RA #1

BBC Audience
PO Box 1922
Darlington DL3 OUR

BBC audience services,

I have currently been reading and looking at your website, and wanted to compliment you on your many achievements and also inform you of where I feel your site could do better. To begin I wanted to compliment you on the ability to manage a great news site, after observing your site a few days now I have noticed some positive aspects of your site. I like that your site has the news it presents to the reader in categorizes making it easier to find. Having a section for the general topics and individual stories within these categorizes slows the viewer to pick what they want to read before actually doing so. Having your stories categorized also provides space for extra sections that are not news but are still available for personal choice. The website manages to provide pictures that connect with a story in an enticing manor that ties in the picture with the story. Ads appear on your site but I would say that they are few, which doesn’t take away from the sites important news stories. The pictures and titles or your articles appear small and clumped together, however since you have titles that are thought provoking most of the time even if we were to skim through the site we are bound to stop and look at, at least one of your stories. The fact that the site gives the viewers the option of editing the site is more likely to get the viewer to stay longer on your site since it gives them the power to avoid things that could differ them from wanting to continue looking. The website took the time to incorporate other accessories like the weather, travel and the option of reading the news in thirty-two different languages. These extra features make your site stand out from the other sites, since readers like myself like to have many options.
I must state that your website is not just organized but also well categorized. Since you have different sections on your website it makes it easier to balance the amount of information being presented in your articles to not over talk about a certain subject. Having your contact information on the website gives people a greater access toward the new site and makes it more personable, and also gives the people the power which I commend you on. Since your giving people the chance to critique your site it allows them to do it in a effective, productive and efficient manner, which in return allows you to improve your site according to what the reader wants. Your site provides a search engine which makes it simple for people to be able to go back a read a story they had previously read and now need to recall or simple stay updated on the newest events. The last positive aspect of your site is that you manage to constantly be updating your site, which allows the reader to know the current events as they are occurring and stay updated with the current events of an unfolding story. While your website layout had a lot of positive characteristics it also has its negative aspects.
I noticed that your ads on your site are more mainstream and of well known companies like Mercedes-Benz and AT&T rather than of a product that is specific and local to only European countries. I appreciate the fact that you talk about what is occurring in the world however I would like to see more stories of what is occurring in Europe since this is a European site, or at least make the main article of something occurring in Europe. This also brings up a concern I have, several times that I have logged onto your site your main story is of something occurring around the world and not in Europe. Your website also uses some negative words which leads one to believe that the story is a negative one, such as articles titled “Second Nigerian Fails drug test” or “French protest biggest so far” and lastly, “Kim eldest son opposes dynasty” these titles make you think that the article that you are about to read are of negative occurrences. Although your website is even in the break down and separation of information and articles the vast majority of them are about the U.S or of something the U.S has a part in than of any other topic or country.

Overall I applaud you for having an informative, balanced and current website. The BBC is located in London, which is parliamentary democracy although it has a constitutional Monarch as the Head of State. This setup in government and power allows sites like yourself to write certain things on your site although it makes me think that there must be certain things not allowed. Even with the pros and cons of your site, I think that your site is not bias and for the most part very informative. I do not believe that your site is bias since it covers many sections and topics occurring around the world however, I would like to have seen your site have more stories of events occurring in European countries since it is located in London. I would rate this site higher than others since it seems more balances and informative, however the titles of your articles are leading and provoking in various ways for example the article titled, “Obama will not ban home seizures” for only reading the title it leads for one to think that Obama has approved random home seizures of any and everyone whenever anyone wants. The article title is misleading since when I clicked on it the title changed stating “Obama will not ban home repossessions ‘fraud’” while the article may be important the change in title and the misleading of the title turns the reader off to whatever is in the context of the article after seeing the change in title. The change in article names and the negative critique of the story makes one think that the BBC is not indeed neutral but in fact has a standing point on various subjects and then projects them through the stories to the readers.


Sincerely,
Fabiola Figueroa