Ellie from D.C.

The two websites that I chose to analyze for credibility are The Pill, a site produced by PBS about the history of the birth control contraceptive pill, and The Commercial Closet, an online collection of advertisements depicting  LGBT relationships and/or persons.

The Pill

This website was created to host and supplement the documentary by the same name, The Pill. This documentary was produced to be apart of the American Experience PBS documentary series. PBS, while a television station is a rather credible source in my opinion. Since PBS is sponsored by actual viewers instead of advertisement big shots, the possibility of an agenda is lessened. PBS has been known historically to produce scholarly and credible work such as the information on their other documentary series, Frontline. Not only does the website have the entire documentary available to watch for free, but it also has plenty of supplemental information including primary sources labeled plain and simple on the menu. The primary documents include correspondences between doctors, notices given to the first birth control pill clinic, and documents written by feminists at the time advocating the use of the pill. I knew a bit about birth control history but this included a wealth of sources, further reading, and even pictures of birth control pill pack designs of the past which I have never seen before making it a valuable site.

The Commercial Closet- Ad Respect

This website was created in attempts to collect and rate advertisements that involved LGBT themes. Upon first glance the site does not seem as credible as the PBS site since the design of the site does not seem as modern or aesthetic as The Pill’s site. Upon browsing, I found that the site was created by a Journalist in the LGBT community, named Michael Wilke. While .org should not be automatically equated with credibility, the site’s sheer volume of advertisements, in print as well as television ad clips, shows that this website can be a great source for research. The Ad Library is extensive and the extra resources prove that the site is about spreading information and education, not about making money, which usually the biggest giveaway when it comes to trustworthiness. The one aspect of the site that may be deemed as a strike against its credibility is the biased nature of the rating. The rating is in favor of LGBT equality so positive supportive ads are rated highly, exclusionary and homophobic themes are rated negatively. Someone who does not share these views may not see this as a useful way to rate the ads but still should find the site’s collection comprehensive. Lastly, a few of their pages were broken, like the Ad Timeline, which does not give the impression of a well upkept site.