Content analysis of New Zealand company web-sites

Abstract

This research project proposes through the research methodology of Content Analysis to ascertain what information is being provided in publicly listed company web-sites and then evaluate the subsequent level of quality of this information. The study will in essence provide a 'snapshot' of the information available at this time. As will become apparent in the review of the literature, there is very little published material pertaining to the evaluation of information quality in specifically company business web-sites. The majority of literature is concerned with best ways of retrieving business information on the Internet and does not specifically speak of information evaluation. The Internet and World Wide Web (WWW) are seen as vast resources of free and pay to view business information. There appears to be something of an emergent dichotomy within the scant literature available regarding this issue; with one strand taking the uncritical view that there is much valuable company information on the Internet and the other warning against the inherent 'dangers' of uncritically using information from the Internet. Yet, no empirical studies seem to have been undertaken in the field of Library and Information Science to evaluate the quality of this information. As such, there is a pressing need for more research to be undertaken in this area.