Interactivity is the bee's knees

Interactivity is defined in numerous ways through the readings and deciding on just one is quite the challenge. The report by Kiousis states that "While most implied and explicit definitions of interactivity in communication concentrate on the technological and communication context aspects of the concepts, other studies see it as a perception." When thinking of interactivity I immediately think of the internet but it is important to consider the definitions outside of technological communication as well (thankfully we will concentrate on the technological communication sense tonight). The term is broad enough to be used in multiple areas that we can luckily group into a communication sense and a non communication sense. Interactivity is defined by Kiousis as "The degree to which a communication technology can create a mediated environment in which participants can communicate (one to one, one to many, and many to many) both synchronously and asynchronously and participate in reciprocal message exchanges." This is definition that I most agree with in the technological sense but since there are so many I like this one for being more broad than the rest. The other readings include various definitions but I found the study by Downes and McMillan to be interesting in the fact that most people believed that interactivity was occurring even when the communication was one way. People and companies believing their sites to be interactive when it is merely an online brochure stuck out to me and helped me decide on a personal definition of interactivity.

My personal definition that I have gathered from the readings is that interactivity is the feedback that is a consequence of the user either through their options chosen or requests made that allow for a custom made experience of communication on different levels.

The best example of this is from the article The Long Tail. I found this article fascinating as I frequently find myself wishing for sites with collaborative filtering when purchasing things online. Amazon has made it increasingly easy for me to log on with the intention of buying one book, and logging out with five. By studying and filtering my search terms and viewing history, the site becomes custom made for me and recommends other books I would like of similar taste. Without the theory of long tail I may have never seen some of my favorite movies, listened to some of my now favorite bands, or read my last book.