ANALYSIS OF NIGERIAN INSTITUTE OF JOURNALISM (CRITICISM AND APPRECIATION)

THE INTERNET

In the early 1960’s Mcluhan wrote that the visual individualistic print culture would soon be brought to an end by what he called “electronic interdependence”. That is when electronic media replace visual culture with aural/oral culture.

In this new age, human will move from individualism and fragmentation to a collective identity with a “trial base”. Mcluhan’s coinage to this new social media/organization is the GLOBAL VILAGE.

Mcluhan contrasts the considerable alarm and revulsion that the growing quantity of books aroused in the latter 17^th century with the modern concern for “an end of the book”. If there can be non-universal moral sentence passed on technology, Mcluhan believes that “there can only be disaster arising from unawareness of the casualties and effects inherent in our technology” (which the internet is inclusive.)

Though the worldwide web was invented almost thirty years after the Gutenberg Galaxy and ten years after his death, Mcluhan prophesied the web technology seen today as early as 1961.

ANALYSIS OF THE NIGERIAN INSTITUTE OF JOURNALISM, OGBA OFFICIAL WEBSITE

To make a good analysis of the institute website, I am going to use the element of an ideal website, what a well-designed website should look like.

A good website should have an ‘about’ where a brief history of the website owner and what the website is all about is written. Nigerian Institute of journalism website has this section.

Websites offer impressive graphics so it naturally attract and retain web surfers. But multiple uses of animated graphics and a busy distracting background should be avoided so as not to make the website a Disneyland work. The institute website has a very simple website page but they should have tried to experiment with graphics and one or two more design.

It should be well organize. A web site that looks great but is vague and unclear about what it is trying to convey to the visitor is not very effective. Since the internet is one of the channels of communication and communication cannot be said to be complete if the receiver, reader or viewer of the message does not understand the content of the message. As it is said earlier that the website is very simple and it can be said that the KISS (Keep It Short and Simple) method has been used. All the information on the website is more define in a very simple language and straight to the point. A website is not what you will need a dictionary to understand.

All the information on the website should be straight to the point. And it requires careful link architecture on every page. Every page of the website should be compelling because visitors may enter by any page. This has been applied in the institute website. Most of the pages are too predictable. It was too simple and it was just like just one colour was used for a page at a time.

 Since the website is to achieve something, visitors should be given the opportunity to reply by email, phoning, fax, or any other means. The institute left directives on how to contact the school for further enquiries, the e-mail address- info@nijlagos.edu.ng, telephone number- (234) 01-7912496, (234) 08059196459 and postal address- Nigerian Institute of Journalism P.O.Box 9876 Ikeja Lagos State Nigeria. And also there is a contact form to be filled by visitors.

The website should always be up-to-date. New information should be updated at a regular interval or as new ones come up. But at the same time too much advertisement should be avoided. As at the time of this write-up it was discovered the website was lagging behind in the area of updating its website.

And it should be noted that the website is more than just an electronic version of any person or organization’s catalogue or brochure. It is one of the most powerful image of any person or organization. Just like the website the school is a very strict school that does not have time for extra-curricular activities. It is simple and straight to the point.

A single page does not make up a website. It should have at least four pages which will be link together. The website is adequately and logically linked together.

The website should always be consistent and uniform in such a way that there will be unity in all pages. The background and font style and size of all pages should be the same. The institute website has a very plain background which is one of the best so as to avoid conflict between the information on the sites and the background. And moreover there are different font styles as something was written in italics.