The content I encountered on many of these websites varies considerably due to numerous factors including the contextual setting, intended audience, purpose, geographic distribution of tribal members, economic factors, and tribal policies. Websites are created and maintained by a range of Indian tribes, organizations, and individuals, which in turn affect the overarching scope and intent. The major topics of Indian websites include—but are not limited to—tribes, organizations, education, media, businesses, music, and languages. I avoided websites appearing to primarily target non-Indian outsiders, which often center on profiting from stereotypic representations of Native American culture and history. On the other hand, an abundant array of authentic websites—varying in scope and specificity—targeting Native American tribal members became apparent as I continued my observations.

“Supratribal” and “tribal specific” emerged as the defining categories of Native American websites. Tribal specific websites focus on one tribe—or a small grouping of closely related tribes—in their content and structure. Locality is accentuated in a variety of dimensions on these sites. For instance, information about local events, photographs of local physicality, and images of tribal members are equally common occurrences. Detailed information about federal recognition and tribal sovereignty are often stressed, usually accompanied by images of land deeds or governmental contracts. These websites are heavily rooted in offline culture and in many cases their intended scope targets inside members engaging in the offline community.

Contrastingly, supratribal websites offer a much broader scope, targeting members hailing from a wide assortment of Native groups spanning large geographical areas. These websites typically offer news resources involving specific tribal communities or regions as well as more general issues affecting native and indigenous groups. Although images of specific tribal groups and rituals do appear, their placement within the broader supratribal context is emphasized. Members of specific tribes are regularly recognized for contributions benefiting the American Indian community as a whole and offline intertribal events such as powwows are often advertised. The overarching goal across all supratribal websites is to provide information and links to specific tribal group sites, however the manner by which this is achieved may vary considerably. Supratribal websites function as portals, encapsulating tribal specific sites within a broader pan-Indian context.

I selected a small sample set of four cases best representing the particular qualities and issues raised in Native American websites within the scope of this study. The World Wide Web is a rapidly and dynamically changing environment and its contents can not be guaranteed statically to remain the same. Websites observed and analyzed during this study may have changed. The following is a case by case analysis of two supratribal and two tribal specific websites performed during March of 2006.