Implications of New Interactive Technologies for Conceptualizing Communication

This chapter proposes that interactivity as it relates to communication technologies is a multidimensional concept. Communication scholars widely recognize a need to reconceptualize communication, in part because of changes brought about by new telecomunication technologies. Developments in telecommunication technologies continue to alter the ways in which the authors can communicate. Broadband cable, fiber optics, and various other transmission media provide wider bandwidth to carry more signals simultaneously. Systems that combine telecommunication and computer technologies allow diverse configurations for user involvement and services. Mass communication was originally modeled as the one-way transmission of a message from source to receiver. When research findings failed to provide dramatic proof of uniform media effects, new perspectives emerged. Most of the newer technologies feature increased interactivity. Rice defined new media as communication technologies "that allow or facilitate interactivity among users or between users and information.