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Users, interactivity and generation

Russell Richards New Media Society 2006 8: 531 DOI: 10.1177/1461444806064485 The online version of this article can be found at: http://nms.sagepub.com/content/8/4/531
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new media & society

Copyright 2006 SAGE Publications London, Thousand Oaks, CA and New Delhi Vol8(4):531550 [DOI: 10.1177/1461444806064485]
ARTICLE
Users, interactivity and generation

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RUSSELL RICHARDS Southampton Solent University, UK

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Abstract
This article is, in part, a response to articles for this Journal by Sally McMillan and Spiro Kiousis. The article examines the analytical problems caused by the fact that interactivity is both a property and an activity. It asserts that interactivity is a contextualizing facility that mediates between environments and content and users. The article analyses the modes of operation both for the production of the properties of interactivity and usage/production in the activity of interactivity. The concept of positioning is offered as a means of moving the debate on from the application of communication models or the practical development of features. The article proposes succession mapping as a methodology that acknowledges the building up of the interactive offer and also the generative capabilities of packages. The concept of the active user engaged in user production i.e. generation is introduced as being of value to academics, practitioners and those who practice, teach and research.
Key words
consumer generation generator interactivity positioning processor succession mapping user production
INTRODUCTION This article is concerned with the production of interactivity and the inadequacy of many theoretical approaches to describe the possible
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generative power of interactivity. It seeks to develop theoretical resources, applicable either in critiquing, or producing interactive packages. Much analysis of users and interactivity has focused on the perception of the latter by the former, or in the search for moments of interactivity as a separate phenomenon. This article asserts that interactivity is a contextualizing facility that mediates between environments and content and users and enables the generation of further content. This is a dynamic and inter-related process. The mode/s of interactivity on offer provide qualitatively different contexts for the types of environment, content, and positions (extending Bourdieu) occupied by the user. All these elements and the motivations of the user inuence the forms of generation.1 These components are examined below. The article is concerned with denitions of terms of, and related to, interactivity. Research methods utilizing succession mapping are investigated. There is an analysis of the qualitatively different modes of interactivity as an activity. Some examples from the different modes of production of properties of interactivity are also presented. In each case the focus returns to the relationships between the user and the generation of content. The article concludes by emphasizing the need for further research into the application of these proposals. DEFINITIONS Interactivity Interactivity is not a word often found in hard copy dictionaries. Even a survey of on-line dictionaries maintained on the web yielded no mention of the word.2 If the word is included in hard copy dictionaries it is usually described as a derivative of interactive, although older dictionaries only offer interactively as a derivative. The only reference found listing interactivity in its own right is in the new Shorter Oxford English Dictionary 2002 edition: Interactivity n (a) an activity that involves interaction: b) the property of being interactive. This dual application of the word, as both an activity and a property, seems signicant and worthy of investigation. However, most analysts have focused on one of the two meanings. Interactivity as an activity In 1988, Sheizaf Rafaeli, dened interactivity exclusively with regard to the activity of communication exchanges, i.e. An expression of the extent that, in a given series of communication exchanges, any third (or later) transmission (or message) is related to the degree to which previous exchanges referred to even earlier transmissions (Rafaeli, 1988: 11). Contained within Rafaelis approach, though not emphasized by him, is the acknowledgement that interactivity is about the facilitation of generation by referral to content in context. In fact it can be argued that it is a context/content mix that is being generated. Rafaeli did not write of this
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Richards: Users, interactivity and generation
process in such terms. His concern was to differentiate interactivity as a communication activity, as opposed to a technology-led phenomenon. However, this article explores the implications of this reassessment particularly with regard to where actors are positioned in relation to the generation of this mix. Interactivity is not just about exchange of communication but also generation of content. Who is doing the generation is in itself an important question. We are now moving into an era where there will be further opportunities for users to engage with applications as facilities where the personal context of the user informs the content of the package and/or where the contextual framework supplied requires the user to supply some or all content and/or where the contextual framework itself is supplied by the user. These opportunities constitute qualitatively different activities that are not just about communication between people. Interactivity as a property The work of S.S. Sundar provides an exemplar of this mode of analysis: Interactivity is an attribute of technology (Sundar, 2004: 387). This is very much a practitioners approach. They must learn how to embed interactivity as a property. Scientists and designers codify the parameters for embedding interactivity in multimedia packages (e.g. Benedikt, 1991). This embedding presents interactivity as a resource with varying degrees of sophistication and also a dormant resource, awaiting a user to respond to it. Sundar puts it thus: How users interact with the system under conditions of high or low interactivity is an effects question (2004: 386). Consequently, the resulting focus is on design (of interface) and technique (usability). Of course these properties are important because they provide part of the context for the delivery of content to the user. However, this approach is inadequate in describing interactivity as an activity (e.g. Benedikt, 1991; Garret, 2002; Neilsen, 2002). Furthermore, the content itself is largely ignored in these analyses. Interactivity as a property and an activity Recently, a number of academics have attempted to bring together these two aspects.3 Sally McMillan and Spiro Kiousis have both contributed to this process in articles for this journal (Kiousis, 2002; McMillan, 2002a). McMillan writes of perception in use (activity) and features (property). She quotes Rafaeli but seeks to move on from his single dimension approach (2002b: 272). McMillan proposes a four-part typology of cyberinteractivity (2002b: 272), with the component parts being: monologue, feedback, responsive dialogue and mutual discourse. These are qualitatively different types of communication, starting with monologue that refers to a sender talking at a receiver and moving through to mutual discourse that is
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often described in dictionary denitions as interaction per se. McMillan took the four-part typology and the notions of perception in use and features and applied them in eldwork. She used students to analyse over 100 health-related websites. The results had very low scorings of relevance that she put down to her researchers being young, healthy students (2002b: 284). Yet there are many issues (AIDS for one) that affect young people. McMillans research did not deal with the content of the sites. The criteria used to analyse the websites were predominately functional, i.e. were there, or were there not, opportunities for perception in use (activity), and what features (properties) were available on each website. The article is highly signicant because it takes the dual nature of interactivity seriously. However, McMillans quantitative approach reveals nothing of the positioning of the user in relation to the content. Furthermore, McMillan uses an isolation mode of categorization that results in sites appearing to be solely Mutual Discourse or solely Monologue or solely Feedback or Responsive (2002b: 276). Of course, in reality, it is extremely rare to nd a site involving rich interactive possibilities that does not also have sections which command/direct the user if only to supply directions of use or in fact all four of the above. McMillan denes Rafaelis approach as in a single dimension (2002b: 272), however, his denition actually points towards multi-dimensional description because of its connection of change in content/context over time. This article argues that the user adds the additional dimensions in the activity of interactivity through the properties of interactivity enabled in the environment. Spiro Kiousis, in his article entitled Interactivity: a Concept Explication, attempts to place activity, property and perception of the user within the same analytical grid (2002). This approach is important because it reveals the analytical footprint of a wide variety of studies. As detailed below, it also shows what is not being analysed. Kiousis analysis also references Rafaelis work, but in a more detailed manner. The generation of conversation is described by Kiousis as thirdorder dependency. In so doing, he acknowledges the importance of these processes. Kiousis also places the canon in a two dimensional grid. In his case the grid is horizontally labeled with intellectual perspective through communication and non-communication and in the vertical with object emphasized through technology, communication setting and perceiver. The outcome of this mapping exercise is highly signicant. The vast majority of investigations do indeed t into this grid but very few of them appear in more than one quadrant. Kiousis response is to argue for a meta-denition of interactivity that incorporates all the above criteria and requires the application of a range of methodologies to extract different data from specic sites of interactivity that can then be fed back into the grid. Thus,
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Kiousis seeks a way of amalgamating otherwise disparate approaches, but, far more importantly, shows clearly where the gaps are in the research. For example, although he acknowledges that there has been a move towards researching the signicance of interactivity for, and of the user, Kiousis does not incorporate the signicance of content for the user within his schema. The concentration solely on the users perception of the interactivity itself ignores the motivation for being with the package in the rst place (cf. McMillans research above).4 The mode of interactivity provides the context of the relationship between the user/s and the content. It is not an end in itself. It is a contextualizing facility. A further problem with Kiosis approach is that interactivity is again reduced to the act of communication alone and in fact, as Kiousis puts it, to: . . . technological simulation of interpersonal communication (2002: 373). This reductive approach results in the admission that: Therefore, a conversation over the phone is interactive, while a dialogue in person is not (2002: 373). Although Kiousis does qualify this surprising result by saying that it is valid for his study and not others, there are several anomalies here. There are properties and activities at work that result in content being created in a social environment through interactivity, be it in person or via other technologies. This is not included in Kiousis grid. A further problem with this reduction is that it delimits the number of communication media that can be described as interactive. Most signicantly, Kiousis attempt at producing a meta-denition is immediately undermined by such qualications. Whereas McMillan can be criticized for not inter-relating activity and property even as she acknowledges their existence and Kiousis can be criticized for his reductionism, they both manage to write extensively on interactivity without incorporating the motivations of the user with regard to content. This results in analysis of screen-based interaction in terms of users perception of interactivity isolated from content. The emphasis has been on the act not the outcomes; the pleasure or pain of the activity of the interactivity and not the motives/needs of the user; on interactivity as a thing in itself and not as a contextualizing facility that mediates between environments and content and users and enables generation. Practitioners, by comparison, have to be concerned with the positions of the user in relation to the content, their motivations within specic types of media environments and always with regards to the dynamic of generation through the engagement with concepts that can be politically challenging, intellectually or emotionally stimulating or simply raising consciousness about a product. However, it is also the case that practitioners have often considered the activity of interactivity in mechanical terms, i.e. basic usability/task completion (Neilsen, 2002). It is now time for both academics and practitioners to address the positioning of the user.
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POSITIONING Interactivity facilitates and is an outcome of person/technology/world to person/technology/world contact. It is what we do and what we are subjected to as people. A component part of these processes is positioning. We as humans are constantly both positioning and positioned. Here I am drawing on the work of Bourdieu (1993) and Thompson (1995). Bourdieu extensively analysed the development of culture with specic references to writers in 19th-century France. He uses the notion of the eld in which such production occurs. Writers as producers and audience as consumers occupy different positions within elds within elds dependent upon class, economic opportunity, and afliation. These elds are dynamic in themselves and the relations between them are also dynamic. For Bourdieu, this dynamism is also within the agents who occupy these elds. A particular writer can occupy one social position, have a complementary or antagonistic disposition and take a further conicting or supporting position for a given situation. The power of the term position here is that it can be used to express social role, mental framework and implementation of ideas, all of which carry different modes of expression. Bourdieus focus is on the producers of culture with little reference made to the consumers of culture, a point made by Nick Couldry in his Media@LSE working paper (2003). Bourdieu does, however, offer tantalizing glimpses into the possibilities of position for the audience, writing both of the space of production (1993: 45) and the space of consumption (1993: 45). However, Bourdieu raised this relationship to illustrate a homology between: positions occupied in the space of production, with the correlative position-takings, and positions in the space of consumption, that is, . . . [for example] in the eld of power, opposition between the dominant and dominated fractions (1993: 45). This modernist approach is reliable in the sense that culture was something presented to most people as material for consumption, that the audience was subjected to and by culture. In the digital/interactive age, there are possibilities for new forms of positioning with regards to culture where the use of the term consumer without qualication is inadequate. As mentioned above, the starting point of this article is to analyse the position of the user in relation to the generation of content. Swingewood implies the need for this addition in his critique of Bourdieu:
the instrumental nature of action in Bourdieus cultural theory is related to his failure to develop a theory of interaction within a structural context, to address the issue of the making of culture through dialogue and communication by those participants who commit themselves through a reexive consciousness of culture . . . (1998: 180)
This is an additional position to those put forward by Bourdieu: a position of a consumer/user as a producer of culture. User production is the term
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coined here to describe these possibilities. User production becomes possible when the user is positioned/can position themselves in a proactive role with regards to culture and the creation of content. It is important to remember here that both interactivity and user production can occur outside of screen-based media (SBM). Thompsons analysis of media consumption in the late 20th century does not reference SBM apart from in one footnote (Thompson, 1995: fn 3, p. 278), but does examine the concept of what he calls quasi-interaction (1995: 12). This approach treats seriously the assertion that there need be no simple encode/decode process in media consumption. Thompson argues that deferred interaction is possible as the viewer uses and re-interprets broadcast output. Fiske examined this issue from the perspective of the inter-relations of texts i.e., intertextuality: The theory of intertextuality proposes that any one text is necessarily read in relationship to others and that a range of textual knowledges is brought to bear upon it (1987: 108). A viewer (and now user) may simply incorporate the overt meaning of specic cultural artifact. Conversely their response need bear little or no relation to the rationale proposed by the producer/ director/designer of the material. A user presented with a position by an artifact with no opportunities for generation through their terms of reference may in fact adopt a counter position and reject the thing out of hand or repurpose the text/package. These approaches give credit to the users ability to take an artifact and transform it by incorporating it within their cognitive map. A cognitive map, as expressed by Bourdieu (1993), contains many different positions. We phase from consumer to processor to generator of goods, money, social relations and information. Furthermore, we are situated in elds/matrices of power, technology and culture, each of which effects how we receive, and to what extent we can transmit into interactive environments. That is why the concept of interactivity is such a challenge: to move beyond a simple behavioral/communication denition two-way ow (see McMillan, 2002a: 174) is to be confronted by the requirement to research to what extent generation of content occurs and how this generation is facilitated by the package, in the package, and through the package. What is happening here is that a user is being positioned into differing relationships with content. An analysis of interactivity that does not take all these realities of positioning on board becomes a sterile exercise. METHODOLOGY Succession mapping In order to analyse the variety of matrices in which we are positioned/ position ourselves and the variety of opportunities/lack of opportunities for generative experiences, we must use a method of mapping that can chart the corresponding varieties of generation that we are subject to/take control of. This approach moves the analysis of interactive packages on from the
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search for isolated moments to the placement of such moments in context. There is a need to develop methods of analysis that relate to both activity and properties of interactivity: a new mapping methodology. Succession mapping acknowledges that any present method of generation contains within it aspects of previous states. Bourdieu wrote of this approach:
Because the whole series of pertinent changes is present, practically, in the latest (just as the six gures already dialed on the telephone are present in the seventh), a work or an aesthetic movement is irreducible to any other situated in the series. (1993: 60)
Works or packages can contain successive levels of sophistication, each of which is different in quality from those that came before, precisely because they build upon the previous modes. The latest mode brings the other modes along within. Qualitatively different modes can offer different positions for the user to take in relation to the generation of content. Critique of applications of succession mapping There have been a number of attempts to utilize a form of succession mapping within the digital domain. The three applications critiqued below operate at different analytical levels and fail for different reasons. Bolter and Grusins exposition Remediation (Bolter and Grusin, 2001) is an attempt to apply aspects of succession mapping from old media to new media. Although this has merit as an analytical rationale the result is a compartmentalization of the aspects of new media. Here, the use of succession mapping is applied to individual media modes only, not to the reality of convergence in media and divergence in production possibilities. Bolter and Grusin reinforce this nding by their inclusion of a short chapter entitled Convergence that offers: Convergence is the mutual remediation of at least three important technologies telephone, television and computer . . . (2001: 224). However, only television appears in the book as a medium to be remediated. What is needed is a methodology of inclusion rather than separation. By comparison, Jesse Garretts examination of the concept of user experience does attempt to apply the notion of successive planes of production processes, i.e. Strategy, Scope, Structure, Skeleton, Surface: with each plane dependent on the plane below (Garrett, 2002: 25). However, Garrett undermines this inter-dependency by arguing for a strategy: . . . to have work on each plane nish before work on the next can nish (2002: 27). There is some acknowledgment of succession in Garrets approach but only in articulating the various stages (planes) of the production process. This succession is local and discrete at each stage, rather than a matter of incorporation of that which came before. In reality, as any production team
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knows, a strategy may need to be revised due to events at any stage of a project. It is the generation of content and the processes of use enabled by all planes that should be the focus of investigation. That is what user experience should be about. More recently, John Newhagen has sought to apply a form of succession directly to the concept of interactivity (Newhagen, 2004). Newhagen interrelates semiotic analysis and symbol processing in an attempt to site content generation within the user at the level of cognition. For Newhagen such content generation occurs when there is a mismatch between the mental state of the user and the presentation of new material through some form of interface. He draws on the work of Allen Newell (Newell, 1990) and his time scale of human action (Newhagen, 2004: 400): [Newells] time-based model describes how discrete iterative processes at one cognitive level build on the output level just below it and go on to deliver up qualitatively unique content to the level above (Newhagen, 2004: 4001). This is succession at the level of cognition. Newhagen terms this as holistic aggregation where symbols holistically emerge at the next level (Newhagen, 2004: 401). For Newhagen, Interactivity . . . is an informationbased process that takes place within the individual (2004: 397, emphasis added). Newhagens denition seems to resonate with the phenomenon of intertextuality examined below. However, the fundamental difference here is its ideology of individualism. The logical outcome of this approach is that the context for interactivity does not exist outside of mental processes and thus has no origin/site in the external world. Intertextuality describes the incorporation or contestation of social phenomena by agents in society and that interaction can precipitate further interactions out in the social arena. Newhagen should be praised for highlighting generative processes made possible by interactivity. However, he should be criticized for reducing the scope of operation to ideas formed by mental processes alone. This article takes a different approach to the concept of succession. The user can be positioned with regards to the generation of content through the utilization of three qualitatively different modes of interactivity, each of which succeeds, as in incorporates, the former. These modes are: consumer, processor and generator interactivity. The following section explores these modes. MODES OF INTERACTIVITY AS ACTIVITIES By combining the concepts of positioning and succession mapping together, the aim is to provide tangible methods of analysis of the relationships within interactivity. The focus is on screen-based interactivity. However, there are implications here for the analysis of face-to-face interactivity. A number of academics have wrestled with the notion, in some cases denying it (see Kiousis above) and some cases foregrounding it (see
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McMillan and Rafaeli above). The observations on the implications for faceto-face interactivity included in each of the following three sections indicate some directions for further research in this area. Consumer interactivity Here, the term consumer is being used in the sense of being positioned/ positioning oneself in society, not just in the sense of an agent performing specic tasks. Media position us by our job specication, by our relations, friends and acquaintances often into a reception mode. Content is prescribed and although there can be multiple readings, even by the same person at different times in their life, crucially they cannot change that content. However, it is inadequate to dene this as simply a passive audience/user position. As mentioned above, it is possible to react, act and interact with this unchanging content by taking its stimulus into other domains. This intertextuality will incorporate the referencing of codes and conventions and will unfold, as the product is viewed/listened to. The recognition by the reader of these attributes can evoke a feeling of identication with the scenarios, of being spoken to, and extreme cases of fandom, of a feeling of being in a one-to-one relationship with the content, and/or the author/s (Jenkins, 2002: 157). It is a matter of specic research to determine what roles the content of a product is playing in the life of the reader/user and how they are being positioned in relation to it. Alienation is as much a possible outcome as illumination or exultation if the content speaks another social or conceptual language. Furthermore, it is possible to reject being positioned as passive and contest the content, whether it is feminist grafti over billboards, or Napster, or reappropriation of television culture (Fiske, 1987). In each case, the content is prescribed but the context for that content is contested or re-congured or postscribed (Thompson, 1995). The user production achieved here is a reactive form. We draw strength from the culture around us. This can be highly important in supporting cultural identity in the face of oppression. However, the user production here is outside of the content/context: it is quasi-interaction (Thompson, 1995: 12) but nonetheless powerful in that ideas can be extracted from content and used to generate reaction outside a domain. Succession mapping can chart the relationships between the content and its acceptance/contestation in and through the user out into the social arena. When applying the consumer mode of interactivity to face-to-face communication there are occasions when a didactic form of communication is taking place. Again the user is in reception mode or at least is being positioned by the other in this mode. As with the mediated types described above, there are opportunities to accept, repurpose or deny the messages from the other.
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Processor interactivity (incorporating consumer interactivity) Here the user occupies the same environment as in consumer interactivity, but with additional components that allow them to position themselves in order to take up opportunities to contribute. The point being that something must be processed. However, the context for this authorship is pre-determined, be it sending an email for further information on a product or taking part in a phone-in or writing a report. In face-to-face communication the contributions may be observations, notes for clarication, or responses, but only in terms of the reference points presented. Succession mapping draws out two expressions of positioning here, that is: 1) the same person can shift from a receiver to a transmitter of information; and 2) the user has access to further responses from others/ systems in an arena/network of circulation. Here the present provides the context for future communications. Compared with consumer interactivity, there are opportunities to contribute back into a domain. However, the context for this contribution is prescribed, as is the content itself. The user production here is in terms of additions to a database, the sending of an order, or the response to a request to vote on a burning issue of the day. Processing usually means the user providing aspects of their prole back into a commercial environment, although the same processes can occur in other domains. In face-to-face communication the support, or otherwise, for a given message is in its own terms: the others terms of reference. This analysis challenges Rafaeli in that a conversation can refer back onto that which came before, but the generation of ideas can be limited to the quality of the original notion. The user is positioned to be involved in the process as a subordinate. Generator interactivity (incorporating consumer and processor interactivity) Here the user is positioned into places and spaces where they can author the content and/or the context of the environment. Users are, of course, subject to a variety of infrastructural constraints in the same arenas/networks as above, but they are able to provide others with content. Photographs can be uploaded onto an iPhoto site. Websites can be created that require an email response. A new thread is begun on a discussion board. Or an application is created that enables further interactive involvement, the pinnacle of which would be to facilitate the creation of new application/s. There is a shift in how the component parts of the system are made available. Instead of endon and opaque, the production processes are visible and available to the user as generator. That which is produced moves into the future offering opportunities for progeneration. Succession mapping illuminates two different orders of positioning: 1) an application can be produced by a
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generator that enables the positioning of others in the role of consumer or processor; and 2) an application can be produced by a generator that utilizes consumer or processor resources that positions others in the role of generator. It is not clear what the future will be for such generative material. These new applications join the line of applications that were once for professional use only and are now freely available on computer desktops, for example: word processors, image manipulators, video editors, etc. In face-to-face communication Rafaelis referencing back and McMillans mutual discourse are in full form here. Ideas, terms of reference, alternatives, and pointers forward can be made by either partner in the communication. Of course, in a given face-to-face communication sequence there can be a succession through the three modes. The users position in relation to the generation of content can succeed and for that matter recede. The specic outcomes of different positionings are a matter for further research. This analysis of succession across positionings of users in relation to content provides a schema that can be applied to interactive packages to determine the range of activities on offer. Analysing the range of properties contained within such interactive packages can illuminate the other half of the story. MODES OF PRODUCTION OF THE PROPERTIES OF INTERACTIVITY There is a need to start with the initial production processes in order to analyse how the dynamics of interactivity are facilitated.5 There are a number of modes of production each enabling specic properties under the consumer, processor and generator modes of interactivity, each of which results in specic types of positioning of the user in relation to the generation of content. It is possible to examine both how the properties of interactivity are constructed in the package and in what ways the package facilitates generation of content either inside or outside of the package. Consumer-focused production for interactivity Linear production Immediately, from a production perspective, the phrase linear production is contradictory. Every editor knows that a linear package is the result of a variety of non-linear operations. The creative processes in developing the original ideas involve the intermingling of content and form. This process cannot be linear because any change in a particular part of the concept/structure will effect the before and after of the package. Material is gathered and assembled out of order due to logistical and project management constraints. Off-line edits are created which prove the concept but may not make it to the nal cut. The processes of consumption are also not linear. The consumer is subject to a variety of promos, crits, ads,
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previews, prequels, all of which inform/undermine the viewing of the package as a linear thing in itself (Marshall, 2002: 768). These systems of pre-guring and prescribing help dene the way the subsequent linear package is interpreted. This can be described as corporate intertextuality. Non-linear production One critique that is applied to interactivity per se is that it dupes users into believing that they have choice and control (Butterick, 1996). A non-extensible CD-ROM can be described in a twodimensional owchart. A website or a CD-ROM or a DVD can purport to be interactive but this interactivity is an editing facility of the simplest kind, i.e. a user edits/generates a path through existing content. In fact as a owchart indicates, websites, CDs or DVDs are often multi-linear rather than non-linear in construction. This is a phenomenon coined as ergodic by Espen J. Aarseth with respect to non-linear ction: from a readers perspective all stories are linear [in experience] (summarized in Peacock, 2000: 24). The content itself contains neither the possibility of processing through data entry systems, nor generation. In fact, processing occurs before authoring in terms of marketing and product testing and the only generation occurs in the resultant production process of the CD. A vision of a million corporate websites/CD-ROMs comes to mind. Alpha leads to beta leads to gold. Processor production for interactivity Filter production With lter production the linear/non-linear offer is complexied through the inclusion of search engines, reference numbers and a variety of means of user response that enables the material in the package to be inuenced or purchased. It is also often the case that the offer is so great that the only way of accessing the correct bit of it is through some form of ltering system. In this mode the user does the ltering through overt intervention. However, the opportunities to process the available information and engage with the package are prescribed. The lter may be used specically as part of the engagement with the package as a means of providing access to restricted areas. Abbey Road Interactive have used this approach by requiring owners of a Marillion CD to provide their prole on a website before receiving a password to unlock hidden elements on the CD. The initial production process involves a mix of linear and non-linear operations. The aim should be to move a user through a linear offer then close for a sale or an active response. However, at the same time, a multiplicity of opportunities can only be offered through a non-linear access system. The development of the database containing the content
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(linear resource) and the access system (non-linear delivery) needs to be examined in great detail so that the scale of the resource can be efciently used. The accruing of content for the database is an ongoing process that is linear in the sense that it is additive: just another record. Indeed, it may be the users themselves, as in the case of the Marillion CD, who ll the database with records. The processing continues beyond the initial construction of the package. Adaptive production The principle of adaptive production requires the user to input a prole of themselves or an array of information. Software agents then use this prole to process/lter the available offer of the package in advance of its display to the user. The generative capability of the package is pre-coded in at the initial production phase. Adaptive programming enables the resulting code objects to be self-referential and learn the behaviour of the user as they develop a relationship with the package. The common use of this form of system is in electronic programme guides (EPG) for television. These EPGs accept/learn the users prole and then pre-choose a selection of television programmes in attempts to match the predilections of the user. A nal selection/ltering/processing is then made by the user. This process gives the impression of intelligence at work, a slave taking the pain of choice away from the user. Normans notion of information appliances falls into this category: invisible computers automatically deliver rich content to a user (Norman, 1999). While the result can be usable information/goods/ services, and the user may feel that they have control over the offer, they are positioned as remote from the intelligence in the system. When articial intelligence (AI) is referenced with regard to the digital it is usually from an adaptive programming perspective. Although the generative processes that occur are of a far more sophisticated nature than in lter production they are just as opaque to the user. Surely AI could and should be used to offer more generative options to the user and not less? ASP (application service provision) production This form of production relocates the administrative processes of a company through the safety of an internet connection to a remote server. The selling point for this approach is that a company can buy a complete service that can be modied and enhanced by the providing company, thus avoiding on-site maintenance. The content is supplied solely by the purchasing company as they utilize the framework supplied by the ASP. The production process uses the same architectures as lter production. However, in this instance it is the purchasers of the package who determine the modes of ltering to be applied. This, of course, involves some generation of new apps or miniapps as time goes by, but signicantly the control of the generation of new
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capabilities lies with the ASP Company. Indeed, that is what they are being paid for. ASPs at least point to the opportunities possible for company-centred creation of packages that generate new facilities under their own auspices. Generator production for interactivity Standard application use As mentioned above, there are a number of professional packages that are now freely available either on or off-line that enable the user to generate new content. The simplicity (subject sometimes to extensive learning curves) of these packages belies both their capabilities and the cultural signicance of them. A word processing package can be written off as a simple extension of a typewriter but an image manipulation or video-editing package cannot be so easily assigned antecedents. These applications are so ubiquitous that their power is ignored in favour of looking for two-way interactive expressions. End-user computing End-user computing is the rst manifestation of onscreen user production of additional facilities within a package. It has a specic origin and mode of operation. As documented by Nardi (1992) and more recently Mahmood (2002), the focus of end-user computing is that of providing solutions through computer programming to increase efciency within an organization. The generation that occurs is by either primary or secondary raw coding of new routines, for example in C+, or through the redesign of a formula in a spreadsheet. Although the user can extend the capabilities of the application at hand the resultant mini-application is not free standing. The mini-apps power comes from a redeployment of the main applications capabilities. Still, as a presage of what is to come in user production, end-user computing is highly signicant. Generator production This mode of production is about the development of a facility that is a mode of production in itself. It is the resultant generation of new content, facilities and applications that stops this denition from being a tautology. This is production by generators not simply users and it is generators in the form of packages that are being utilized. The original producers of the package have to be concerned with the subsequent opportunities for production offered to the users of the package. Here the methods of further production are fore-grounded in the product. The initial production processes require the development of open source, open architecture and open modular facilities that set up possibilities of further generation. Here the intelligence and generative capabilities in the system are freely available to the user/generator. This does not mean that it has to be complex. Creating a new thread in a discussion board is a process
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both quick to code and to apply. The over-arching criterion for generator production is that the user/generator is positioned in relation to the package as a creator of content. The system within which such activity takes place need not be purely software-based. The Simputer concept is a PDA-style hand-held device that is extensible both in open source software and hardware. The rationale of the Simputer is to produce a package that is deliberately not complex and aimed specically at Indias poor: Bridging the Digital Divide as one splash screen states. Simputer software already available includes text-to-speech in a number of dialects with icon driven menus and hardware that includes the ability to connect with a wide variety of other hardware and the net. This relocation of the creative process to being imminent within the package and presented not as an opportunity to play with C+ but to liberate illiterate Indians is highly signicant. Here, a single Simputer, allowing multiple smartcards to be inserted, can enable an entire community to access the internet for advice, information or communication. Thus there is a shift from the simple reproduction of a typewriter into a digital domain to responsive software and hardware that can be dened as liberating technology. Both are equally signicant from a cultural perspective but they offer qualitatively different opportunities for the creation of content. CONCLUSION The aim of this article is to re-orientate the focus of research into the phenomenon of interactivity. As has been shown, academics have found a variety of ways to extract aspects of interactivity and then study them in isolation. This has occurred at the structural level of analysing interactivity, either as an activity or as a property. It has also occurred at an imminent level, where the perception of interactivity and/or the properties of interactivity are seen as ends in themselves. In one case this technique of isolation has reached the nth degree with the proposition that interactivity only resides in the person. The proposals put forward in this article should be seen as a counterpoint to the plethora of contradictory studies of subcomponents of interactivity and of interactivity as a thing in itself. The line of argument detailed in the article does not reject the signicance of previous studies. The activity of interactivity and the properties of interactivity are both important but only in the context of the positioning of the user in relation to the generation of content. The aim of this formulation is to emphasize the interconnection of architectures that support generation and the users motivations for being in/with those moments of interactivity. This interconnection is dynamic and successive, requiring specic methods of analysis to assess the qualities of interactivity on offer to the user. Succession mapping is proposed as a means to explore the inter546
relationships between qualitatively different modes of interactivity. Succession mapping as a tool for analysis is not new. The above critiques of previous attempts to use succession mapping (without naming the term) show that, for a variety of reasons, academics have acknowledged succession mapping as a useful tool but have not followed through the signicance of its application as a dynamic resource. Succession mapping can elucidate the inter-connections between users, content generation and modes of positioning across qualitatively different content delivery systems. Further research should test whether this approach has a utility across a range of applications. For researchers, consumer, processor and generator modes of interactivity offer ways in which to move beyond user experiences and communication models and towards more complex and integrated methods of analysis, including succession mapping and positioning. There should be further research regarding the proposals in this article and face-to-face encounters. From the examples given above, it would seem that the consumer, processor and generator modes of interactivity have currency away from the screen. However, these assertions only point to a synthesis between on and off-screen interactivity. Specic research is required to verify that synthesis. It should be remembered that people can position themselves and be positioned. Further research should be conducted into the forms of power that can be facilitated by the different modes of interactivity, of benet, or of harm to users.6 In this regard, the notion of user production should be seen in the different senses of the phrase, i.e. that users can produce, can produce themselves and can be produced. In the latter case, opportunities for interaction may be being used to dupe rather than support users. Banner ads that present themselves as system dialogue boxes are a case in point. All these cases above indicate that there is plenty of work to be done in what this article asserts is a newly invigorated eld of study: interactivity as a conceptualizing facility that mediates between environments and content and users enabling generation. We need to expand out from the analysis of linear and discrete media effects to the notion of generation in userproduced environments. What will be the positions for users in relation to the generation of content?
Notes
1 Generation is used here specically to emphasize the building up of content during interactivity. The word has other connotations, but, despite that, is the most apt word for the purpose, i.e. production by natural or articial process (Concise English Dictionary, OUP, 1991). Generation is a word equally applicable to face-to-face or technologically mediated interactivity. 2 A search of the following on-line dictionaries has produce no results for interactivity or as is often used no match for interactivity:
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(URLs consulted January 2003) Dictionary.com at: http://www.dictionary.com; Hyper Dictionary, The Exploding Dictionary at: http:/ /www.hyperdictionary.com Oxford English Dictionary On-line at: http://www.oed.com/ Websters Online Dictionary at: http://www.m-w.com 3 Jennifer Stromer-Galley has recently proposed the analysis of interactivity-as-process and interactivity-as-product (Stromer-Galley, 2004: 393) as another way to describe the activity and the properties of interactivity. While activity and process occupy the same terrain, Stromer-Galleys use of product over-emphasizes interactivity as an endin-itself. See below for critique of this reduction. 4 Erik P. Bucy has recently restated this focus on the perception of interactivity in a forum in the Information Society Journal (Bucy, 2004: 375). Bucys position is strongly critiqued by S. Shyam Sundar in the same forum, i.e. [T]he correlation between perceived interactivity and other self-reported variables is a reection of the users in the sample rather than the technologies they are asked to evaluate. Its simply selffullling (Sundar, 2004: 388). On the other hand, Sundar argues that interactivity is an attribute of technology and not that of the user (Sundar, 2004: 385) and is thus guilty of the opposite reduction. 5 The research for this article has encountered only one assessment of interactivity that includes the signicance of the producers of that interactivity in its approach. Jerome Durlak (quoted in Mayer, 1998: 44) identies hardware, software, tools and people as all being signicant in the development of an interactive media system. However, Durlaks work focuses predominantly on arcane aspects of computing, e.g. Batch Processing and thus needs radically updating. 6 This approach draws on the work of S. Shyam Sundar whose analysis of users perceptions of interactive features has indicated frustration, confusion and inefciencies in retaining information (Sundar, 2004).
References
Benedikt, M. (1991) Cyberspace: First Steps. London: Massachusetts Institute of Technology Press. Bolter, J.D. and R. Grusin (2001) Remediation: Understanding New Media. London: Massachusetts Institute of Technology Press. Bourdieu, P. (1993) The Field of Cultural Production. Cambridge: Polity Press. Bucy, E.P. (2004) Interactivity in Society: Locating an Elusive Concept, The Information Society 20(5): 37383. Butterick, M. (1996) On Interactivity Information and Digital Design, Netscape Developers Conference, URL (consulted Sept. 2002): http://www.atomicvision.com/ manifest/index.html Couldry, N. (2003) Media, Symbolic Power and the Limits of Bourdieus Field Theory, MEDIA@LSE Electronic Working Papers, No. 2. (consulted Sept. 2002): http:/ /www.lse.ac.uk/collections/media@lse/mediaWorkingPapers/ewpNumber2.htm Fiske, J. (1987) Television Culture. London: Methuen. Garrett, J.J. (2002) The Elements of User Experience. New York: AIGA/New Riders. Jenkins, H. (2002) Interactive Audiences?, in D. Harries (ed.) The New Media Book, pp. 15780. London: BFI Publishing.
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Kiousis, S. (2002) Interactivity: A Concept Explication, New Media & Society 4(2): 27191. Laurel, B. (1991) Computers as Theatre. Menlo Park: Addison-Wesley. McMillan, S. (2002a) Exploring Models of Interactivity from Multiple Research Traditions: Users, Documents and Systems, in L. Lievrouw and S. Livingstone (eds) The Handbook of New Media, pp. 16382. London: Sage. McMillan, S. (2002b) A Four-Part Model of Cyber-interactivity: Some Cyber-places are More Interactive Than Others, New Media & Society 4(2): 27191. Mahmood, M.A. (2002) Advanced Topics In End User Computing Volume 1, Advanced Topics in End User Computing Series. Hershey, PA: Idea Group Publishing. Marshall, P.D. (2002) The New Intertextual Commodity, in D. Harries (ed.) The New Media Book, pp. 6981. London: BFI Publishing. Mayer, P. (1998) Computer-Mediated Interactivity: A Socio-Semiotic Perspective, Convergence 4(3): 4058. Nardi, B. (1992) A Small Matter of Programming: Perspectives on End User Computing. London: MIT Press. Neilsen, J. (2002) Writings on Usability, URL (consulted Jan. 2003): http:/ /www.useit.com/ Newell, A. (1990) Unied Theories of Cognition. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Newhagen, J.E. (2004) Interactivity, Dynamic Symbol Processing, and the Emergence of Content in Human Communication, The Information Society 20(5): 397402. Norman, D.A. (1999) The Invisible Computer: Why Good Products Can Fail, the Personal Computer is So Complex, and Information Appliances are the Solution. London: MIT Press. Peacock, A. (2000) Cooling Hot: Redundancy and Entropy in Critique of Interactivity, Convergence 6(1): 228. Rafaeli, S. (1988) Interactivity: From New Media to Communication, in H. Hawkins, J. Wiemann and S. Pingree (eds) Advancing Communication Science: Merging Mass and Interpersonal Processes, pp. 11034. London: Sage. Richards, R. and M. Weaver (2001a) Adding a New Dimension to On-line Learning Support The Creation of a 3D Intranet Environment for MA Interactive Production in the Faculty of Media, Arts and Society, Journal of Media Practice 1(3): 15764, URL: http://www.user-production.co.uk/papers/webdesign.htm Roper, J. (1995) The Heart of Multimedia: Interactivity or Experience?, Convergence 1(2): 235. Stromer-Galley, J. (2004) Interactivity-as-Product and Interactivity-as-Process, The Information Society 20(5): 3936. Sundar, S.S. (2004) Theorizing Interactivitys Effects, The Information Society 20(5): 3859. Swingewood, A. (1998) Cultural Theory and the Problem of Modernity. London: Macmillan Press. Thompson, J.B. (1995) The Media and Modernity: A Social Theory of the Media. Cambridge: Polity Press.
RUSSELL RICHARDS is Senior Lecturer in the Faculty of Media, Arts and Society at Southampton Solent University. Russell is a practicing digital artist working in installation, print, application and web production. His digital artwork includes: a virtual installation Memory is Made of This; a music generator installation 549
DiskO; Covertor, a digital art creation application; and Nebula gascloud generator. Russell is a member of BAFTA, BIMA, Rhizome and New Media Caucus. He is a founder member of HIDRAZONE.COM Address: Southampton Solent University, East Park Terrace, Southamton SO14 0RF, UK. [email: russell.richards@solent.ac.uk]
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Users, interactivity and generation

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new media & society

Users, interactivity and generation

RUSSELL RICHARDS Southampton Solent University, UK

New Media & Society 8(4)

Richards: Users, interactivity and generation

New Media & Society 8(4)

Richards: Users, interactivity and generation

New Media & Society 8(4)

Richards: Users, interactivity and generation

New Media & Society 8(4)

Richards: Users, interactivity and generation

New Media & Society 8(4)

Richards: Users, interactivity and generation

New Media & Society 8(4)

Richards: Users, interactivity and generation

New Media & Society 8(4)

Richards: Users, interactivity and generation

New Media & Society 8(4)

Richards: Users, interactivity and generation

New Media & Society 8(4)

Richards: Users, interactivity and generation

New Media & Society 8(4)

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