Created: January 23 2020

INTERACTIVITY AND OUTCOMES

“Interactivity is what you do. It’s not what you watch, not what you hear, not what you read… it is composed of the meaningful actions that the user takes while interacting with the work” (Bjarnason, 2014). The concept of interactivity isn’t new; in 1924, the US secretary of Commerce, Herbert Hoover, praised the use of radio to “communicate simultaneously with millions of our fellowmen, to furnish entertainment, instruction, widening vision of national problems and national events” (Lappin).

This shows we have a choice and impact, our narratives are dynamic and can be changed through user involvement, relative ease of participation, author and user responsiveness, and frequent updates (Siapera E. , 2012). With interactivity, the outcomes are virtual communities, confirmation bias, social disengagement, network individualism, memes and viral culture.

Virtual communities are the social collections that came from the [internet] when people discussions similar things, with emotions, to form personal relationships in the digital space (Siapera E. , 2018). Next is the confirmation bias, it occurs when individuals look for evidences and information that supports only their beliefs or views, and whatever information is against their views will be ignored (Spencer & Heneghan, 2018).

But I don’t believe that interactivity makes us totally socially disengaged with our physical world, because it truly depends on how the person use their devices. Some people, like me, can engage in the digital space, while still being socially active in the physical world. It all comes down to how efficient they manage their time. Network individualism means we can choose where we are, and we can also choose who we socialize with, sadly, this doesn’t account for the people who’re digitally illiterate or those who needs to frequently manage their networks. Lastly, memes and viral culture are “imitation” (Dawkins, 1976). They are a rapid spread of ideas, images, videos, etc. though the internet.

An example of interactivity is a campaign video created by a senatorial candidate, Bong Revilla, just dancing “budots” (a Filipino slang that means people with no/permanent jobs) in the Philippines (Coconuts Manila, 2019). Depressingly, despite the accusations for his plundering back when he was a Senator in 2012, Filipinos still voted for his video, and won the recent election as Senator. There isn’t much to do as being a programmer, but because I have the skills to create and spread content, I hope to educate my people to not let the fanservice of politics affect their voting decision thorough blogs and applications.

References

Bjarnason, B. (2014). Interactivity is What You Do. Retrieved from the journal of electronic publishing: https://quod.lib.umich.edu/j/jep/3336451.0017.105?view=text;rgn=main

Dawkins, R. (1976). The selfish gene. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Lappin, T. (n.d.). Déjà Vu All Over Again. Retrieved from Wired: https://www.wired.com/1995/05/dejavu/

Siapera, E. (2012). 4 Characteristics of Digital Media. In Understanding New Media. UK: Sage Publications Ltd.

Siapera, E. (2018). Understanding New Media (2nd ed.). London: SAGE Publications.

Spencer, E., & Heneghan, C. (2018). Confirmation bias. Retrieved from Catalogue of Bias Collaboration: https://catalogofbias.org/biases/confirmation-bias/