What's in a homepage?
I've had occasion over the past couple days to peruse the websites of all 50 state departments of corrections. It's been an odyssey, not only in terms of actually locating the information I want on the site (another post someday) but also of discovering the various messages and images with which these deparments promote themselves. If you were in charge of creating a website for a state department of corrections, what would you want to people to see about your agency online? I present two cases as illustrations of the possibilites:
Although the two states in question are next to each other in alphabetical order, they are quite distinct in message. To me, State A says, "Come work for us and kick some ass" whereas State B says, "Come work for us to better yourself and be a part of a noble history." From my observations, State A is in the majority as far as corrections imagery goes. In fact, State B stands relatively alone in its warmth. I found its appearance so surprising that when the page opened I wondered if I had clicked the wrong hyperlink. Someone clearly spent a lot of time thinking through what "story" to tell about this state's DOC.
In any case, I found this handy site in the process from which you can access all state DOC websites.