This article examines the ways in which recent theorizations of interactivity work to reconceive the author-text-audience relationship. Suggesting that all media forms - historical and contemporary - can be reconceptualized in light of recent understandings of interactivity, it is argued that control over the text and its narrative as mythically ‘finished’ products is struggled over between an authorial desire for finality and an audience desire for control over the arrangement, (re)configuration and (re)distribution of the text. This struggle takes place across the sites of technological developments of textual control versus full interactivity, and in the realms of both media theory and media law.

Popular claims of virtual reality systems serving as ‘empathy machines’ often fail to consider (a) the cognitive mechanisms driving the effects of technological immersion on empathy and (b) the conceptualization of empathy as a multidimensional construct. More, recent research has yielded mixed empirical support. This study investigates how dimensions of psychological presence—perceived self-location, sense of copresence, and judgments of social realism—mediate the effect of immersion on cognitive, affective, and associative empathy. Findings indicate that experiencing a news story via 360° video on a head-mounted display led to stronger self-location and copresence than engaging with the same video via desktop or reading a text version. While only copresence increased cognitive empathy, both self-location and copresence facilitated affective empathy. Whereas self-location and copresence enhanced associative empathy, social realism decreased it. These results highlight the value of a multidimensional conceptualization of empathy in investigating the prosocial potential of immersive media.

The past decade has brought advanced information technologies, which include electronic messaging systems, executive information systems, collaborative systems, group decision support systems, and other technologies that use sophisticated information management to enable multiparty participation in organization activities. Developers and users of these systems hold high hopes for their potential to change organizations for the better, but actual changes often do not occur, or occur inconsistently. We propose adaptive structuration theory (AST) as a viable approach for studying the role of advanced information technologies in organization change. AST examines the change process from two vantage points: (1) the types of structures that are provided by advanced technologies, and (2) the structures that actually emerge in human action as people interact with these technologies. To illustrate the principles of AST, we consider the small group meeting and the use of a group decision support system (GDSS). A GDSS is an interesting technology for study because it can be structured in a myriad of ways, and social interaction unfolds as the GDSS is used. Both the structure of the technology and the emergent structure of social action can be studied.

The virtual world environment presents new business opportunities for building destination images that allow customers to make an informed decision and initiate travel arrangements. The purpose of this study is to investigate the applicability of flow theory and the concept of involvement in understanding the impacts of virtual experiences of Second Life on people's travel intentions.

Conventional wisdom and decades of psychological research have linked the provision of choice to increased levels of intrinsic motivation, greater persistence, better performance, and higher satisfaction. This investigation examined the relevance and limitations of these findings for cultures in which individuals possess more interdependent models of the self. In 2 studies, personal choice generally enhanced motivation more for American independent selves than for Asian interdependent selves. In addition, Anglo American children showed less intrinsic motivation when choices were made for them by others than when they made their own choices, whether the others were authority figures or peers. In contrast, Asian American children proved most intrinsically motivated when choices were made for them by trusted authority figures or peers. Theoretical and practical implications of these findings are discussed.

\n Guided by the Uses and Gratifications 2.0 approach, this study examines the role played by three classes of affordances (i.e. modality, agency, and interactivity) in explicating the gratifications derived by older adults on Facebook. Data from a content analysis of Facebook profiles and an online survey with older adults (aged 60 years and older) who have used Facebook for at least 1 year (\n N\n  = 202) show that while status updating and posting personal stories are associated with activity and community-building gratifications respectively, profile customization is key for obtaining agency-enhancement gratification, and participating in conversations on comment threads plays an important role in providing interaction gratification. These findings advance our understanding of social networking site (SNS) use among older adults and suggest interface designs that maximize gratifications for older adults.\n

There is more than one kind of consumer involvement. Depending on the antecedents of involvement (e.g., the product's pleasure value, the product's sign or symbolic value, risk importance, and probability of purchase error), consequences on consumer behavior differ. The authors therefore recommend measuring an involvement profile, rather than a single involvement level. These conclusions are based on an empirical analysis of 14 product categories.

As virtual reality (VR) technology enters mainstream markets, it is imperative that we understand its potential impacts on users, both positive and negative. In the present paper, we build on the extant literature’s focus on the physical side effects of VR gameplay (e.g., cybersickness) by focusing on VR’s potential to intensify users’ experiences of negative emotions. We first conducted a preliminary survey to assess users’ emotional responses during VR gameplay, with the results suggesting that certain VR situations can in fact produce intense negative emotional experiences. We then designed an interactive scenario intended to elicit low to moderate amounts of negative emotion, wherein participants played out the scenario in either VR (using the HTC Vive) or on a laptop computer. Compared to the participants who enacted the scenario on the laptop, those in the VR condition reported higher levels of absorption, which in turn increased the intensity of their negative emotional response to the scenario. A follow-up questionnaire administered several hours later revealed that the intensified negative emotions resulting from VR had a significant positive correlation with negative rumination (i.e., harmful self-related thoughts related to distress). These results show that VR gameplay has the potential to elicit strong negative emotional responses that could be harmful for users if not managed properly. We discuss the practical and policy implications of our findings.

Intuition and previous research suggest that creating a compelling online environment for Web consumers will have numerous positive consequences for commercial Web providers. Online executives note that creating a compelling online experience for cyber customers is critical to creating competitive advantage on the Internet. Yet, very little is known about the factors that make using the Web a compelling experience for its users, and of the key consumer behavior outcomes of this compelling experience.

The terms ‘interactivity’ and ‘interactive media’ became significant buzzwords during the late 1980s and early 1990s when the multi-media euphoria fascinated politicians, economists, and researchers alike. However, right from the beginning of the scientific debate, the inconsistent usage of the term ‘interactivity’ massively complicated the comparability of numerous empirical studies. This is where this article joins the discussion. First, the article sheds light on the terminological origins of ‘interactivity’ and distinguishes the term from cognate expressions. Further, it restructures and extends existing findings on the basis of a new analysis framework which considers three levels of interactive communication (action level, level of subjective situation evaluation, and level of meaning exchange). Finally, it delivers a systematic overview of specific criteria of interactive communication.

This article is, in part, a response to articles for this Journal by Sally McMillan and Spiro Kiousis. The article examines the analytical problems caused by the fact that interactivity is both a property and an activity. It asserts that interactivity is a contextualizing facility that mediates between environments and content and users. The article analyses the modes of operation both for the production of the properties of interactivity and usage/production in the activity of interactivity. The concept of ‘positioning’ is offered as a means of moving the debate on from the application of communication models or the practical development of ‘features’. The article proposes ‘succession mapping’ as a methodology that acknowledges the building up of the interactive offer and also the generative capabilities of packages. The concept of the active user engaged in ‘user production’ i.e. generation is introduced as being of value to academics, practitioners and those who practice, teach and research.

Web site interactivity creates numerous opportunities for marketers to persuade online consumers and receives extensive attention in the marketing literature. However, research on cognitive and behavioral responses to web site interactivity is scarce, and more importantly, it does not provide empirical evidence for how interactivity effects can be explained. Therefore, the aim of this study was to investigate the underlying principle that explains the influence of web site interactivity on consumers’ cognitive, affective and behavioral responses: online flow, the web site users’ complete immersion in an online activity (Hoffman and Novak 2009). In two studies, the hypothesis was tested that a visitor's flow experience in a specific brand web site mediates the effects of interactivity on the number and type (web site vs. product related) of thoughts, on attitudes toward the brand and web site, and on several behavioral intentions. The results provide evidence for the importance of flow in a marketing context, and the notion that the flow experienced on a specific web site is the underlying mechanism by which cognitive, attitudinal, and behavioral responses to an interactive brand web site can be explained.

Virtual reality (VR) has widely been implemented in a variety of industries, with immersive storytelling now gaining popularity in the field of journalism. In this regard, there are many important questions about which direction modern journalism should take as a whole. To test the feasibility of immersive storytelling, this study developed a cognitive experience model containing paths for presence, flow, credibility, empathy, understanding, and enjoyment. A total of 131 participants were divided into three groups and exposed to either VR, 360-degree videos, or two-dimensional (2D) videos, then asked to rate their experiences. With the exception of understanding, results showed that the VR and 360-degree videos were more highly evaluated in each path when compared with 2D videos. In this case, technical attributes did not greatly affect the study variables. However, presence played a vital role in news promotion, while flow was positively affected by presence; flow also affected other variables when combined with presence. Finally, a structural equation model was tested and the weights of the different influences on the enjoyment impact were presented. In sum, this study found that immersive storytelling improved both presence, flow, and credibility, which jointly and positively affected enjoyment. Understanding negatively affected enjoyment. Empathy had little effect on enjoyment in the model.