-1970s, his work
is an extended meditation on the use of cultural artifacts by a subculture
to define itself, to set itself apart from the dominant culture. His methodology,
though qualitative, seems to employ none of the usual techniques of observation
and interview for data gathering. He rather uses such artifacts as newspaper
articles and radio and television interviews as his primary source. There
is indeed little evidence that he even attended a musical performance or even
personally met any of his subjects. His study traces the historical roots
of the punk movement from the development of reggae among the black immigrant
working class youth of the 1950s and 1960s, the mingling of these youths with
white working class Mods in the 1960s (and resulting racial tensions), to
the emergence of punk in the 1970s. The punk’s transformation of clothing
and musical forms is for Hebdige representative of the larger process of style
in the formation of social identity. In his interpretive framework cultural
artifacts—safety pins used as jewelry, plastic trash bags worn as clothing—become
texts bearing meaning for the interpretation of cultural activity. He grounds
his interpretation in a semiotic analysis of the appropriation of signifiers
by the punks and their reassignment of them to new signifieds: “safety pins
and bin liners signified a relative material poverty which was either directly
experienced and exaggerated or sympathetically assumed, and which in turn
was made to stand for the spiritual paucity of everyday life” (Hebdige, 1979,
p. 115). The punks’ style becomes a parody of bourgeois life: “beneath the
clownish make-up there lurked the unaccepted and disfigured face of capitalism…beyond
the horror circus antics a divided and unequal society was being eloquently
condemned” (p. 115). He cites Mepham, who writes that it is necessary to identify
the “generative sets of ideological categories” and to trace the replacement
of these sets by different sets. With the punks, Hebdige notes, it is difficult
to identify consistent “generative sets” of signifiers; items such as the
swastika, apparently stripped of its traditional meaning (fascism) and worn
by the punks merely for shock value, “its primary value and appeal derived
precisely from its lack of meaning: from its potential for deceit” (p. 117):
“The key to punk style remains elusive. Instead of arriving at the point where
we can begin to make sense of the style, we have reached the very place where
meaning itself evaporates” (p. 117).
These contradictions make a traditional semiotic
analysis difficult if not impossible. Hebdige turns for a solution to a branch
of semiotics that attempts to deal with such problems. This branch discards
the traditional reading of texts to reveal a fixed number of meanings for
the idea of polysemy, in which each text generated a potentially infinite
range of meanings. Attention is directed to those places in the text where
meaning is most in doubt; the emphasis is placed on the process of
meaning construction rather than on the text as a final product (p. 118).
Literary expression is viewed as a signifying practice, in which signifier
and signified are separated and assigned new relationships and meanings: language
is “an active, transitive force which shapes and positions the ‘subject’ (as
speaker, writer, reader) while always itself remaining ‘in process’ capable
of infinite adaptation” (p. 119). Reading punk “texts” through this critical
lens, then, Hebdige suggests that the punks deliberately presented a disunified
set of significations: they “played up their Otherness, ‘happening’ on the
world as aliens, inscrutables” (pp. 120-121). Their ensembles “did not so
much magically resolve experienced contradictions as represent the
experience of contradiction itself in the form of visual puns (bondage, the
ripped tee-shirt, etc.)” (p.121, italics in original).
Ideology
and Interpretation
Such a reading of cultural activity is perhaps
only possible in the wake of the radical critique of language and its role
in the development of personal and cultural identity engendered by the pioneering
work of Saussure and consequent developments by Lacan and other postmodern
theorists. Belsey (1980) draws on Saussurean linguistics, Lacanian psychoanalytic
theory, and Marxist theory to provide a useful summary of the construction
of the subject in the work of ideology in the social formation. While Belsey’s
immediate concern is the role of postmodern theory in literary criticism,
the positions she describes have of course been applied to a variety of disciplines
in the humanities and social sciences and may be profitably considered here.
For Saussure, language is a system of signs,
of differences with no positive terms.[1]
Language does not describe entities that exist independently in the world
but rather precedes their existence, making the world intelligible by means
of differentiating concepts. A sign consists of a signifier (sound-image or
written shape) and a signified (concept). Because signifier and signified
seem for us inseparable (the sound-image dog belongs with the concept
dog), we believe language to be transparent, something that labels
unproblematically an entity in the world. Further, in Saussure’s theory, language
is a social fact. Social groups generate signs, agreeing to attach specific
signs to specific signifiers. A community creates a signifying system as a
means of producing social organization; “[l]anguage therefore comes into being
at the same time as society” (Belsey, 1980, p. 42). Communities also create
ideology, systematic representations of the meaning of events, the roles of
individuals in society—in the form of discourse, myths, stories, history—and
this ideology is necessarily grounded in language. Just as signifier and signified
in language seem inextricably linked—to the extent that language seems transparently
to describe reality—so does the linguistic nature of ideology make it seem
to describe “reality” as it actually is. Recognition of the arbitrary nature
of the signifier-signified relationship has profound effects on our view of
the world:
If signifieds are not pre-existing,
given concepts, but changeable and contingent concepts, and if changes in
signifying practice are related to changes in the social formation, the notion
of language as a neutral nomenclature functioning as an instrument of communication
of meanings which exist independently of it is clearly untenable. Language
is a system which pre-exists the individual and in which the individual produces
meaning. In learning its native language the child learns a set of differentiating
concepts which identify not given entities but socially constructed
signifieds. Language in an important sense speaks us…. Differences and
distinctions which seem obvious, a matter of common sense, cannot be taken
for granted, since common sense itself is to a large degree a linguistic construct
(Belsey, 1980, pp. 44-45; italics in original)
Lacan’s radical interpretation of Freud posits
that identity and subjectivity (the idea of the individual as subject) are
grounded in language (Belsey, 1980, p. 59). At birth, the child has no sense
of identity, no sense of itself as distinct from an “other.” In the “mirror-phase”
of development, the child sees itself “as a unit distinct from the outside
world” (Belsey, 1980, p. 59). The child learns to identify with this unitary,
autonomous self. However, to participate in society, the child must learn
language, it “must enter into the symbolic order, the set of signifying systems
of culture of which the supreme example is language” (Belsey, 1980, p. 59).
In learning to speak, the child learns to differentiate between “I” and “you,”
and in identifying with the first person singular pronoun, the child becomes
a subject:
Subjectivity, then, is linguistically
and discursively constructed and displaced across the range of discourses
in which the concrete individual participates. It follows from Saussure’s
theory of language as a system of differences that the world is intelligible
only through discourse: there is no unmediated experience, no access to the
raw reality of self and others. (Belsey, 1980, p. 61)[2]
Further, the subject “is constructed in language
and in discourse and, since the symbolic order in its discursive use is closely
related to ideology, in ideology” (Belsey, 1980, p. 61). Industrial capitalism,
Belsey suggests following Althusser (1972), requires the existence of subjects,
individuals who believe themselves to be autonomous, freely acting consumers
of material goods. The conventional role of culture in ideology is to reinforce
the position of the subject: to maintain the sense of a stable identity free
of contradiction. Because ideology always masks its activity, there is a naturalness
to the status quo; it “makes sense” that things are as they are. The
role of literature in a capitalist society is to maintain the “sense” of the
dominant ideology, to present a unified subject, capable of acting freely.
Literature, as ideology, interpellates the subject, addressing individuals
who, in their recognition of the address, are constituted as subjects (Althusser,
1972). Literature, art, and other cultural artifacts, are commodities that
reinforce the subject’s place in the social formation and reproduces the dominant
ideology. In terms of my own research interests, one could say that Web pages
interpellate those who view them, drawing the viewer into the mesh of ideology
that permeates our perceptions of ourselves and of our relationships with
others. The conventional critic, therefore, presents for the reader what Barthes
terms the “readable text”: s/he collaborates with ideology in the masking
of multiple discourses, “diverting the reader from what is contradictory within
it to the renewed recognition (misrecognition) of what he or she already ‘knows’,
knows because the myths and signifying systems of the classic realist text
re-present experience in the ways in which it is conventionally articulated
in our society” (Belsey, 1980, p. 128). The radical critic must examine literature
in terms of its production, as a composite of many discourses.[3] No
longer the passive consumer and re-packager of ideology, the critic becomes
an active producer of meaning, deconstructing the “readable” text to create
the “writable text”: the text in which multiple meanings and knowledge in
diverse, often contradictory, forms, are laid bare. Practitioners of critical
qualitative research, such as the critical ethnographic methodology of Phil
Carspecken (1996), act in similar ways, disentangling the many meanings present
in human experience and cultural activity.
Ideology
and Education: A Study of a School District’s Web Sites
I will now examine the work of another qualitative
researcher and suggest ways in which her work might be said to demonstrate
the critical activity described by Belsey. As indicated above, the Internet
offers many opportunities for scholarly study. One such study is that of my
former colleague at the University of Houston, Wendy Maboudian (1999), whose
objects of study are quite literally texts. Her study examines the visual
representations of gender differences presented in the Web pages of an urban
public school district. After gathering data related to representations of
female use of technology, Maboudian uses semiotic analysis and the methods
of critical ethnography (Carspecken, 1996) to reconstruct the meanings contained
within the imagery. She likens this analysis—in her words “the reconstruction
of human agency from a visual” (Maboudian, 1999, p. 56)—to the work of the
anthropologist in recreating the lives of our human ancestors. In terms of
postmodern literary criticism, Maboudian identified and reconstructed the
“writable text,” the discourses hidden within the Web pages and images she
examined. While her findings did indicate possible gender bias in the area
of female use of technology, Maboudian cautions that the analytic methodology
she employed suggests only possible meanings, not definitive ones. She concludes
that those responsible for creating Web pages be aware of the meanings that
may be inherent in seemingly innocuous images and that they create sites that
accurately represent school populations. Maboudian suggests further studies
might examine the use of animation in Web sites, the depiction of gender representing
professionalism in visuals of adult educators, and the actual use of Web pages
by students and their interpretations of the visuals in them.[4]
Research
Proposal
In keeping with Maboudian’s suggestion, I propose
to undertake a study that, in terms of postmodern theory, will deconstruct
ideological features of school Web sites to determine the extent to which
school Web sites might perform the function of social reproduction or transformation.
Several studies have examined the role of the school in the reproduction of
culture (e.g., Apple, 1988, 1990; Willis, 1977). For example, Althusser (1972)
writes about Ideological State Apparatuses (ISAs), institutions that act to
support and reproduce dominant ideological practices. The most dominant of
these ISAs are educational institutions, which, to use Althusser’s phrase,
“drum into children” the ideology and ritual practices necessary to prepare
children to conform to the interests of the ruling class and take their places
as workers in the social formation.
Generally in qualitative research, hypotheses
are not stated at the outset but are expected to emerge as the study progresses
(Fraenkel & Wallen, 1996) Consistent with this approach, I will attempt
to construct and test hypotheses during the course of the study in an effort
to formulate grounded theory. I will, however, begin with the following grounding
questions:
In the process of reconstructive analysis, statements or other
elements are analyzed to generate possible meanings. The Web sites will be analyzed
in detail using the “cultural circuits model” of data analysis (Johnson, 1986;
Carspecken, 1996). According to this model, analysis proceeds in four steps:
Completion of the Cultural Circuits Model
In my proposed study, I will actually complete only
the first two of the four steps described above. Completing the entire circuit
would require interviews or other dialogic interaction with site producers
and consumers. However, according to Carspecken (personal communication, November
14, 2001), it is possible to conduct useful research without completing the
circuit, as illustrated by Apple’s (1988) study of teachers and texts.While I will investigate the first step to a
limited extent (in that I will provide descriptive information on each site’s
producers), the majority of my analysis will be devoted to the second step,
analysis of possible meanings in each site. Data analysis will include a mixture
of validity horizon and meaning field analysis (Carspecken, 1996) as well
as semiotic analysis (Hodge & Kress, 1988; Kress & van Leeuwen, 1996).This
analysis will draw upon features of the Gestalt theories reviewed in my review
of the literature and, to a certain extent, Schema Theory as multiple readings
of images and texts are explored in a manner illustrated by Apple’s (1988)
Teachers and Texts. While coding will be based on these analytic methods,
I will present a precise explanation of the analytic framework usedas
the study progresses because I expect this framework to emerge from the study’s
findings.
Example of Data Analysis
As an example of the process of reconstructive analysis,
consider the following.
The brightly colored image on the school's main
page immediately arrests one’s attention:
Figure 1. Brentwood Elementary home page
The image is of boys and girls of several different
ethnic groups holding hands. The intention is no doubt to portray the multicultural
nature of the student body. The smiling faces are probably intended to convey
a positive impression of the school as a pleasant or fun place to be. The
children stand holding hands, alternating by gender. Applying a traditional
gender role interpretation to the clothing and hairstyles (skirts and long
hair for girls, pants and short hair for boys), there are 8 girls and 14 boys.
Interestingly, when two boys are standing together, they do not hold hands.
No girls stand together. Only one girl, in the upper left corner, does not
have a boy on either side. All the other girls have a boy on each side.
Possible objective validity claims:
The school’s students are ethnically
diverse.
There are more boys than girls
at this school. (possible)
Possible subjective validity claims:
The school’s students are happy.
We are happy to be at this school.
We enjoy our school’s diversity.
We enjoy learning (backgrounded)
Possible normative-evaluative validity claims:
It is good to be happy at school.
Schools should be pleasant places
to be.
It is good for schools to be ethnically
diverse.
Girls and boys should wear clothing
appropriate to their gender. (backgrounded)
Boys are more important than girls
(backgrounded).
Boys should not hold hands with other
boys (backgrounded)
Girls need boys for support (possible;
remotely backgrounded)
The artist who created this image is named Lauren
S., who seems to be a female student at the school. What does her art tell
us about her view of her school and of the culture of the school? Most obvious,
she seems to intend to portray the school as a pleasant place. It is possible
also that she intends to portray learning as a fun activity. Whether she actually
believes these claims is impossible to tell without asking her. It is also
difficult to tell whether the school is really a pleasant place without visiting
it, but the pages on the site create the impression that it is. The image
seems to suggest a fairly traditional, heterosexist understanding of gender
roles. Girls have long hair and wear skirts. Boys have short hair and wear
pants. It is acceptable for girls and boys to hold hands but not for boys
to hold hands with boys. The fact that with one exception girls stand between
boys might suggest she views boys perhaps as protectors. The fact that she
puts more boys than girls in her picture could suggest that she views boys
as more significant in some way than girls. It could also simply suggest that
as a girl on the brink of puberty (and presumably having a heterosexual orientation)
she is more interested in boys than in girls. The genesis of her beliefs regarding
gender would be interesting to trace.
As another example, the border art by Robert P.
on the Partners in Education page merits some analysis:
Figure 2. Graphic from Partners in Education page
Possible Objective Validity Claims:
Brentwood’s sports teams win more
games than other schools’ teams. (implied but not explicitly stated)
Brentwood does indeed rule in
a political sense. (highly improbable)
Possible Subjective Validity Claims:
Brentwood is better than other schools.
I enjoy feeling a sense of superiority
to other schools. (backgrounded)
Possible Normative-Evaluative Validity Claims:
It is good for our school to be better
than other schools.
It is good to exult in one’s
superiority.
Robert seems to be
demonstrating a stereotypically male aggressiveness toward rivals in other
schools (most likely in the area of sports or other competitive events). This
belief in the superiority of Brentwood to other schools appears to be reinforced
in the statements of staff members analyzed in previous sections [not shown
in this summary]. Robert appears to have learned that it is appropriate to
believe in (and exuberantly proclaim) the superiority of one’s own school
to other schools.
I have included these two samples of qualitative analysis
as examples of the sort of interpretation I will conduct on the district’s
sites. As noted above, this interpretation will be augmented with semiotic
analysis.
Conclusion
This paper summarizes a longer work that will, I trust,
one day soon become my dissertation. I am grateful for the assistance of the
members of my committee: Dr. Sara McNeil (chair), Dr. Melissa Pierson, Dr.
Patricia Holland, and particularly my methodologist Dr. Phil Carspecken, formerly
at the University of Houston, now (regrettably for us) at Indiana University.
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