The Rhetoric of Interactivity: Breaking Down the Problem

Interactivity is a key word in current discussions of media, and an apparently defining aspect of new digital media. As such, the term raises many issues for media theorists, teachers and students. A difficulty for those who are new to the area is that the issues are often bound up in an unfamiliar terminology. Furthermore, this terminology is used to point to new technologies or techniques that have yet to gain widespread understanding. In this article, Steven Maras breaks interactivity down into a set of related key terms. Cutting through the mystique of interactivity in this way, it is surprising how often interactivity breaks down into other issues that can often be quite familiar to students of communication and older media.