As we discussed last week in class, interactivity is one of the key features of new information technologies. Today we will discuss in more detail what interactivity is and why it is significant, and look at some of the interactive features of weblogs.
The word “interactive” suggests two or more things acting upon (or influencing) one another. To say that NITs are interactive means that they offer opportunities for users not just to read, listen to, or watch media, but actually to contribute to and affect media themselves. As the We Media report suggests, NITs offer opportunities to allow the audience to actually participate in making journalism. The same holds true for many NITs not necessarily linked to journalism.
We will begin with a brief writing exercise: On your weblog, take five minutes to write an entry to describe one experience you have had that you would say is not interactive, and one experience that is interactive. Tell us what was positive or negative about each experience. (After you have had a few minutes to work on your entries, we will discuss your thoughts in class.)
Next we will look at the neweurasia.net site, focusing in particular on its interactive elements. As we talk about them, browse through the site, paying particular attention to:
- Commenting: Allowing users to post their thoughts directly on the weblog;
- “Pings” (a.k.a. “Trackbacks”): Similar to commenting, this is an automated system that posts a comment (with link) on a weblog anytime someone links to the original post;
- RSS/Syndication: Weblogs using syndication publish “feeds” that can be captured and republished either with “feed aggregators” or even published on another weblog;
- Group posting: Weblogs can be set up to give more than one person permission to post entries;
- Categories, search tools, etc: Use of categories and other tools makes it easier for visitors to manage, sort, and use information on a site.
Finally, we will look at some of these features in your WordPress weblogs.
Update: One important thing to be aware of is that one or another technology may provide users with the opportunity to interact more easily, but interaction also requires that users do a certain amount of work in order to actually be interactive. In other words, interactivity is influenced both by technical issues (i.e. is it technically possible to interact?) and by social issues (i.e. are users willing to do the work to interact? And are people who control a media outlet willing to allow users to interact?).
