Analyzing Websites

7Metaphor and Analysis of Websites: Transformations of a Media Object

Pergia GKOUSKOU

GRIPIC, Université Clermont Auvergne, Vichy, France

7.1. Introduction

In this chapter, we will study the relevance of the concept of the metaphor in the epistemological analysis of the “website” object, while at the same time attempting to define this object in the context of the continuous transformation of the digital landscape.

Following a thesis on the media composition of the “website” and then on the works regarding the websites of open data projects, here we will look at the evolution of the Web from playing an advisory and documentary role to becoming a Web of direct interaction and manipulation of visualized content that causes a feeling of immediacy among Internet users.

In this environment of immediate and ephemeral communication, would there be relevance in an analysis of display-pages as “display writings” endowed with an intrinsic metaphorical meaning? Can new media objects such as interactive open data visualization devices be approached as document spaces that have the goal of transmitting messages at several sociocultural levels, and not simply sharing information? And if so, can the metaphorical approach be implemented to analyze them?

First of all, we will reflect on the notion of the “website”: what is a website? What are the nature and the functions of this object? In particular, we will explore the object of the “website” in its documentary, media and technological ...