Monday – Chapter 8, What Media Classes Really Want to Discuss

READING SUMMARY

Interactivity has no set definition and its ‘definition’ is constantly changing, but media is considered either interactive or passive. Smith, though, argues that no media is truly passive. Rather than defining media as either passive or interactive, Smith chooses to separate media into a different two categories: “the kinds of things people do with media and the kind of activities a medium seems to encourage” (Smith 138). There are meta-messages that tell us (society) how to watch movies and television; we are supposed to watch things a certain way. With interactive media, the user is in control and has choices about what they’re doing. Interactive media may require little physical activity and more mental activity. Interactivity is also labeled based on the “highbrow/lowbrow status of the media’s content,” where mental and physical are blurred; a famous television show is considered ‘better’ and ‘higher-brow’ than a video game (Smith 141). The idea of spatial imagination is important for interactivity. Media spaces are also divided into strongly and weakly designed spaces. Strongly designed spaces, like video games and television shows, give audiences similar experiences. Weakly designed spaces, like chat rooms online, are not as compelling and depend on user content. In a strongly designed space like a video game, characters and physical items are both considered ‘objects’. The player asks what they can do to the object, how it will respond, and what the object can do for them. Narrational interactivity, meaning changing the perspectives on action, the series of events, and the sequence of events, increases the complexity of interactive media.

OUTSIDE EXAMPLE

When I was a kid, I loved reading and would spend all day with a book sometimes. My brother, on the other hand, liked video games and hated reading. When I was reading, my mother wouldn’t get annoyed that I wasn’t doing anything or moving at all, but she’d demand my brother to stop playing so many video games. If he spent all day in his room online, she’d bother him for doing nothing, but me reading a book was different. Smith discusses why reading is seen as better than television and video games in Chapter 8 of What Media Classes Really Want to Discuss, explaining why my mother never bothered me for reading all day but pestered my brother to shut down the video games.

READING CONNECTION

Smith explains the difference between “highbrow” and “lowbrow status of media’s content” (Smith 141). Reading is seen as highbrow, as it requires more mental activity, and media values “our ability to imagine spaces,” or spatial imagination (Smith 141). People create the worlds of books in their heads, acting everything out mentally, which is a very powerful interaction. Reading, therefore, is considered better than television and video games, as it requires so much imagination. My mother understood this, and let me read all day in my room sometimes when I had a good book, unbothered. However, Smith also asks “what about the process of predicting what will happen next in a film/television narrative?” (Smith 141). The video games my brother played also required some amount of mental activity, and the television shows we all watched made us think and wonder what would happen next. The idea of interactivity with imagination and mental activity is greatly debated, and Smith discusses the many points of view with this issue.