Random Googling and General Nonsense

We ask you to do a lot of researching at college, and most people do a lot of it online. There are lots of debates and questions, eg film vs digital, Canon vs Nikon and often the answer usually is to “Google it.”

Why not just Google-fight it?  http://www.googlefight.com

A report by ‘Demos’ says that the internet has become one of our most useful tools for finding information, but the web also contains “mistakes, half-truths, propaganda, misinformation and general nonsense. Knowing how to discriminate between them is both difficult and extremely important.” Demos is a research organisation, interested in power and politics. If you can’t access accurate information, then you have little power to make decisions and choices.

(http://www.demos.co.uk/publications/truth-lies-and-the-internet)

The report calls people who have grown-up with the internet as ‘digital natives’, but claims that,  “many are not careful, discerning users of the internet. They are unable to find the information they are looking for, or trust the first thing they do. They are unable to recognise bias or propaganda, and will not go to a varied number of sources. This makes them vulnerable…”

We need to find ways of not being vulnerable to ‘general nonsense.’

10 Steps to avoid general nonsense

1.    Try alternatives to Google. Google is a search engine, it is not the source of all knowledge, and it is not an acceptable reference in an essay. To say that you found an image “on google” means nothing at all. It is a hugely dominant search engine, and can be controversial because it stores information about you and your searches. There are others.

Task: Try the same search eg “histogram tutorial” in these search engines:
http://www.factbites.com/

http://quintura.com/

http://search.yippy.com/

http://www.dogpile.com/
I found these search engines here:  http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/5-google-search-alternatives-that-you-could-experiment-with/

2.    Phrase your question. Search engines use key words that are found in the website’s text. Try to boil down your question to three or four words that are essential. Eg “exposure, aperture, explanation” or ‘pixels, resolution, image quality” or “Photoshop, levels, tutorial”
Task: Think of an aspect of the course that you have difficulty with, and search using a precise set of key words. Try different key words, and try different search engines.

3.    Check your results before opening. Search engines usually show the web addresses eg

http://thefreemanview.com/techniques/composition-by-contrast/

Pay particular attention to “Thefreemanreview.com” – that’s the home address and gives a clue to the source. You may have heard of it, or can work out something about it. In this case I recognised the name as the writer of Online College of Arts courses, and thought it worth investigating.
I might think twice about:

http://gigglesandcutiepumpkinsphotography.blogspot.com/search/label/Tutorial Tuesday

Task: Try a search eg: “contrast, photography, technique” and check the web addresses before opening. Identify the main address eg the .com or .org and see if you can identify which of the results might be useful before you open it. .co or .com may be businesses or individuals. .ac means academic, .org means it is an organisation, and so not so likely to be commercial.

4.    On opening a site. Is it relevant? Search engines are computer programmes, they do not really know what you want, so throw up random answers. The phrase you typed may appear in the text, but have nothing at all to do with your subject. Often your search is misdirected to a sales site: eg “find photography, contrast techniques, at online-biz.com”
A “high contrast” search brought up this: http://www.themahoganyblog.com/2009/04/more-high-contrast-remixes/
and an “over exposed” search brought up this:
http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/art/features/over-exposed-is-annie-leibovitz-worthy-of-a-retrospective-at-the-national-portrait-gallery-849918.html
Relevant as photographic technique?

Task – Try a search and clearly identify sites that are not relevant. Are they selling something? Are they concerned with another subject? Can you identify the source of the mix up? You may have to read through the text. (On a Mac in Safari pressing Apple and F keys allows you to search for phrases within a website.)

5.    Open a site. Is it reliable? Who is the writer/author, what is the organisation, what are their credentials or qualifications, why are they writing, are they selling a product. A good place to start is their home page, and look for an ‘About’ button, to see if they identify themselves. I also pay attention to spelling – if they are publishing information and have not checked or had their spelling checked for them, then I am also wary of other facts and information they publish.
Task – From a web search, identify the authors of the site. What can you decide about their reliability? Eg

http://www.aphotoeditor.com/2007/12/20/photography-books-talking-about-photography/

6.    Open a site. How reliable is it? Can you compare it to a known source of reliable information? Eg

http://www.shortcourses.com/use/

Look at the links pages. Does it link to reliable sites? If you have arrived at a site by following a link from a reliable site, it is more likely to be trustworthy. So, links from http://stillscameraclub.tumblr.com/ should be good, also from the college photography blog -
http://wlc-photo.blogspot.com/
Task- from a reliable site, find its links pages and follow them. Be sure to distinguish between links, and adverts. They are not the same thing.

7.    Verify the facts. Facts should be the same on different sites and are a key to reliability. If some facts are wrong, what else is wrong? Compare facts that you know with the information on the site. Compare facts on the site with those from a known and trusted source. Such as
http://www.dpreview.com/previews/nikon1system/

Task  - Go to http://www.digital-slr-guide.com/canon-vs-nikon.html and identiify 4-5 clear facts about two cameras. Can you verify these facts at other sites eg www.dpreview.com?

8.    Identify the opinions. They are not facts. Here’s Ken Rockwell, describing three different cameras as the best.
http://www.kenrockwell.com/mamiya/7.htm
http://www.kenrockwell.com/nikon/d700.htm
http://www.kenrockwell.com/leica/m9.htm

So which is the best? The answer lies in the context. For example, best for what purpose? Or size? or best for film, for digital for travel for studio? etc. His facts are accurate, but he has very strong opinions that you need to identify and interpret.

Task – What is the context for the camera reviews in these two sites:
http://craigmod.com/journal/gf1-fieldtest/
http://thetravelphotographer.blogspot.com/

9.    Identify opinions on photographic style. Opinions on technical issues are easier to pin down, opinions on style and taste are harder. In your researches, we usually ask you to identify facts, and develop your opinions.
http://thetravelphotographer.blogspot.com/ offers some opinions and explanations of the photographic style of David Lazar. Can you identify them?

What opinions are being expressed here, and what are the definite facts?

http://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/2011/sep/28/national-photography-month

10.  Keep a record of good sites. Once you have started finding useful and reliable sites, keep a set of bookmarks for them. You can do this in most browsers such as Safari, Firefox, Interner Explorer. Or you can create a Word document, and insert Links into it.

Task – start a library of web links in a Word document, or in your Browser. Update it regularly.