Pageflake Tour

http://www.pageflakes.com/dmdraper/25985759


My pageflake is organized in a way that people looking through it would just think, “Crisis”. The war between Israel and Palestine is one plagued by crisis, and most of the sites that I found most influential and interesting are ones that focus on the day by day issues surrounding the war. I tried to put myselves in the page of a random person browsing my pageflake, would I be able to maintain their interest for long enough to have them want to continue looking for my feeds? I have a few news websites that I added to my pageflake. The ones that I included consistently have had thought provoking articles and headlines regarding the conflict. “Israeli West Bank mines ‘illegal’”, “Gaza Crisis,” these types of headlines are consuming many internet news sites daily. BBC as well as World News Report were two of the feeds that I added to my pageflake because of the validity of the conflict I felt it had regarding this war.
I also added some feeds purely for informational purposes. If I were someone looking for an array of information regarding such a prominent war, I would want to at least be able to read about what has gone on since the start of the conflict, especially if this were the first time I was researching such an extensive topic.
I included a variety of bibliographic references in Citeline. Each reference reflects a different aspect of the war that I feel is pertinent and of extreme importance. There are social, political, and economic facets of the war reflected in the combination of books as well as journals annotated in bibliography. I think that with regards to media coverage, and what is shared with the international public in general, there is not enough focus given to the long term affects that this war is having on the people within these regions. American government as well as international leaders wonder why their public is naïve with regards to international conflicts, and it is because not enough TRUE information is shared with public so that they are able to form their own opinions. There is more time spent analyzing the dresses worn to red carpet events on the news, than there is discussing what is going to happen in areas like Israel and Palestine. Because of this I chose feeds that were attention grabbing as well as informational, and thought provoking.
The blogs that I included were only ones that I actually view on a regular basis. The two are also polar opposite focuses. One is based primarily on the social disarray this war is causing, while the other is concerning the political turmoil that the war has brought.
The toughest thing I faced when constructing my pageflake was what words to type into the “Universal Blog Search”. This is not a topic that is easy to find a variety of blogs on, and especially when it is so specific. After trying every possible combination of Israel and Palestine that I could concoct, I instead decided to type in “gaza war”, in doing so I proceeded to find interesting hits about the war that is going on now. Since there is so much recent activity in Gaza, it made sense that this would be something people would want to be discussing.
The way in which I constructed my pageflake was so that when people walk away from reading it, they feel much better informed and even more interested about a conflict that is affecting more people than some would imagine. The concept of a pageflake was new territory for me, but the capabilities and opportunities to find and share things with others is really appealing, and at times almost addicting.

-Decibel