Scholarly vs Popular Forum Analysis

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, PNAS for short, is a forum where scientific writers of all disciplines can post their papers. The reader can select articles of many different domains, with the three main domains Social Sciences, Physical Sciences and Biological Science. It is clear this website is not for everyone. First of all, PNAS charges a subscription fee for access to all of their papers. They are not expecting people to stumble onto this website, pick an interesting article and attempt to decipher the mathematical formulas and abstract ideas. The purpose of this website is to publish papers for others in the field to build off of, for other research projects to use as helpful information. Possibly for journalists to attempt to summarize the findings so any undergrad interested in the field doesn't have to be discouraged.

The main page of the website features some articles, some podcasts and a featured writer section. None of the articles have a title that really draws readers attention. The article at the bottom of the page reads "Brain hemorrhage detection by artificial neural network". This title contains words that, if you are not in the computer science Discourse, do not make much sense. All the articles on the home page are very lengthy, at least 10 pages. However, this is exactly what you expect, as the people who are reading do not want to be cut short of anything, they want all the information and formulas to help them with their research.

Wired is a very millennial-friendly website, and attempts to be an easy read for people interested in a variety of topics. It seems as though they are geared toward being a ‘social media’, meaning they make articles for people to read when they are bored, to give them something to do. Their front page is designed very well, and is stocked with about 10 cards with a picture and a few sentences to draw the reader. This home page is kept up to date, with stories and articles of what is happening currently all around the world. At the time of writing this, the main page is stocked with stories about Kobe Bryant, who tragically died yesterday. Their goal seems to be to have something to read for everyone. For example, they have a card displaying the technical faults in the helicopter crash, for techies. They have a card displaying Kobe’s record shattering basketball accomplishments, for the sport minded. The articles are kept short but informative to keep the reader interested. They are all well written by different journalists, and include very nice graphics, to help with the information dense sections. In writing this forum analysis, I have run out of free articles on wired.com, something I was unaware could happen. They offer a subscription, fairly cheap - 10 dollars a year, for unlimited access to their articles. They hope to draw in readers by giving a few free articles, then make the reader pay.

There are some similarities between PNAS and Wired, such as a main page to draw in readers and a subscription to the site. To reiterate, Wired is for the youth. It has trending stories that people actually want to read. Stories that keep people up to date, rather than an article written by some PHD 10 years ago. It's an easy read for people wanting to know more about a topic, but don't care for the mathematical formulas behind an idea. Then again, it depends on what the reader is wanting; go to PNAS for help with scientific research, go to Wired to learn cool things about the world.

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