The online advertising and its use in the World Wide Web (стр. 5 из 7)

On-line users, especially on-line shoppers, actively seek interaction with this virtual world to perform functions such as browsing a catalogue or ordering merchandise much like they would in the real world. Metaphors provide a quick, easy way to present information to on-line consumers that also allow interaction. On screen images and words entice web surfers to click and interact with these metaphors in ways similar to their real world interactions, such as traditional advertising and in-store displays. [14]

4.3 Methodology of the metaphor usage

The purpose of this chapter is to operationalize several key terms not yet clearly defined and to present the methodology of the research study at hand. Determination of the sample and sample size will also be explained. Methods examined will be those for coding, collection, and analysis of the data utilized throughout the research study.

4.3.1 Metaphor key terms definitions

Definitions of metaphor and the various types studied through this research are summarized below.

- Metaphor: an unusual pairing of two elements that creates tension when one element transfers meaning to another, thus creating a new concept different from what one element would have without the other;

- Pictorial metaphor: a metaphor as defined above where the first element, or subject, is an image rather than words;

- Verbal metaphor: a metaphor as defined above where the primary subject is presented in language rather than images;

- Verbo-Pictorial metaphor: a metaphor as defined above where the first element is presented in language and images; the text and images need not be dependent upon the other for understanding, but they may be supportive of one another.

4.3.2 Data Collection Methods

To compare commercial web sites on the Internet, high volume sites were needed. Therefore, a judgmental sample was utilized in order to study the highest-traffic commercial sites on the Internet’s World Wide Web. PC Magazine on-line has identified the top 100 web sites by traffic in five categories: Commerce, Computing, Entertainment, News & Views, and Reference. The commerce category was employed in this study since this collection of web sites contains corporations selling a good or service via their on-line presence, usually with their web address ending in ".com," meaning commercial. The Top 26 commercial web sites, as identified by PC Magazine on-line’s September 2008 edition, were viewed and sampled for metaphors. Web sites that operated on individual persons placing classified ads to sell products or auction products were omitted from the sample since they did not meet the requirement of being a corporation promoting or selling a good or service. Web sites were first divided into either "shopping" or "non-shopping" categories. The shopping sites were defined as corporate web sites that not only promoted goods and services on-line, but also offered viewers the opportunity to purchase their products. Non-shopping sites often promoted and marketed the corporation’s products, but there was no on-line selling of items, leaving the consumer to make their purchases in traditional retail outlets or elsewhere. With fewer non-shopping sites, it was necessary to identify the top non-shopping sites first and to select the same number of shopping sites for comparison. September’s top commerce sites contained seven nonshopping sites and therefore the top seven shopping sites were also chosen for comparison. The top fourteen of these commercial sites, with the exclusion of the classified and auction sites, were selected as the two independent samples. Sites were examined thoroughly, starting with the home page, and all potential metaphors explored. All images were viewed and all text read to look for potential pairings of subjects that created tension. All links were followed to the best of the ability of the researcher, leading to numerous sub-pages of the web site. [25]

4.3.3 Data Coding Examples.

The coding method of the five-level hierarchy described above was used to properly identify and classify the multiple metaphors found in these fourteen web sites.

The fourteen web sites used in the coding process are as follows in order of observation and case number (1-14): www.amazon.com, www.bigstar.com, www.comparenet.com, www.etrade.com, www.marthastewart.com, www.aa.com, http://carpoint.msn.com, http://expedia.msn.com, http://homeadvisor.msn.com, http://investor.msn.com, www.musicblvd.com, www.necx.com, www.quicken.com, and www.stockmaster.com. These fourteen cases were input into the Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) and first coded by type, where Type 1 is a shopping site and Type 2 a non-shopping site. Next, metaphors on each corporate web site were counted as they fit into the categories defined above. The total number of metaphors fitting each subclassification was input into the computer program.

Pictorial metaphors found were counted as the second variable input into SPSS. An example of a pictorial metaphor can be found at www.amazon.com. The pictorial icon image, , presents a shopping cart, but no accompanying words for the viewer to read. Thus, the web viewer must look at this virtual shopping cart and pair this image with their mental idea of a real-world shopping cart. The image is clickable and leads the web surfer to the contents of the virtual shopping basket in this on-line store. Therefore, the image is coded as a pictorial, clickable, working, virtual metaphor because the graphic image, when clicked, leads the viewer to the second subject of the metaphor, the contents of the shopping cart of the on-line consumer.

Verbal metaphors were also found in the web sites. To use a similar example, www.bigstar.com also allows viewers to purchase items on-line and put items in a shopping basket. However, no image is used to denote such a metaphor. Only words convey this virtual shopping basket, as shown on the web site by this clickable phrase, Shopping Basket. The text-only shopping basket was coded as a verbal metaphor that is clickable, working, and virtual since the act of clicking on the phrase leads the consumer to view the contents of the on-line shopping basket.

In the same vein of shopping, a verbo-pictorial example was found at www.marthastewart.com, depicting the verbo-pictorial metaphor . The image of a basket paired with the words, "view basket," aids the web surfer to comprehend the metaphor. When clicked, this green rectangle allows the web surfer to view the contents of their shopping basket in the Martha Stewart on-line store. This verbo-pictorial metaphor was thus coded as clickable, working, and virtual as well.

Non-clickable metaphors were found where the first subject of the metaphor was not linked to another web page and thus was not a clickable image or phrase. When the mouse was pointed at the object or phrase, the pointer did not become the "hand" icon that denotes a hyperlink in the body of the web page. Therefore, when the image or phrase was clicked upon, nothing happened. An example of this is found at www.bigstar.com, where the pictorial metaphor, , is non-clickable, but still denotes the "BigStar’s Big 10" movie choices.

Non-working metaphors were also identified where, when clicked upon, did not lead the web surfer to the second subject of the metaphor. On occasion, clicking on the first subject of the metaphor did load another web page, but produced a confusing and unrelated web page that did not provide the viewer with the second subject of the metaphor. For example, the verbo-pictorial metaphor, symbolic for e-mail, used at www.amazon.com, is shown as . Clicking on this combination of words and images does not lead the viewer to read or check his mail or e-mail, but only to fill out a form to request book reviews via e-mail from the Amazon book company. The clickable image does not present the web surfer with the second subject of the metaphor, and is thus coded non-working.

Classifications or groupings of online metaphors that arose such as entryways, directional, and searching were also observed. A searching example was located at http://investor.msn.com. When clicking on the hyperlink text, Finder, the web surfer loaded a page that would allow them to search a database of over 16,000 stocks and funds. This metaphor’s first subject was clickable text, which was coded as a verbal metaphor. However, when the second subject appears on the linked web page, a graphic image is paired with the word "Finder": . This image of binoculars represents the web surfer looking for information or details about the stocks and funds available at http://investor.msn.com. However, it is still a verbal metaphor since the primary subject was only text and no image accompanied it. This metaphor was classified as a searching type of verbal, clickable, working metaphor. [26]

II. Presentation of the sport discourse and football commentaries in the English and Ukrainian languages on a Web-site

1. General organization of a web-site

The web is becoming an integral part of our working world. You cannot spit anymore these days without hitting a URL. In a very short time span, the web has revolutionized the way we access information, education, business, entertainment. It has created industries where there were none before.

Being able to develop information on the web might be a job skill, a class requirement, a business necessity, or a personal interest. Unlike any other previous medium, the ability to "write" HTML allows you to potentially connect with millions of other people, as your own self-publisher.

The website (alternatively, Web site or web site) is a collection of Web pages, images, videos and other digital assets that is hosted on one or several Web server(s), usually accessible via the Internet (cell phone or a LAN also).A Web page is a document, typically written in HTML, that is almost always accessible via HTTP, a protocol that transfers information from the Web server to display in the user’s Web browser. All publicly accessible websites are seen collectively as constituting the "World Wide Web" (www).

The pages of websites can usually be accessed from a common root URL called the homepage, and usually reside on the same physical server. The URLs of the pages organize them into a hierarchy, although the hyperlinks between them control how the reader perceives the overall structure and how the traffic flows between the different parts of the sites.

Some websites require a subscription to access some or all of their content. Examples of subscription sites include many business sites, parts of many news sites, academic journal sites, gaming sites, message boards, Web-based e-mail, services, social networking website, and sites providing real-time stock market data Organized by function a website may be: a personal, commercial, government, non-profit organization website.

It could be the work of an individual, a business or other organization and is typically dedicated to some particular topic or purpose. Any website can contain a hyperlink to any other website, so the distinction between individual sites, as perceived by the user, may sometimes be blurred [2].

A website is hosted on a computer system known as a web server, also called an HTTP server, and these terms can also refer to the software that runs on these system and that retrieves and delivers the Web pages in response to requests from the website users. Apache is the most commonly used Web server software (according to Netcraft statistics) and Microsoft's Internet Information Server (IIS) is also commonly used.

Websites are written in, or dynamically converted to, HTML (Hyper Text Markup Language) and are accessed using a software program called a Web browser, also known as a HTTP client. Web pages can be viewed or otherwise accessed from a range of computer-based and Internet-enabled devices of various sizes, including desktop computers, laptop computers, PDAs and cell phones. [1]

2. Introduction to HTML

HTML, an initialism of HyperText Markup Language, is the predominant markup language for Web pages. It provides a means to describe the structure of text-based information in a document — by denoting certain text as links, headings, paragraphs, lists, and so on — and to supplement that text with interactive forms, embedded images, and other objects. HTML is written in the form of tags, surrounded by angle brackets. HTML can also describe, to some degree, the appearance and semantics of a document, and can include embedded scripting language code (such as JavaScript) which can affect the behavior of Web browsers and other HTML processors.

In 1980, physicist Tim Berners-Lee, who was an independent contractor at CERN, proposed and prototyped ENQUIRE, a system for CERN researchers to use and share documents. In 1989, Berners-Lee and CERN data systems engineer Robert Cailliau each submitted separate proposals for an Internet-based hypertext system providing similar functionality. The following year, they collaborated on a joint proposal, the WorldWideWeb (W3) project, which was accepted by CERN.

The first publicly available description of HTML was a document called HTML Tags, first mentioned on the Internet by Berners-Lee in late 1991. It describes 22 elements comprising the initial, relatively simple design of HTML. Thirteen of these elements still exist in HTML 4.

Berners-Lee considered HTML to be, at the time, an application of SGML, but it was not formally defined as such until the mid-1993 publication, by the IETF, of the first proposal for an HTML specification: Berners-Lee and Dan Connolly's "Hypertext Markup Language (HTML)" Internet-Draft, which included an SGML Document Type Definition to define the grammar. The draft expired after six months, but was notable for its acknowledgment of the NCSA Mosaic browser's custom tag for embedding in-line images, reflecting the IETF's philosophy of basing standards on successful prototypes. Similarly, Dave Raggett's competing Internet-Draft, "HTML+ (Hypertext Markup Format)", from late 1993, suggested standardizing already-implemented features like tables and fill-out forms.

After the HTML and HTML+ drafts expired in early 1994, the IETF created an HTML Working Group, which in 1995 completed "HTML 2.0", the first HTML specification intended to be treated as a standard against which future implementations should be based. Published as Request for Comments 1866, HTML 2.0 included ideas from the HTML and HTML+ drafts. There was no "HTML 1.0"; the 2.0 designation was intended to distinguish the new edition from previous drafts.

Further development under the auspices of the IETF was stalled by competing interests. Since 1996, the HTML specifications have been maintained, with input from commercial software vendors, by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C). However, in 2000, HTML also became an international standard (ISO/IEC 15445:2000). The last HTML specification published by the W3C is the HTML 4.01 Recommendation, published in late 1999. Its issues and errors were last acknowledged by errata published in 2001. [3]

3. Basic HTML elements

In computing, an HTML element indicates structure in an HTML document and a way of hierarchically arranging content. More specifically, an HTML element is an SGML element that meets the requirements of one or more of the HTML Document Type Definitions (DTDs). These elements have properties: both attributes and content, as specified (both allowable and required) according to the appropriate HTML DTD (for example, the HTML 4.01 strict DTD). Elements may represent headings, paragraphs, hypertext links, lists, embedded media, and a variety of other structures.

Syntactically HTML elements are constructed with:

· a start tag marking the beginning of an element

· any number of attributes (and their associated values)

· some amount of content (characters and other elements)

· an end tag

Many HTML elements include attributes in their start tags, defining desired behavior or indicating additional element properties. The end tag is optional for many elements; in a minimal case, an empty element has no content and requires no end tag. There are a few elements that are not part of any official DTDs, yet are supported by some browsers and used by some web pages. Such elements may be ignored or displayed improperly on browsers not supporting them.

Informally, HTML elements are sometimes referred to as "tags" (an example of synecdoche), though many prefer the term tag strictly in reference to the semantic structures delimiting the start and end of an element.

Head elements

<title>…</title>