This post has been imported from the NML Research Blog…

In my previous post I discussed my observations that actual interactivity is often just simulated interactivity - allowing the audience minimal participation while portraying it as participatory. I’d like to rephrase my question in light of the discussion that took place. You can read that discussion here.

Rod, Zach and Paul’s comments spoke to something that I completely overlooked - there is more than one way to think about interactivity. Jennifer Stromer-Galley (Univ. of Albany, SUNY) describes two forms of interactivity: Interactivity-as-process & Interactivity-as-product.

Interactivity-as-product is the interaction that occurs between people and media. I think Rod and Paul’s discussion of ’symbolic activity’ and how audiences personalize and take control of the media (product) speaks directly to this form of participation. I also think that Zach’s concern for balancing “clear transmission of content and total distortion/disruption of content” is particularly relevant to this form of interactivity.

Interactivity-as-process is the interaction that occurs between people, often faciliated by media. This is the area I intended on posting about in “Interactive” or Interactive?. When Rod stated “we are attempting to generate some audience feedback by having them comment on artist’s images. The problem is…even with this feeback, we are not having a conversation as such because once they give the feedback we do not respond” he seemed to be discussing Interactivity-as-process.

Thus since a discussion on Interactivity-as-product is happening over on the other post (and if you haven’t commented there please still do so) I thought maybe we could start another discussion here, focussing more on Interactivity-as-process.

Some possible Q’s to ponder when reflecting on the Interactivity-as-process of your project: Is there a back-and-forth between sender and reciever - or among recievers? Is information exchanged and conflict managed - if so, how? How is power negotiated - who has it?