Lecture 1 notes, Theories and Interpretation of Interactive Media, introductory course by professor Frans Mäyrä

1. Theories and interpretation of
interactive media /
Vuorovaikutteisen median
teoriat ja tulkinta
Frans Mäyrä
Professor of hypermedia,
esp. digital culture and game studies
University of Tampere, Hypermedia Laboratory
frans.mayra@uta.fi

2. Lecture course schedule,
Autumn 2007
• Mon 29.10. - quot;Mainframe / dataquot;: Approaches to information
technology as particular kind of tool and medium
• Mon 5.11. - quot;PC / communicationquot;: Theories of computer mediated
communication
• Mon 12.11. - quot;Web / networkingquot;: Theories of Internet and World
Wide Web
• Tue 20.11. (note date change!) - quot;Transformation / new mediaquot;: How
to conceptualise the media change?
• Mon 26.11. - quot;Laptop / ubiquityquot;: Approaches to omnipresent IT
• Mon 3.12. - quot;iPhone / convergencequot;: Interpreting the ongoing fusion
• Mon 10.12. - Final Exam (lopputentti)
Locations: Mon 29.10.-10.12. at 14-16 ls. 4113 (PinniB),
Note change of place: in 3.12. & 10.12. ls. 3116 (PinniB)
Course blog: http://newmediatheory.wordpress.com/

3. Aims of course
• P2 Theories and Interpretation of Interactive Media is an
introductory, theory-oriented course designed to give an
overview of central theories and interpretation models which
will help in understanding interactive media
• It is also possible to participate in book exam or write essays -
those are alternative ways to this lecture series & lecture
exam
• In lecture series active participation to lectures is required
(max. two missed lectures) and passed final exam
• If unable to participate regularly to lectures, essay writing is
an alternative (contact teacher for details)

4. Today: two parts
1. General introduction and theories of media,
identity and power
2. “Mainframe / data”: Approaches to information
technology as particular kind of tool and medium

5. 1) General introduction and
theories of media, identity and
power

6. What is a theory?
• As thought constructions, scientific or scholarly theories are
different from unsubstantiated speculation:
– they form logically self-consistent models or wholes
– they are related to facts
– theories can be tested by scientific community or they can
be fruitfully used by others in academic work
• In natural sciences theories are generally supported by
experimental evidence
• In humanities and social sciences good theories can be useful
by providing fresh viewpoints, even if they cannot be
empirically verified

7. Theories discussed in this
course
• This course is discussing hypermedia (hypertext + multimedia),
which covers wide and expanding range of interactive, digital
forms of media and technology
• The perspective is socio-cultural, meaning that interest here is
not in how things work, but on what they mean, how they are
used, and what they might become
• Main theories are related to digital culture, media studies,
communication theory and information society studies, as far
as they discuss hypermedia
• Particular focus on Web Studies and Game Studies, as Internet
and games are two most popular forms of hypermedia today

8. Cultural Studies
• Cultural Studies is an interdisciplinary, critical movement
originating in the UK (Birmingham Centre for Contemporary
Cultural Studies, CCCS, founded in 1964)
• Focus on cultural practices and their relation to power
• Based on Marxist theories, e.g. cultural hegemony (by Antonio
Gramsci, 1891-1937) which posits culture as an instrument of
political control
• Aims to cross divide between theory and action by being
ethically and politically committed

9. Agency
• A central concept in various Cultural Studies theories, agency
is often related to the critical and active capabilities of
individuals
• Within study of popular culture, for example, studies of active
audiences have pointed out that rather than blindly accepting
its stereotypes, people are actively using popular culture
• Fan (sub)cultures and creative or transgressive uses of games
are examples of active agency in action
• Within sociology, it is debated whether individuals are free in
their actions, or determined by social structures such as their
ethnicity, social class, gender or religion

10. Identity & Power
• Psychology and sociology have many theories of
identity
• Psychological identity often concerns self-image
• Sociology often focuses on social roles, as e.g. in
Erwin Goffman’s theory of frames (individuals
interpret situation and modify their thoughts and
actions to fit that particular frame)
• Identity has become a central concept to Web and
Internet studies, as identity experimentation,
creation and empowerment are seen as interrelated

11. Social Construction of Reality
• Famous work by Peter L. Berger and Thomas Luckmann (Social
Construction of Reality, 1966)
• Theorises the relation of individual and social structures as
dialectical: society forms individuals, and individuals form
society, in continuous dialectic manner
• Humans are being constructed through language, as our most
important sign system
• Human socio-cultural and socio-psychological formations are
maintained and evolve through our use of language
• “Society is a human product. Society is an objective reality.
Man is a social product.” (Ibid., 61.)

12. Media Studies
• Classic ‘magic bullet’ theory of media was based on
direct transmission of message as a ‘media effect’
from sender to receiver
• Later more attention was paid to the encoding and
decoding parts of the media communication process
• The one-way movement of message was further
questioned as interpretations were realised to be
important for any construction of meaning
• A cultural view of media can be based on ritual
view of media and communication
Images, source: Michael R. Real, Exploring Media Culture: A Guide. Sage, 1996, p. 8.

13. Other theories/approaches
important for hypermedia studies
• Media Ecology (Marshall McLuhan etc.)
• Computer-Mediated Communication
• Virtual Communities, Online Social Networks
• Cyberpsychology, Cybersociology
• Digital Literacy, Media Education, eLearning
• Virtual Ethnography
• Game Studies, Ludology
• Design Research, Media Art Studies
• Cybertext Studies, Hypertext Studies

14. 2) “Mainframe / data”:
Approaches to information
technology as particular kind
of tool and medium

15. What is Information
Technology (IT)?
• Information Technology Association of America (ITAA) says: IT
is “the study, design, development, implementation, support
or management of computer-based information systems,
particularly software applications and computer hardware”
• Computers are electronic machines that are capable of
manipulating and storing data, according to instructions, in
numeric form
• As many sorts of information can be represented in numeric
(digital) form, IT concerns words, images, music, videos,
libraries, banks, shopping, chatting, gaming… and war
• Virtually all human activities can be touched or affected by IT
in a contemporary, technological society

16. Early theories of computing
• Mostly embedded in the history of calculation,
mathematics and engineering
• Alan Turing: “On Computable Numbers, with an
Application to the Entscheidungsproblem”
(submitted on 28 May 1936) Turing machines,
abstract symbol manipulating devices that are
capable to solve any mathematical problem
• John von Neumann: “First Draft of a Report on the
EDVAC” (June 30, 1945) von Neumann
architecture, principle of stored-program computer

17. Key concept: Mainframe
• When computing is understood in terms of mainframes, or
large data processing systems, they support different
conceptualisations and socio-cultural roles for IT than e.g.
personal computers
• Typically mainframes (large server computers) are not directly
manipulated by end users but rather remain at the care of
professionals
• User interface is thus not traditionally a key concern
• Mainframes supported access through various (distant)
terminals, often in text only mode, limiting their media use
• The server “ideology” is based on maxims such as “Reliability,
Availability and Serviceability” (RAS, by IBM)

18. Interactive text and data
• Key feature of computer is that it can change its internal
states and output on basis of its programming and input, such
as commands or data entered by humans
• When humans are interfacing with computers, it is called
interactive computing (cf. non-interactive computing in
embedded systems etc.)
• Interactivity of computer can have multiple degrees, ranging
from simple (push-button) responsiveness to highly interactive
games, or even interaction approaching level of social
interaction (cf. social interaction through computer networks)
• Most early computing data consisted of numbers (military
data, census data, business data), later text expanded greatly
the social and cultural value of computers as media

19. Early theories
of hypermedia 1
• Vannevar Bush: “As We May Think” (The Atlantic Monthly, July 1945)
device linked to a microfilm library, presenting many ideas of
hypertext, including associative linking, commenting and adding
• The idea was to have information technology modeling the operation
of human mind:
– The human mind does not work that way [with hierarchical
indexes]. It operates by association. With one item in its grasp, it
snaps instantly to the next that is suggested by the association of
thoughts, in accordance with some intricate web of trails carried
by the cells of the brain. It has other characteristics, of course;
trails that are not frequently followed are prone to fade, items
are not fully permanent, memory is transitory. Yet the speed of
action, the intricacy of trails, the detail of mental pictures, is
awe-inspiring beyond all else in nature.
Quote source: http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/194507/bush/4

20. Early theories
of hypermedia 2
• Ted (Theodor) Nelson: “Complex information processing: a file
structure for the complex, the changing and the indeterminate”
(1965)
– Let me introduce the word “hypertext” to mean a body of
written or pictorial material interconnected in such a complex
way that it could not conveniently be presented or represented
on paper. It may contain summaries, or maps of its contents and
their interrelations; it may contain annotations, additions and
footnotes from scholars who have examined it. Let me suggest
that such an object and system, properly designed and
administered, could have great potential for education,
increasing the student’s range of choices, his sense of freedom,
his motivation, and his intellectual grasp. Such a system could
grow indefinitely, gradually including more and more of the
world’s written knowledge.
• Hypermedia in general involves all non-linear, linked digital media
Quoted from the original paper, retrieved through http://portal.acm.org/

21. Theorising hypertext
• As literary theory moved from structuralist to
poststructuralist theories, it emphasised the role of
textuality over that of traditional work
• As discussed by Roland Barthes, Jacques Derrida
etc., text is open, multiple and endlessly branching
network of signifiers
• George P. Landow has equated this view of text to
the actual operation of hypertext
• Key consequences: reconfiguration of text, author,
reading & writing, narrative, education and politics
Source: George P. Landow (1997) Hypertext 2.0. Baltimore & London: Johns Hopkins Press.

22. Reconfiguration of text
• Text becomes “machine for production of meaning”
• Text can be approached from multiple starting
points
• There is no single definite endpoint where reading
should stop
• The boundaries of text become problematic
• There might be links to dynamic, changing content
elsewhere, leading to completely “borderless text”

23. Reconfiguration of author
• Related to deconstruction of single, autonomous authorship,
and even subjectivity itself
• The “writing self” can be interpreted as a function of text,
itself consisting of (or being determined by) network of other
texts
• Comparable to divine/demonic possession: other voices are
speaking through my words
• In hypertext systems, any word, sign or sequence can be (even
automatically) linked to multiple other texts, pointing out the
often unexpected or unintended meanings “my text” will
always carry with it
• In other sense, collaborative text like wikis make common the
idea of multiple authorship

24. Reconfiguration of
reading & writing
• Each individual instance of reading may approach the creative
act of writing
• While actively navigating through the ‘hyper-space’ of
interlinked resources, reader effectively writes a new text
• Authors may assist particular ways of navigating by indexes,
overviews, tables of content
• Readers may save their own bookmarks to track the trail of
their movement in text
• Automatic tracking of multiple readers’ actions can develop
into entire social filtering or recommendation systems (hot-
lists, user profiling, as e.g. in Amazon.com bookshop)

25. Reconfiguration of narrative
• Authors like Michael Joyce and Stuart Moulthrop aimed at
hypertextual novels that could be read in multiple ways
• Rooted in literary, modernist experimentation, e.g. Vladimir
Nabokov and James Joyce have moved beyond traditional
narrative form
• Reader might be able to reconfigure/connect narrative events
in multiple ways, producing fluid, complex experiences among
the endlessly recreated narratives
• In popular culture, the favourite form of interactive fiction
have been the text based adventure games (e.g. Colossal Cave
Adventure, 1976-77; Zork, 1977-79), cf. Choose Your Own
Adventure gamebooks

26. Reconfiguration of education
• Hypertext and hypermedia in education is related to so-called
eLearning
• Some of the power and authority of instructor can be
transferred to students
• Students are provided with access to original documents and
they become active in construction of knowledge, while
setting up their own products
• Suitable in distance education and virtual learning
environments
• Much of hypertext’s benefits are actually those of
collaborative or problem-based learning

27. Reconfiguration of politics
• Technology is not necessarily inherently progressive or
conservative in itself (‘technological neutrality’ vs.
‘technological/media determinism’)
• Marshall McLuhan & Walter Ong: technologies are not neutral,
but related to transformations of human thinking,
communicating, culture and society oral culture, culture of
writing, culture of hypermedia?
• Technology always empowers some group, at some cost
what is the politics of hypermedia, the ‘message of the
medium’ (McLuhan)?
• Generally democratic, even anarchist tendencies built in?

28. Information wants to be free
• Stewart Brand at the first Hackers' Conference in 1984:
information wants to be free, but it also wants to be expensive
(since its value)
• Made the motto of free content movement
• Aims to have no significant legal restrictions on freedom to
use, produce and redistribute any creative content
• Major proponents: Copyleft licenses (e.g. GNU General Public
License), Creative Commons, Open Source Software, Free
Culture Movement, Open Content Alliance, Piratpartiet &
Piratbyrån (Sweden)

29. Computer revolution?
• The early views on access to computers and data have
developed into major discussions on identity, privacy,
democracy, human rights and the future direction of
arts, culture and society
• Notable early texts worth reading include:
– Ted Nelson, Computer Lib/Dream Machines (1974;
see
http://www.digibarn.com/collections/books/comput
er-lib/)
– People’s Computer Company Newsletters (1972-78;
see
http://www.digibarn.com/collections/newsletters/p
eoples-computer/)