The Presence of Hyperlinks on Social Network Sites: A Case Study of Cyworld in Korea
In this article, hyperlinks are described as communication tools to navigate through different social network services. With the increased availability of so many media platforms, hyperlinks enable smooth transitions of information among users. This ranges from accessing information from one website to another to advertising on different websites to promote political issues and events. Moreover, the study examines the World Wide Web and the extent to which the location and public dialogues affect hyperlink activity. The study showed the positive effects of hyperlinks on national political involvement. It found that most users linked websites referencing national news in blog posts, with a select few referencing international news that had some impact on national news. This is largely because of online politics usually only addressing national issues. In conclusion, hyperlinks have the potential to enhance political debates by giving users a medium to express their opinions of online articles.
In class, we discuss navigating the web through a variety of directed edges. In this example those edges are associated with hyperlinks, where a click takes one to a new web page and so on. Just as a web page is a directed graph, these clickable links enable users to access different networks of information. The web as a whole is a large strongly connected component with multiple directed edges. The article relates to the class because it examines how clickable links allow for political discussions to enlarge by multiple directed edges being different opinions. The greater use of hyperlinks increases user reliability because the network increases which enhances trustworthiness.