A (brief) social semiotic analysis of theglobeandmail.com

This is an assignment done recently for class (ENGL 408C: The Rhetoric of Digital Design). The goal was to "Discuss the design of an online newspaper ... Combine the terminology of newspaper design with the observations of social semiotics." I chose theglobeandmail.com mostly because they recently did a redesign — it got mixed reviews (exhibit A, exhibit B, exhibit C, Google the rest yourself!) and from an aesthetic standpoint, I'm not the biggest fan either — which gave me quite a bit to talk about.