Blog post #10 for Monday’s reading on April 20, 2020

Reading Summary

In Chapter 8 of Greg Smith’s book “What Media Classes Really Want to Discuss”, the existence of interactivity within media is discussed. Smith argues that there is no such thing as passive media. That all viewers are active viewers and that this is shown through how people react to things such as television shows. There also is the interactivity concept that a media source is interactive or not interactive, but that isn’t an accurate way to describe media since media morphs. It also isn’t accurate because no one views the media in the theoretical way. An example of theoretical would be a completely silent theater to watch a movie, but in reality you have people coughing or laughing or making some noise. Regardless of what it is, there is a different reality of how the media is experienced for every viewer. This also can lead to a Blair system of sorts for each medium. There is a common thought that books are more intellectual, but this comes from valuing spatial imagination more than other intellectual thoughts. 

There are strong designed media spaces, which are created and have a planned pay off such as video games, and there are weak designs such as blogs or chat rooms that have no planning or planned pay off. The thing is that in a video game world, the actions are limited to what the creator has intended. The reality of a video game is limited in its interactivity. While interactivity is a part of what makes video games enjoyable, it is not the only reason and may not even be the primary reason. It is the choice that interactivity gives that helps new media develop and advance. 

Outside Example 

The best example I can think of is a Bear Grylls show that’s on Netflix called “You vs Wild”. In this show there is a plot line that is set up to where Bear Grylls is somehow in the wild somewhere and you have to direct him on how to accomplish some goal (getting to safety, delivering essential medicine, finding a criminal, etc). You, the viewer, get to pick what Grylls does in a cut scene that happens about every 3 minutes in the show. There are always two options during the cut scenes. 

Trailer for show: https://youtu.be/pwcr3cc0LZM

Reading Connection

First off, I personally found this show terrible. The choice you make always has a dumb result. An example is there was a choice of how to get over a crevasse. The choices were swing on a vine or climb over a log. I chose to go over the log. Grylls got mid way across the log and started bouncing on the log say “wow this is really sketchy” and then there was a cut and he was on the ground at the bottom of the crevasse. It was cringe. I now realize the reason I hated this was because of the interactivity. While the show gave me choices with how interactive the cut scenes were, the way these choices were carried out by Grylls was still out of my control. It still was frustrating just how little control I had of this show, despite having more interactivity than a regular tv show would normally have.