lO M oARcPSD| 3930586
Samenvatting interactive media & entertainment
Interactive Media & Entertainment (Universiteit Gent)
StuDocu wordt niet gesponsord of ondersteund door een hogeschool of universiteit
1
, lO M oARcPSD| 3930586
INTERACTIVE MEDIA & ENTERTAINMENT
1. INTRODUCTION
• Interactive media and entertainment
‘’The use of interactive platforms for entertainment purposes’’
o ENTERTAINMENT
▪ = Form of activity that holds the attention and interest of an audience, that gives
pleasure and delight
▪ Forms:
• Exhibition entertainment (museums, fairs)
• Live entertainment (comedy, opera…)
• Media entertainment (film, tv, music…) !!!
▪ Can have serious purpose:
• Achieving insight, intellectual growth…
▪ Used for pragmatic goals
• Advertise and promote
• Teach and train
• Inform
o INTERACTIVE MEDIA
▪ = Media that allow for interactivity with the audience
• Inter: between, implying a two-way exchange (dialogue)
• Active: doing something, being involved/engaged in the activity
➔ Active relationship between the audience and the medium content
➔ Digital media (via computer, programmed)!
▪ Different way of relating to medium content
• Passively enjoying → traditional media
o Watching, listening…
• Interactively enjoying
o Become a participant
o Control what happens
▪ TYPES OF INTERACTIVITY:
• Cognitive interactivity
o Interpretative participation (ex. In story, thinking about it)
• Functional interactivity
o Utilitarian use (ex. Tv remote control)
• Explicit interactivity !!!
o Exerting influence on shaping media content (ex. Following
hyperlinks, playing a video game)
• Beyond-the-object interactivity
o Interacting with media outside the content itself (ex.
participating in fan culture, fan communities, create fan art)
2
, lO M oARcPSD| 3930586
• Interactive media & entertainment
o Very young, only coming into being in the mid-twentieth century with the development of
computer technology
o Still growing & evolving
o Vast field
• Internet & social media ; mobile devices & apps ; interactive tv; smart toys & robots; digital games;
augmented & virtual reality
• Interactive media: offers audience two gifts
o Ability to control aspects of the medium content → agency
o Ability to make choices and see the result of those choices
➔ each user in control of his own path through the material
➔ interactivity can’t truly be a mass audience experience
INTERACTIVE MEDIA AND ENTERTAINMENT: FIELDS OF STUDY
• COMMUNICATION SCIENCES
o Digital communication takes over most areas of traditional communication (bv. e-mail)
o Rise of new forms of interactive media (bv. social media, VR)
o Divisions with specific focus (ICA: International Communication Association):
▪ Communication and technology (CAT)
• Search about roles played by information and communication
technologies in the processes of human communication
▪ Game studies
• Study of games and the game experience
• Multidisciplinary approaches
▪ Information systems
• Concerned with information, language and cognitive systems
• Include: studies of information flows, human interface with
communication technology and life in an information society
• RESEARCH FIELD
Multidisciplinary research field
o Important areas (situated at the intersection of computer sciences, engineering, design,
psychology, media studies…):
▪ Human-computer interaction (HCI)
• Focus on the design and use of computer technology
o Interfaces between users and computers
o Methods and theories with regards to
▪ Designing new computer interfaces + optimizing the
design of existing computer interfaces
• Learnability, findability, efficiency of use …
▪ Usability and user experience
▪ Human-computer use and sociocultural implications
▪ Media and entertainment studies
• Focus on the content, history and effects of media (digital and interactive
media)
o psychological effects (neg: addiction; pos: problem-solving)
o motivations for media use
o gender studies
o community buildings
o entertainment-education
o marketing
3
, lO M oARcPSD| 3930586
2. HISTORY, C H A R A C T E R I S T I C S A N D E F F E C T S O F I M E P T . 1
INTERACTIVE ENTERTAINMENT
• Existed before the invention of computers
o Most forms of human entertainment are ‘interactive’
o Vb: team sports, music concerts, card games…
THE BIRTH OF DIGITAL ENTERTAINMENT
• Development of the modern computer → brand new form of interactive media: entertainment
made possible through digital media that allow for explicit interactivity
HISTORY OF THE COMPUTER:
• 1890
o Hollerith & Powers
o Punch-card machine
▪ Machine that could perform computations using punch-card technology (storage)
o Designed to speed up the computations for the US Census Bureau
o Workhorses of the business and scientific world
• WOII
o Urgent need for machines that could swiftly perform complex calculations
o Earliest computers: specific purposes
▪ Breaking a specific code
▪ Solving a specific type of equitation
o New code equitation → new machine
o Need for more general purpose calculator/computer
• 1946
o ENIAC (Electronic Numeric Integrator and Computer)
▪ First general-purpose computer
• Primarily used to calculate artillery firing tables (feasibility of the
thermonuclear weapon)
• Could perform calculations 1000x faster than previous computers
▪ BUT:
• Bulky machine
• Could not be easily reprogrammed
• Next three decades
o Computer technology progressed rapidly
▪ Smaller, smarter computers
▪ More memory
▪ Capable of performing more functions
▪ Concepts: AI and computer-controlled robots were articulated & refined
• 1970s onwards
o Microchip with the essential elements
o Cheaper hardware
o Software became easier to use
➔ More intuitive user interface
▪ From keyboard + command-line interface (CLI)
▪ To mouse & keyboard + graphical user interface (GUI)
4
Samenvatting interactive media & entertainment
Interactive Media & Entertainment (Universiteit Gent)
StuDocu wordt niet gesponsord of ondersteund door een hogeschool of universiteit
1
, lO M oARcPSD| 3930586
INTERACTIVE MEDIA & ENTERTAINMENT
1. INTRODUCTION
• Interactive media and entertainment
‘’The use of interactive platforms for entertainment purposes’’
o ENTERTAINMENT
▪ = Form of activity that holds the attention and interest of an audience, that gives
pleasure and delight
▪ Forms:
• Exhibition entertainment (museums, fairs)
• Live entertainment (comedy, opera…)
• Media entertainment (film, tv, music…) !!!
▪ Can have serious purpose:
• Achieving insight, intellectual growth…
▪ Used for pragmatic goals
• Advertise and promote
• Teach and train
• Inform
o INTERACTIVE MEDIA
▪ = Media that allow for interactivity with the audience
• Inter: between, implying a two-way exchange (dialogue)
• Active: doing something, being involved/engaged in the activity
➔ Active relationship between the audience and the medium content
➔ Digital media (via computer, programmed)!
▪ Different way of relating to medium content
• Passively enjoying → traditional media
o Watching, listening…
• Interactively enjoying
o Become a participant
o Control what happens
▪ TYPES OF INTERACTIVITY:
• Cognitive interactivity
o Interpretative participation (ex. In story, thinking about it)
• Functional interactivity
o Utilitarian use (ex. Tv remote control)
• Explicit interactivity !!!
o Exerting influence on shaping media content (ex. Following
hyperlinks, playing a video game)
• Beyond-the-object interactivity
o Interacting with media outside the content itself (ex.
participating in fan culture, fan communities, create fan art)
2
, lO M oARcPSD| 3930586
• Interactive media & entertainment
o Very young, only coming into being in the mid-twentieth century with the development of
computer technology
o Still growing & evolving
o Vast field
• Internet & social media ; mobile devices & apps ; interactive tv; smart toys & robots; digital games;
augmented & virtual reality
• Interactive media: offers audience two gifts
o Ability to control aspects of the medium content → agency
o Ability to make choices and see the result of those choices
➔ each user in control of his own path through the material
➔ interactivity can’t truly be a mass audience experience
INTERACTIVE MEDIA AND ENTERTAINMENT: FIELDS OF STUDY
• COMMUNICATION SCIENCES
o Digital communication takes over most areas of traditional communication (bv. e-mail)
o Rise of new forms of interactive media (bv. social media, VR)
o Divisions with specific focus (ICA: International Communication Association):
▪ Communication and technology (CAT)
• Search about roles played by information and communication
technologies in the processes of human communication
▪ Game studies
• Study of games and the game experience
• Multidisciplinary approaches
▪ Information systems
• Concerned with information, language and cognitive systems
• Include: studies of information flows, human interface with
communication technology and life in an information society
• RESEARCH FIELD
Multidisciplinary research field
o Important areas (situated at the intersection of computer sciences, engineering, design,
psychology, media studies…):
▪ Human-computer interaction (HCI)
• Focus on the design and use of computer technology
o Interfaces between users and computers
o Methods and theories with regards to
▪ Designing new computer interfaces + optimizing the
design of existing computer interfaces
• Learnability, findability, efficiency of use …
▪ Usability and user experience
▪ Human-computer use and sociocultural implications
▪ Media and entertainment studies
• Focus on the content, history and effects of media (digital and interactive
media)
o psychological effects (neg: addiction; pos: problem-solving)
o motivations for media use
o gender studies
o community buildings
o entertainment-education
o marketing
3
, lO M oARcPSD| 3930586
2. HISTORY, C H A R A C T E R I S T I C S A N D E F F E C T S O F I M E P T . 1
INTERACTIVE ENTERTAINMENT
• Existed before the invention of computers
o Most forms of human entertainment are ‘interactive’
o Vb: team sports, music concerts, card games…
THE BIRTH OF DIGITAL ENTERTAINMENT
• Development of the modern computer → brand new form of interactive media: entertainment
made possible through digital media that allow for explicit interactivity
HISTORY OF THE COMPUTER:
• 1890
o Hollerith & Powers
o Punch-card machine
▪ Machine that could perform computations using punch-card technology (storage)
o Designed to speed up the computations for the US Census Bureau
o Workhorses of the business and scientific world
• WOII
o Urgent need for machines that could swiftly perform complex calculations
o Earliest computers: specific purposes
▪ Breaking a specific code
▪ Solving a specific type of equitation
o New code equitation → new machine
o Need for more general purpose calculator/computer
• 1946
o ENIAC (Electronic Numeric Integrator and Computer)
▪ First general-purpose computer
• Primarily used to calculate artillery firing tables (feasibility of the
thermonuclear weapon)
• Could perform calculations 1000x faster than previous computers
▪ BUT:
• Bulky machine
• Could not be easily reprogrammed
• Next three decades
o Computer technology progressed rapidly
▪ Smaller, smarter computers
▪ More memory
▪ Capable of performing more functions
▪ Concepts: AI and computer-controlled robots were articulated & refined
• 1970s onwards
o Microchip with the essential elements
o Cheaper hardware
o Software became easier to use
➔ More intuitive user interface
▪ From keyboard + command-line interface (CLI)
▪ To mouse & keyboard + graphical user interface (GUI)
4
