Though an incredibly short and brief reading Pierre Lévy's piece on interactivity gives the reader a lot to take in, I personally read through it three times in a row and only now do I feel confident enough to write about it.
As Lévy wrote there are various forms of interactivity and in many cases people have confused or made a mistake in regards to what the term interactivity actually means. I myself have always had my own basic definition of interactivity, there are indeed different ways to define interactivity depending on context. Interacting with an object by picking it up is completely different to interacting with a person by talking to them. One is a one way interaction through touch and the other is a responsive interaction through speech and sound. Lévy simply defines interactivity as "the active participation of the beneficiary of an information transition." (Lévy, 226). Lévy wasn't wrong when he said his approach to the concept was problematic, at first it seems like he is over complicating the subject for no good reason but when read a second and even a third time I began to catch on to what he was saying. Interactivity and participation are split up into several different categories, one example of interactivity is the one way participation of the television and the television user. The television viewer has full access to the televisions features (channel switching, volume control etc) and the interactivity comes almost entirely from the viewer, not just does the viewer have full access to the televisions features but they can, as Lévy pointed out, make changes to the function of the television set. With simple additions we can add to our participation with the television even if the television can not participate itself. Participating with technological devices is unique because of how we are able to keep adding functions to the devices and change the behavior of them. We now have devices such as smart televisions that in many ways act very much like a computer or tablet device, obviously such things had not yet come around when Lévy wrote this piece but it is still in line his belief that digitization can enhance "opportunities for reappropriating and personalizing the message" (Lévy, 227). Some of the interactive features he envisioned such as choice of camera and the choice of commentators now exists for live events.
Lévy describes the telephone as "the paragon of an interactive medium" (Lévy, 227) but I'm not sure if I am in full agreement about that statement. The telephone is a good example of an interactive medium but I'm not sure if it can be regarded as the perfect example. I'm not referring to what the telephone doesn't have, it's weakness is not due to the lack of visionary feedback, the issue with the telephone (and most other forums of interactive communication media for that matter) is noise. Noise is the biggest flaw in the interactive model of the telephone. It is because of noise that people have to charge their dialect when using a telephone. Though not a major issue for land-line phone users mobile phone users have to deal with noise related issues often, this can range from a break in communication due to a poor phone signal or sound interference from the environment (wind, rain etc). The telephone is one of the best examples of interactive medium but I do not believe it is the paragon of an interactive medium.
The case of networked video games is also flawed but not because of weaknesses in the technology (it shares some of the same issues as the telephone admittedly) but because of the culture surrounding networked video games. For the most part networked video games have become incredibly impersonal and in some cases anti-social affairs. Then again Lévy is clearly talking about the idea of virtual reality games and not the type of games we have today. Regardless when applied to typical video games the original example only applies when playing games with friends. Most forms of network play though set you up to play with strangers. There are a list of issues associated with playing against strangers including anti-social behavior, discrimination, lack of communication, verbal abuse etc.
This problem is not exclusive to that one medium obviously, but with network communications the offender has a few factors working in their favour such as anonymity and the fact that tracking down such a person is unreasonable.
We can see that Lévy has taken a mathematical approach to this subject if we look at his table of interactivity and the page prior to it we can see that he has put together a system displaying the major groups of interactivity and when they would apply. If anything the table is a good quick reference guide when identifying the different communication systems.
In summary I feel like this topic could have possibly done with more information, it feels very much like it has only touched the service in regards to interactivity, then again interactivity is covered quite heavily in the Media Studies Digital Communication module so I should probably do some research in that area if I want to know more.
References:
Levy, P. (2001 [2011]) ‘Interactivity’ in The New Media and Technocultures Reader. Oxon: Routledge. Pp. 226-229.
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