Week 3: What Context?

From the Globe and Mail's Historical
Archive: ProQuest

In thinking about this week's blogging question, I was immediately drawn to thinking about newspapers, since I have spend quite a bit of time volunteering on newspaper digitizations projects. When these pieces are digitized, they are usually digitized as entire pages, which can be scrolled through online, in order; however, individual articles are almost always extracted and displayed solo. What is most interesting to me is that, in that in most cases I have come across, when a searcher clicks on an article what is displayed first is this out-of-context piece (right)- the person then has to click on a 'view full page' link in order to display the page as a whole (below). In most cases, no one will do this - it's an extra step, and makes the article you were searching for smaller and harder to read.

From the Globe and Mail's Historical 
Archive: ProQuest

I feel as though this is an extremely significant representational choice - much more significant than the choice made to archive in colour vs. black and white - that seems to be going largely unnoticed. As newspapers are often arranged in sections by topic, looking at only a single article, and ignoring it's context, can actually lead the reader to interpret the article differently than they would have if it was read as part of a larger page. It could equally be argued that a person looking only at a single page would also miss the additional context (or even... experience?) that is provided by leafing through the paper as a whole (while most online repositories provide this browse function.... why would you? Once again, it's another extra step!)

On the flip side, looking at a single article might allow the reader to see things that would otherwise have been missed, if there was static hanging around on the outside of the piece. I guess in the final analysis, then, the choice to provide the out-of-context, enlarged article as the first destination is very much a debatable one, with no clear right or wrong. Myself, however, I always click on the full-page view - although I think this is likely more due to wanting the 'feeling' of reading a newspaper than the context provided by the rest of the page.


ProQuest Historical Papers: the Globe & Mail (1936-present): http://search.proquest.com.ezproxy.torontopubliclibrary.ca/hnpglobeandmail/publication/publications_1396354?accountid=14369

The Associated Press."Violence spreading in Iran as UN considers sanctions." The Globe & Mail. Dec. 29, 1979. Online edition. http://search.proquest.com.ezproxy.torontopubliclibrary.ca/hnpglobeandmail/docview/1239290591/fulltextPDF/C99E34468914AC5PQ/5?accountid=14369