The interactive viewer: Reality or myth?
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Keywords: interactive, television, uses of TV, TV programming, internet, survey research
The interactive viewer: Reality or myth? Michael Svennevig Received (in revised form): 29 June 2004
Abstract The advent of interactive digital television (iTV) in the UK has the potential to revolutionise the use of the television set. But, as past technological innovations reveal, there may well be a great difference between the potential uses of a technology and the actual uses. The key issue is how people in the UK will use iTV in their everyday lives, and whether they will use the interactive capacities made available through iTV or whether they will use iTV as ‘more television’. Available data suggest that the impact of iTV will be less dramatic than often predicted, and will be more of an evolutionary process than a revolutionary change. Interactivity per se may not be as powerful an influence on people’s patterns of television use as has been predicted, compared with its core role in internet use.
‘New’ and ‘old’ technologies
Michael Svennevig Research Centre for Future Communications University of Leeds 16 Clarendon Place Leeds LS2 9JT, UK Tel: +44 (0) 113 343 1604 Fax: +44 (0) 113 343 1117 E-mail: [email protected]
The past and current interest in new and emerging communication devices generally centres around the core concept of information — for example, Manuel Castells’ influential ‘information technology revolution’ and ‘network society’ concepts, proposing that information is becoming and will be a — if not the — primary commodity driving economic change and development.1 On offer are, or will be, home shopping, home banking and other financial services, internet and web access via the ‘smart’ TV, cinemaquality TV pictures, literally hundreds of new TV and radio channels, video on demand (VOD), electronic newspapers and e-books, ‘mix-andmatch’ TV channels and news, remote medical diagnosis, sharing virtualreality experiences with others, sending text, data, voice, streaming video, pictures to and from a range of fixed or mobile devices . . . the list is seemingly endless, and possibly becoming overwhelming from the consumer point of view. Certainly, many UK households have become ‘technology-rich’ in a short period of time and the majority of people have access to a wide range of media and delivery systems. Figure 1 shows the 2003 levels of domestic penetration of 23 of the key technologies tracked by the University of Leeds’ futura.com longitudinal study of technological uptake and use (see Appendix).2 Only the more directly media-related technologies are shown — the study also tracks other technologies which have become increasingly widespread, such as multiple phone lines and answerphones. What is also clear from these data is the important point that non-
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