Rethinking Interactivity

This week's reading consisted of a chapter called 'Rethinking Interactivity' by Yuping Liu and L.J Shrum. In this chapter, the two writers also look at other theorist's work and sum up what they find interactivity to be. I found this reading to be very interesting as the topic of 'Interactivity' is one that I found most fascinating. I find it interesting that the progression of technology allows us to reach out more with others.

As in earlier blogs, I will define the subject in simple terms and then expand on what the author's (and in this case, other theorists) have said. For me, Interactivity is the connection that occurs between a human and a piece of technology. For example the interactivity of XBOX Live and an XBOX user. With the idea of XBOX Live, users are able to connect and 'interact' with others around the world and create a sort of 'online community' or even, 'online culture', just as long as the users are connected to the Internet. The use of the Internet also creates an online community with programs such as 'Facebook' or 'Myspace'. The idea of 'interactivity' does not just appear to be the connection between a human and a piece of technology, but can also be defined as the connection of humans through a piece of technology.

According to Blattenberg and Deighton (1991), 'interactivity is facility for persons and organisations to communicate directly with one another regardless of distance and time'. In simple terms, new technology is not the only of 'interacting' with one another. According to Liu and Shrum, users like to feel as though they are the ones with power and that they have choices with matters that effect interactivity. From this, they also want to feel safe whilst interacting. This could also link to Liu and Shrum's idea that interactivity must contain a 2 way communication between producers and consumers so that if any problems occur, the producers can fix it to the needs of the consumers.

A huge section of this chapter is named 'Active Control'. Active Control refers to a recently selected control such as a command button with a specific focus. The Internet is remarkable in ways that there are gatekeepers who monitor what users search for and we are always being surveillanced by gatekeepers. According to Hoffman and Novak (1996), there is a network of linked contents. Active control also refers to the linked interests for a user who researches them. According to Liu and Shrum's writing, active control is positively related to user cognitive involvement and user satisfaction. In simple terms, it is related to user's involvement with specific topics and also related to topics that users find satisfying. Liu and Shrum also refer to Ariely's (2000) idea that active control is also related to user learning; meaning that users can remember specific researches as their search history will still be active. This links to Hoffman and Novak.

I found this reading extremely interesting and very rewarding as some of the previous readings. It explained (and not from just one source of ideas) a deeper meaning into the topic of interactivity. I found the reading straightforward (unlike McLuhan) and very fulfilling.

Advertising

Media Studies: Texts, Production and Context
Long, P.; Wall,T.; Bakir, V. and McStay, A.

This week's reading was 'Consumer Society and Advertising' by Andy McStay. Fortunately, McStay is the tutor for the Media and Culture module at Bangor University, so his reading was self-explanatory. Literally. The week's work was looking solely on the subject of advertising as McStay's main point of study is advertising. The reading is a chapter from Media Studies: Texts, Production and Context by Long, P.; Wall,T.; Bakir, V. and McStay, A. This reading, personally, was quite easy to grasp understanding of because as he is my tutor of Media Studies, he explained his thoughts on the subject very well and also very clear; so reading on this topic came very rewarding and straightforward.

Idea of Advertisement

The definition of 'advertising' is one in which is quite tricky. McStay's definition of advertising consisted of the idea that advertising is a paid for media space. In other words, it costs a company or organisation a huge sum of money to advertise products, beliefs and concerns in a certain amount of time. (Hence 'media space'). The advertising industry uses persuasion as a tool to persuade consumers to purchase or to follow specific beliefs and this also enhances the connection between consumers, product and organisation.

Idea of Free Advertisements

McStay also describes the idea that as there are more new technologies, there are different types of advertising and with many different types of advertising, comes many aspects also. Aspects of advertising consist of branding, trustmarks,symbols and even, (to some extent) postmodernism and how nowadays there are different platforms in which one can advertise. Sometimes it can even consist on advertising to a specific niche audience. For example, the idea that consumers become producers crops up quite a lot in this topic as it is possible for people (and companies for that matter) to advertise for free. (Facebook). Take Coca-cola for instance, they advertise to other Facebook users by creating groups and users can access these advertisements before they end up on the broadcast platform.


Due to some advertisements, it can cause some viewers to become influenced as some advertisements have a narrative in which consumer/producer can create their own 'spoof' reenactments or own versions using similar themes. A good example of this is the Hieniken walk in fridge advert.

Original Advertisement

Spoof

Old Advertisement

History of advertising is also a key concept to this topic as it shows differences and similarities of advertising then and now. Before television and the birth of the Internet, most advertisements where printed on posters, billboards, in news papers etc. Although there were less ways of publishing advertisements and advertising to the community, the purposes of advertising were still the same; to persuade. During World War 1 and 2, posters where printed to advertise recruitment for the armed forces, this is slightly different to advertising a product for profit. However, nowadays there are still advertisements like this today. There are also some advertisements in which show bias opinions. So it is safe to say that there are also propaganda issues with advertising, and not just general advertising or advertising products. 

Newer Advertisement

I found the reading very straight forward and understandable. It was very rewarding being given a reading in which a tutor of the subject had written themselves as it gave a great insight into the topic and all questions in which needed to be answered were solved. Advertising is a very large topic in the media and due to the invention of new technologies and more of the consumer>producer content, it is an aspect of the media in which is always growing. These reasons gave me a larger interest in the subject and more reason to study the subject in more depth in further reading.