Interactive: Understanding Interactivity

To get a better concept of what interactivity actually means I have begun to seek out the source of “interactivity” and why we as human beings require it.

In ancient times, through interactive play, people would “…learn how to coordinate manoeuvres and how to strategise. People played games for these purposes alone. (Miller, unknown Pg 8)
One could therefore say that this might be one of the reasons as to why we like playing interactive games nowadays. Once we learn how to manoeuvre and strategise our way through various tasks throughout our lives we instantly receive a sense of accomplishment. This alone is reason for the large success of interactive games nowadays.
It was not only games and storytelling that are believed to be the precursors of modern interactive entertainment, but religious rituals also. Together “they help to define some of the critical components required to create satisfying interactivity”. (Miller, Unknown, pg 14)
There are also a number of well respected writers and artists who can be said to have an influence on what is meant by interaction. William S Burroughs took his audience by storm when he launched his “cut up” works, where he would take text in “which he cut into fragments which reassembled in a different order. He believed that these rearrangements enabled new meanings to emerge”. (Miller, Unknown, pg 12)
As for the exceptional modern author James Joyce, many now believe his novels to be a pioneer of digital hypertext. (Miller, Unknown, pg 12)

Nowadays, it is easy for us to forget the practice with which the verb “interact” was once used. “To interact simply meant to relate on multiple levels to others. It implied a kind of group dynamic that one would foster in the classroom or meeting sessions…influencing each other…people working together”.(Marshall, 2004, Pg 14 )
That use to be the meaning of the term “interactive” up until the age of New Media. Now the term has evolved. “New media is interactive. In contrast to old media where the order of presentation is fixed, the user can now interact with a media object. In the process of interaction the user can choose which elements to display or which paths to follow, thus generating a unique work. In this way the user becomes the co-author of the work.”(Manovich, 2002, unknown)
Therefore one can say that interactivity entails a sense of empowerment for the user, where they acquire a sense of control over the amount of time they spend and the information with which they choose to engage in. When someone surfs the web it is unspecified and unpredictable except by the user themselves. Hence control is given to the user. This can be challenged however as this “interactivity implies only apparent control”. (Marshall, 2004, Pg 16)


- Miller, Carolyn H, “Interactivty Storytelling: A Brief History”
- Marshall, P. David. New media Cultures. London: Arnold press, 2004
- Manovich, L. The Language of New Media. unknown