Every website, including The Atlantic, has been specially designed to capture its audience's attention. The audience of this news source is primarily American adults and older teens. For my additional information page, I will analyze several individual elements of The Atlantic's website.
The Menu Bar
It's a standard across nearly every website you go on. In a day and age where we expect everything to be at our fingertips, the menu bar is a classic addition to The Atlantic's website that allows for easy navigation. The menu bar allows any user to travel through the site and view typically searched topics, such as "Popular", "Latest", "Sections", "Magazines", and it also includes a button to subscribe to The Atlantic's daily content. Clicking on the website logo will take you back to the home page. The menu bar is often the first thing a user sees while going to this website, and it allows for easy and quick navigation of the entire website.
The menu bar from The Atlantic's website.
The Primary Content
When you open up a browser, whether it be on a desktop or on a mobile device, and go to this news website, you are immediately met with front-page news. This is essential to The Atlantic's website; a news site is supposed to provide its audience with current, important news stories. At the home page, the center of the page is box-shaped, with one main story surrounded by several other recent, but objectively less important stories. When someone is looking for breaking news, they do not want to have to search to find it, and The Atlantic's site is developed to accompany this feeling.
As of April 14th, 2018, The Atlantic's Top Story. This article, as well as the surrounding articles, all include the title, key synopsis, author, and photo credits.
The Secondary Content
If readers are not in a rush, they are treated to what I've categorized as the "secondary content" on this website. This content includes secondary stories on by The Atlantic, a small sample of "Latest" and "Popular" articles, and a list of columnists for The Atlantic, in the order of most recently written article. This section gives the reader a more complete showing of both the day's news as well as the writers who wrote them, as each author's name can be clicked to learn more about them and see their main articles. An additional member of the "secondary content" group is a group of pictures of The Atlantic's most recent issues, located at the near bottom of the page.
Just a taste of the many secondary elements included on The Atlantic's website. This sample includes the writers with the most recent articles and some of those said articles.
The Money Makers
This part may be both the most ignored and most needed part of The Atlantic's website. Every company needs a way to make money, and The Atlantic is no different. The money makers included on this website are both sponsored content from varying companies as well as messages from The Atlantic itself asking readers to subscribe to its issues. The availability of free, easy news from many platforms may contribute to older news companies to require more outside funding to survive. Advertisements from other companies allow The Atlantic to bring in more money.
The Bottom Bit
Just like the crumbs at the bottom of a pack of cookies, the "bottom bit" group is both often forgotten and often the most satisfying part. This little spot at the bottom of a website can list anything, from social media, to general information, to even easter eggs - little jokes or bonuses - which unfortunately, The Atlantic's website seems to contain none of (at first glance). This areas are common on websites because they are expected. When looking for resources for any assignment, people often look to the beginning or end of sources to see more, and this website offers just that. Listed in this differently-colored section is a collection of social media accounts (including Twitter, Instagram, and Tumblr), a selection of newsletters readers can subscribe to, and an area to subscribe to a paper copy of The Atlantic. Just like the menu bar, this area allows readers to easily navigate from place to place, except this part is related to general topics, not the articles themselves.
A section of the bottom of The Atlantic's page that includes eight different linked social media accounts.