If you've given a thought to the concept of 'interactive
television' chances are that you've had visions of ordering videos
at the touch of a button and responding to a TV show by
participating in a running commentary via an electronic bulletin
board. But could it also become something entirely different? This
was one of the questions that consumed panelists at the recent
Virtual Culture symposium in New York City, co-sponsored by
ECHO and the
Whitney Museum.
For Nicholas Butterworth of
SonicNet, interactive TV
meant Mystery Melrose Theater, a BBS that provides Melrose
Place fans with a virtual 'camp' ground for occasionally
radical, sometimes obscene and often banal, comments. With one eye
trained on the computer screen and another on Sydney's smarmy
smile, fans flame the show and each other week after week.
Sci-Fi Channel producer
Sharleen Smith pointed to a similar experiment between her channel
and ECHO on The Prisoner, except that the viewers'
real-time comments actually scroll across the bottom of the TV
screen during airings of the show. According to symposium host
Madeleine Altmann,
YORB:
An Electronic Neighborhood takes interactivity one step
further. For a half hour each week on a Manhattan public access
channel, YORB allows four viewers at a time to navigate a 3-D
environment, as well as play games and choose videos using their
touch tone phones.
Marc Weiss, founder and co-executive producer of the excellent
PBS documentary series P.O.V., offered a more
politicized notion of interactivity. For one thing, he noted the
distinction between real-time chat and asynchronous discussion:
real-time chat involves a lot of one-upsmanship with witty flames
that squelch meaningful dialogue, while asynchronous discussions
like Usenet newsgroups, bulletin boards, and mailing lists allow
for more thoughtful consideration of a topic. Weiss also offered
the reminder that not all TV viewers have access to advanced
computer technology. P.O.V. provides several ways for viewers,
wired or not, to comment on programs, including email, fax, video
letters, bulletin boards, mailing lists and the
P.O.V. Web site. The program
is currently gearing up for November's broadcast of Leona's
Sister Gerri, a documentary about how one woman's tragic
death became a symbol for the abortion rights movement. The
following week, P.O.V. will air a show comprised completely of
viewer responses to the film.
Meanwhile, corporate America equates interactivity with
consumption: Lest you have doubts, check out
Digital Equipment
Corporation's press release for video on demand. But at this
embryonic state in its development it's clear that the parameters
of electronic interactivity are still being defined. Maybe
viewer-response driven content, real-time chat, Usenet group
discussions, and various collaborative narratives sprouting all
over the Net are fauna in a forest of interactivity the Suits won't
want to visit.
Original to Utne Reader Online, September
1995.