Lesson Objectives

This part of the tutorial will first define what web content is and some ideas that will get you to think about the role of a web site or likely role in a developing setting.

Web Content - Definitions

The needs of the target audience should drive any web development project. Those needs should be met through the content that is presented via a web site.

Web content is the information that is presented on a web site. This information can be presented through text, images, audio, animation, graphics and other multimedia elements. Hypertext markup language (HTML) is used to knit all this content together together. Web authoring packages like Dreamweaver and Microsoft Frontpage are commonly used to weave that content together i.e. design and develop the web site.

The content should be contextulised to suit the needs of the people it is aimed at. That process of localisation of the content makes it more relevant and appropriate to a group of people, a community or individual. Hence African web content - "information that relates directly to Africa that is published on web sites built and hosted in African countries'' (Da Costa, 2001).

The content will show that the message or features of this web site as a visitor to the site is likely to say:

"Yes, this web site really looks like its meant for me, was prepared for me and I can use it in my day to day life as it directly or indirectly deals with the issues that I am faced with everyday to improve my livelihood opportunities".

Further clarification is still needed to what we mean by relevant web content.

"It seems simple and obvious that content can be defined as local when produced in a specified geographic locality, such as a village, province, or even country or continent. The problem with this definition is that information from a locality does not always have a relation to the people living in that place. Especially in a globalising world, content produced in India may not be Indian at all, but simply cheaper to package in India than elsewhere. " ( Ballantyne, 2002).

The same source as above goes further in expanding the definition of content by saying local content: "is that content that is intended for a specific local audience, as defined by its geographic location, culture or its language".

That content should be seen coming from the people or local communities. Ballantyne gives a useful working definition of content in a Research Report : 'Collecting and Propagating Local Development Content' thus:

"Local content is the expression of the locally owned and adapted knowledge of a community - where the community is defined by its location, culture, language or area of interest".

This definition therefore maps the sources of the content as being local (endogenous information) and external (exogenous information) (Menou, 1993). What has been identified in many research activities as the one undertaken by IICD (http://www.iicd.org) as revealed in the cited report and others, is that the nature of available information on the web sites shows that very little of it is produced by local people or that their input has been intensively sought and informed the web design and development process.

The nature of the web content should drive home the message of the web site without leaving any ambiguities or uncertainities in the minds of the target audience. Eventually it should seek to provide sufficient information for the visitor to the web site to make an informed decision or be better informed, undertake a particular activity for example buy online or engage in an online discussion. These activities are some essential features that can be found on a web site - their availability being determined by the purpose of the web site..

The uses of particular web site will vary from the person to person, but the web publisher should strive to present the message to make it relevant, useful and appropriate to the target population. The fact is that locally based web publishers should use their skills and know-how to create web sites that their own people can use in their day to day lives.

Most of the content rich web sites about them and their countries is generated and owned by Western based organisations. Nationals of those countries residing in developed countries are however making huge contributions in the creation of web sites about their own countries - this should be considered as local content (da Costa, 2001).

Local organisations for example government institutions that produce free public information are not making challenging efforts to collate and digitise that information that should be made available via a central source. Web technologies are tools of development that should be taken advantage of in environments where traditional information services are poorly developed.