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Full summary of interactive media & entertainment
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Deel 0: IntroductionA D IG ITA L S O C IE TY ?
• Interactive and entertainment media are deeply integrated into our everyday life
o You wake up, you use google maps to get to class, you buy a ticket for the bus, ...
§ ‘Taken-for-grantedness’ – Rich Ling
• The mobile phone invaded our life the deepest and fastest. We take these for granted, they
changed us.
• They have significantly altered ‘the way we do things’
o Changes in our individual lives
o Changes in our society
T H IS LE CT U R E
• WHAT is interactivity?
• HOW does interactivity affect how individual users interact with and respond to media (psychological perspective)?
• HOW do interactive and entertainment media change ‘the way we do things’ in society (sociological perspective)?
W H AT A R E A F F O R DA N C E S ? (W H AT YO U CA N ’T A N D CA N D O )
Example: how do you know to push or pull the door? There must be something in the design that makes it clear that you need to pull.
The ability to see this, is an affordance of the door.
Everywhere you go, you interact with interfaces. If an interface is well designed, then it becomes perceivable what the actions for the
door are.
A F FO R DA N C ES T H EO RY
What are affordances?
• Refers to the possibilities of an object for action, to which extent allows the object you to engage in certain activities.
à Is interactivity a technological affordance?
• What are technological affordances?
o “Perceptions of an object’s utility, its possibilities for enabling (& constraining) human action” (Gibson, 1986)
• Functional view: e.g. a cushion in a swimming pool
o It enables, but it also contrains (if you push, you can’t pull)
• Relational view: e.g. The walk-ability of water
o Washability, drinkability, swimability, cookability, … but can we walk on water? Waterspiders, if the water is frozen,
then we can walk on it. This affordance is not always there.
• Contextual view: e.g. through a camera
o Taking an analog photo of children. The child would want to see the picture immediately. Try to explain it. The
affordance (what you can’t and can do) is learned throughout life and society. Context matters
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,THE AFFORDANCES CHECKLIST
Three threshold criteria to be an affordance:
• Criteria #1: neither the object nor a feature of the object
o the relationship between person and object means that “affordances neither belong to the environment nor the
individual, but rather to the relationship between individuals and their perceptions of environments” (Parchoma,
2014, p. 361).
§ The camera of an Iphone is a structural feature. The affordance is recordability.
• Criteria #2: not the outcome (it’s a process)
o E.g. documenting protests
§ There are plenty of outcomes that you can gain from this affordance (what to do with the affordance)
o Unintended consequences
§ Function creep: the original purpose is stretched so other functions creep in
• E.g.: the weather was so good so everyone went to the coast in Covid times. They put cameras
on the boardwalk and it would measure the density. When it was to high, the police would
pass by. But this data was later on used to collect the fines for misparked cars (it is forbidden)
o
o
• Criteria #3: has variability
o Features are present or absent
o Affordances are gradual (technologies can vary in the extent to which they ‘afford’ something)
§ E.g. An object or technology is well-designed when its affordances are readily and easily perceivable
from its features
§
2
,à is interactivity an affordance?
IN T E R ACT IV ITY: A T E C H N O LO G ICA L A F F O R DA N C E ?
• Criteria #1: not an object, nor a feature
• Criteria #2: not an outcome of technology use
• Criteria #3: variability
à YES!
• Criteria #1: Interactivity is not an object, nor a feature
• Criteria #2: Interactivity is not an outcome of technology use
• Criteria #3: Technologies and interfaces show variability in their interactivity
Interactivity is an affordance that users can perceive when the structural features of a technological interface are well-designed.
A R E T H E FO LLOW IN G A F FO R DA N C ES ? (U S E T H ES E T E RM S IN YO U R OW N WO RD S)
• Hashtags #
• Fake news
W H Y SO C E N T R A L TO T H E ST U DY O F D IG ITA L C U LT U R E ?
A research can be about affordances. Even though the platform isn’t used anymore, these affordances can still be used as insights. It
exists beyond the platform. Also, it can be generalized.
H OW E V E R…
Affordances remains a fuzzy concept, that is often misused… you may notice this when processing literature on digital culture (perhaps
also the literature for this course)…
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, IN T E R ACT IV ITY A N D T H E IN D IV ID UA L
TH IS LEC TU RE
1. WHAT is interactivity?
2. HOW does interactivity affect how individual users interact with and respond to media (psychological perspective)?
3. HOW do interactive and entertainment media change ‘the way we do things’ in society (sociological perspective)?
IN D IV ID UA LS ‘IN IN T E R AC T IO N ’ W IT H T EC H N O LO GY
What is the psychology of interactivity? In other words:
• When individuals interact with technology…
o Where is interactivity situated?
§ What are its psychological effects?
§ Is there between- and within-person variability?
IN T E R AC T IV IT Y A S ‘CO M M U N IC AT IO N ’
• When a user interacts with a technology…
o They interact with an ‘interface’
§ You needed to send text messages via pushing on buttons
WHERE IS INTERACTIVITY SITUATED?
At the level of the source, the medium and the message Variability in interactivity = to what extent can the source, medium and
message be altered by the user? (basic communication model)
At the left side, you could say that when we interact with an interface. It is situated here.
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