Web Site Development
The implications of my conception of hypertext communication is most significant is in the development of a public Web site. The use of panoptic modes plays an important role here. Obviously, organizations have an interest in not giving external readers full access to all information. However, for information that is available to the public, the hypertext should be sufficiently open (including links to other Web pages where appropriate) to allow readers to move about and get the information that suits their needs. The temptation in creating an open site might be to make information available (such as a technical support document that describes configuring a piece of software or a data sheet that describes the organization from its mission to the people who work there) without giving readers some clue as to the relevance the author places on the information. The Web site should provide some amount of guidance, recognizing that certain information will be privileged. The key is to give readers some control. So if readers simply want to search a site for certain concepts, that option should be available to them. At the same time, readers should also have access to the author's perspective on what is important or useful. In other words, Web sites would be developed with at least two layers of information: one layer of "raw" information and one layer contextualized information.
Implications for Professional Communication
Intranet Development
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