Task 5: "Interactivity. Tracking a New Concept in Media and Communication Studies." A review.

The article chosen for the review at hand, is titled „Interactivity - Tracking a New Concept in Media and Communication Studies." It's written by Jens F. Jensen in 1998, so it’s not very recent. Although the article lacks novelty, it most certainly provides an insight on when and how the term "interactivity" was first coined and what lies beneath this ambiguous word.

Newsweek was correct in 1993 when they commented on the new hype and suggested that it's a "zillion dollar industry." The predictions were correct as well - an interactive life will indeed put the world at your fingertips. Or mine for that matter.

The term interactivity was described as follows:

a huge amount of information available to anyone at the touch of a button, everything from airline schedules to esoteric scientific journals to video versions of off-off-off Broadway. Watching a movie won’t be a passive experience. At various points, you’ll click on alternative story lines and create your individualized version of “Terminator XII”. Consumers will send as well as receive all kinds of data ... Video camera owners could record news they see and put it on the universal network ... Viewers could select whatever they wanted just by pushing a button ... Instead of playing rented tapes on their VCRs, ... [the customers] may be able to call up a movie from a library of thousands through a menu displayed on the TV. Game fanatics maybe able to do the same from another electronic library filled with realistic video versions of arcade shoot-’em-ups ... (Newsweek, 1993:38).

What it means, is that roughly 20 years ago, industry professionals were able to predict the future. All of the above has become a reality.

Jensen suggests that interactivity is a "media studies blind spot." Back in 1990s none of the handbooks in the field of communication had listed the term. A shift in the paradigm had occured, but the discourse had remained unchanged. Jensen goes on to explain how interactivity can be categorized and perceived, thus providing a structure necessary for the conteporary discourse in new and interactive media.