16 Interactive Media

P. Jaisridhar

1. INTRODUCTION

Interactive media is the integration of digital media including combinations of electronic text, graphics, moving images, and sound, into a structured digital computerised environment that allows people to interact with the data for appropriate purposes. The digital environment can include the Internet, telecoms and interactive digital television. No wonder it is difficult for new entrants to understand. The important concepts to hold on to are ‘interactive’ and ‘media’ across a range of ‘delivery channels’ or ‘platforms’. There are many terms used to denote the interactive nature of digital applications—multimedia, new media and interactive design are common examples. Because the interactive sector has quickly evolved through phases, the terms have often been coined to reflect a phase that then gets surpassed. A quick historical overview will give the background that causes confusion for those joining the dynamic sector.

The word Multimedia used to have a specialist connotation for the audio-visual industry. Uses of multiple or mixed media in such analogue systems as slide shows or overhead projectors were known as ‘multimedia’. But this specialist use was superseded by the arrival of digital technology. Integrated digital media was termed interactive multimedia and usually shortened to plain multimedia for convenience. The need to differentiate between analogue (linear) and digital (interactive) uses of media spawned other terms like New Media and Digital Media. The term ‘New media’ carries its own problems as the media associated with the original term are replaced with newer instances of the ‘new’. Obsolescence is endemic in the interactive arena. However, the term remains in use although Digital Media and Interactive Media are more stable terms and are being used increasingly. The term Interactive Media highlights the interactive connotation that is a key characteristic of the difference between the older style media and the new. ‘Social media’ has evolved to describe the more recent success of digital social sites such as Facebook and MySpace, and would include the phenomenon of mobile texting, especially twitter.

The success of these built on the social aspects of ‘blogs’ on the Internet. The more recent social sites are interactive but even the denotation of interactivity has become ‘accepted’ and dropped so that social media with its inherent interactivity is considered the norm. When the Web quickly became the largest hardware platform, and development for it became the most common form of interactive development, the emphasis on ‘media’ was dropped in a similar way. This may have been because the capacity for using media other than text on the Web was limited at that time. Skill sets such as Web Design, and Web Development came to the fore and these more specific terms overshadowed the more general terms like Digital Media and Interactive Media. The irony is that ‘multimedia’ was the preferred term used by telecommunications companies because when they entered the interactive arena they did not have any previous use of the term and did not find it confusing. That has changed now. The term ‘apps’ meaning ‘applications’ has taken over since the development of ‘apps’ for mobile phones and has been popularised amongst the whole use community, rather than just being used by some programmers as a shorthand. In the wider technological context, terms like ICT (Information and Communications Technologies— favoured in the education sector), the Digital Revolution, and Convergence began to be used in an attempt to define the pervasive changes that interactive technologies were causing within traditional business sectors. They were used in a strategic way, since as soon as a particular delivery channel is mentioned—DVD, iTV, Web or mobile for example—the emphasis shifts from trends to specific forms of production. This shift in perspective is important because it explains why some people see connections across forms of digital media and skill sets while others only relate to a particular area of specialism.

2. Interactive media as a tool for:

2.1. Early childhood programmes

Young children live in a world of interactive media. They are growing up at ease with digital devices that are rapidly becoming the tools of the culture at home, at school, at work, and in the community (Kerawalla& Crook 2002; Calvert et al. 2005; National Institute for Literacy 2008; Buckleitner 2009; Lisenbee 2009; Berson&Berson 2010; Chiong& Shuler 2010; Couse & Chen 2010; Rideout, Lauricella, &Wartella 2011). Technology tools for communication, collaboration, social networking, and user-generated content have transformed mainstream culture. In particular, these tools have transformed how parents and families manage their daily lives and seek out entertainment, how teachers use materials in the classroom with young children and communicate with parents and families, and how we deliver teacher education and professional development (Rideout, Vandewater, &Wartella 2003; Roberts &Foehr 2004; Rideout& Hamel 2006; Rideout 2007; Foundation for Excellence in Education 2010; Gutnick et al. 2010; Barron et al. 2011; Jackson 2011a, 2011b; Wahi et al. 2011). The pace of change is so rapid that society is experiencing a disruption almost as significant as when there was a shift from oral language to print literacy, and again when the printing press expanded access to books and the printed word. The shift to new media literacies and the need for digital literacy that encompasses both technology and media literacy will continue to shape the world in which young children are developing and learning (Linebarger& Piotrowski 2009; Flewitt 2011; Alpern.d.). The prevalence of electronic media in the lives of young children means that they are spending an increasing number of hours per week in front of and engaged with screens of all kinds, including televisions, computers, smartphones, tablets, handheld game devices, and game consoles (Common Sense Media 2011). The distinction among the devices, the content, and the user experience has been blurred by multitouch screens and movement-activated technologies that detect and respond to the child’s movements. With guidance, these various technology tools can be harnessed for learning and development; without guidance, usage can be inappropriate and/or interfere with learning and development.

Several professional and public health organizations and child advocacy groups concerned with child development and health issues such as obesity have recommended that passive, non-interactive technology and screen media not be used in early childhood programs and that there be no screen time for infants and toddlers. The Early Childhood Obesity Prevention Policies (Birch, Parker, & Burns 2011) recommend that child care settings limit screen time including television, videos, digital media, video games, mobile media, cell phones, and the Internet for pre-schoolers (age 2 through 5) to fewer than 30 minutes per day for children in half-day programs or less than one hour per day for those in full-day programs. The report further encourages professionals to work with parents to limit screen time to fewer than two hours per day for children age 2 through 5. These recommendations to limit children’s exposure to screen time are related to two factors potentially contributing to early childhood obesity: the food and beverage marketing that children may experience when they are watching television or interacting with other media and the amount of overall screen time to which they are exposed. The Let’s Move! Child Care initiative recommends that caregivers allow no screen time for children under 2 years of age. For children 2 and older, caregivers are encouraged to limit screen time to no more than 30 minutes per week during child care, and parents and caregivers are advised to work together to limit children to one to two hours of quality screen time per day. Early childhood educators need to be aware of all these concerns and understand the critical role that they as educators play in mediating technology and media use and screen time for young children.

2.1.1. Principles of Interactive Media as a tool in childhood programmes

There are several principles framed under the appropriate use of technology and interactive media as a tool in early childhood programs serving children from birth through age eight. These principles are as follows,

1. The use of technology tools and interactive media should not harm children

2. Developmentally appropriate practices must guide decisions about whether and whether to integrate technology and interactive media into early childhood programs.

3. Professional judgement is required to determine if and when a specific use of technology or media is age appropriate, individually appropriate and culturally and linguistically appropriate.

4. Appropriate teaching practices must always guide the selection of any classroom materials including technology and interactive media.

5. Appropriate use of technology and media depends on the age, developmental level, needs, interests, linguistic background and abilities of each child.

6. Effective use of technology and media are active hands-on, engaging and empowering, give the child control, provide adaptive scaffolds to ease the accomplishment of tasks and are used as one of many options to support child learning.

7. Interaction with technology and media should be playful and support creativity, exploration pretend play, active play and outdoor activities.

8. Technology tools and interactive media should help educator connect home and school.

9.Digital literacy is essential to guide early childhood educators and parents in the selection, use, integration and evaluation of technology and interactive media.

10.Assistive technology must be implemented in Interactive Medias to provide equitable access to children with special needs.

2.2. Farm sector

Social media and ICTs are starting to demonstrate their potential for the co-creation, co-documentation and co-distribution of information and advice on farm practices. This potential lays both in their power as enabling media tools and as symbols for open and collaborative ways of working. This potential is timely given the retrenchment of public agriculture extension services over the last decades. The risk perhaps would be in trying to fill the gap left by the extension officer to exactly and missing the opportunities for innovative reworking of what farmer capacity development could be.

The concept of global village is soon becoming a reality with new media defining the way we look at the world. Interactive Media as a new form of digital communication technology has emerged with an E- Superhighway beginning to girdle the globe as voice, video and data converge. New technologies are gaining wide acceptance due to several advantages like,

a)Interactivity& Immediacy

b)Demassification & narrowcasting (customization, segmentation, and individualization leading to narrowcasting).

c)Asynchrony (the exchange of data, figures, and conversation takes place on a real time basis, without the presence of all the participants. Example videoconferencing).

d)User friendly and Ease of updating

e)Time saving and Cost Effective

Convergence is today a reality and India is fast waking up to the digital era, re-shaping the way the individuals and organizations produce, process, market, collaborate and share information.

3. Conclusion

The spread of computers, combined with the success of the CD-ROM format, started a process of consolidation. As prices became affordable and computer literacy increased because of wider general use of the computer within businesses, the use of computers for leisure, games, reference, training, general education and home-based education increased accordingly. The successful games sector grew. Driven by its particular needs and audience, it formed a stable and lucrative market. It needed specialised hardware to provide the speed, quality and media versatility in the form of games machines like the Playstation, Nintendo and X-Box. The younger market continues to demand constant media innovation and interaction. Games developers respond to this market need. They work in an intense, creative, high-tech industry which has more in common with the music business than with information technology. Their methods of defining a product and their methods of production differ from many other parts of the industry accordingly. The creativity and intensity of the gaming environment had its spin off in the film industry where digital animation effects have grown tremendously now culminating in 3D digital animation films such as Avatar and Thor. Meanwhile, although CD-ROMs appeared to promise the emergence of a market substantial enough to splinter into healthy industry segments, the World Wide Web spread faster, overtook CD ROMs and established itself as the first global, accessible, affordable, computerised hardware and software solution. Businesses and the public were happy to sacrifice interactive media components in return for access to (at the time) mainly text-based information such as instant news, electronic mail, reference data and archive material among others. As bandwidth improved and there was faster access to the Internet, the integration of graphics, audio and film became easier. This World Wide Web experience proved to be the ground work for the take-up of mobile interactivity and the platforms such as the iPhone and Blackberry allowed access to people for information on the move: such devices being more like pocket computers than telephones.

Because there are many people involved across all sections of the information industries, media and computer programming together with telecommunications and broadcasting, it is difficult to take an overview. It used to be that each represented a minority within its own sector. Online training development was seen as part of the traditional training specialism although it embraced new skills, production methods and business models. Interactive broadcasting fulfilled the same function for the broadcast industry. Online editing of web site content was the new branch of journalism and publishing. Interactive law, interactive graphics, interactive health and so on followed the same pattern. They shared the important characteristic of being interactive change agents within their areas. Now, the digital revolution has quietly pervaded all business areas and specialisms. It is integrated into each role. All people are expected to have a basic mastery of using interactive media platforms for their jobs. Many need to learn how to use more specialist applications within their work. More people in management roles are expected to be able to direct, co-ordinate, conceive and manage the development or updates to digital programs through internal or external teams. The digital revolution has affected all facets of life. Each of the specialisms had a digital inroad created by the change agents. But one of the key characteristics of change is that it causes resistance from the traditionalists. They can delay change and even stifle it by building barriers. They tend to have the upper-hand in influence within their own sector and even higher levels such as government and other administrations. Their traditional mindsets work, often unconsciously, against the new ways of thinking that don’t fit into what have become the accepted categories.

Interactive Media is a dynamic environment that is affecting everyone from those directly involved to those who have to manage it and those who use it. It is not going to go away but it may well change its shape and form as it has in the past: from fixed to mobile, limited media to rich media, limited interaction to real time interaction. There will be new markets to create and old market segments to revamp and build up. There will be new challenges for developers and designers with the still emerging interactive mobile and broadband technologies.

Web links

1. Barron, B., G. Cayton-Hodges, L. Bofferding, C. Copple, L. Darling- Hammond, & M.H. Levine. 2011. Take a Giant Step: A Blueprint forTeaching Young Children in a Digital Age. New York: Joan Ganz Cooney Centre at Sesame Workshop. www.joanganzcooneycenter.org/Reports-31.html
2. Berson, I.R., & M.J. Berson, eds. 2010. High-Tech Tots: Childhood in a Digital World. Charlotte, NC: Information Age Publishing