Interactive Media?

Innovations in the media landscape led to a range of channels being labelled interactive. The birth of internet was the start but this term is now used to describe a range of media from mobile phones to video games. Brands now see interactivity as the thing to be participating in if you want any level of success. But didn’t traditional media have the capability to be interactive?

This all boils down to your definition of interactivity I guess. I see interactivity as dialogue or action between two or more people. In a similar way to Grunig and Hunt’s two-way symmetrical mode of communication, I think interactivity has to involve mutual negotiation and real evidence that both parties are listening. This can be achieved in traditional media. You can write a letter to journalists and editors of newspapers for example, and if it raises an important point it could be published and even commented upon. You may say that this is a rather awkward, convoluted and slow method of interactivity, but the capability is there.

The internet does facilitate interactivity, but it isn’t always used by brands who claim they are embracing it for these very qualities. Just because it’s online doesn’t make it interactive, so should the label used to describe these new media be changed? I don’t think they even need a label really...