Interactive TV Essay, Research Paper
Abstract
The Web and the Internet are the latest technologies to
be harnessed by companies trying to develop interactive
television. This paper reviews the efforts of technology
companies and broadcasters to combine television and
the Web in their products and activities, and how users
are already using them both at home. It reviews some
research on the way that TV and the PC/Internet are used
at home, and suggests some way that the Web could be
integrated with television use. Unlike earlier interactive
television projects, where the innovation was largely
conducted behind closed doors and among consortia of
companies, the innovation environment in which
Web-based interactive television is being developed
includes a huge number of existing users, technology
and content suppliers who play an active role the
innovation process. The concept of social learning is
suggested as a area of development of tools for
understand the process of technical, social and cultural
change around innovation of this sort. In particular the
idea of poles of attraction is introduced to understand
why a huge numbers of supply side players and users are
orienting towards the Internet as a possible solution to
interactive television.
1. Introduction
Of all the visions of the future of television (note 1), interactive
television (i-TV) is perhaps the most radical and powerful. In
this vision the ubiquitous television set will change from being a
device to watch television shows or films into a home terminal
for access to and interaction with networked interactive
technology, programmes and services. The possibilities and
benefits of the technology seem self-evident, if only they can
be made to work effectively and at a modest price. Many times
we have been told to expect interactive television any day now.
(note 2)
However, after millions of dollars spent, and many pilots and
service closures, most of us are still no closer to having
interactive television than a few hundred searchable teletext
pages, and some phone-in TV shows.
In the efforts to create i-TV, numerous applications and
technologies have been tried, with companies attracted by the
possibilities of each new generation of technology, and
responding to the continuous pressure to develop new
products, be they technologies, services or programmes in
order to maintain their share of consumer spending. The
explosion of the Internet and Web is a new pole of attraction for
interactive television developers that seems to solve many of
the problems and uncertainties of earlier systems: all of a
sudden the technologies, content, users and uses of interactive
services are there and proving very successful, all that needs to
be done it integrate them into television.
For the analyst of new innovations in television, three issues
arise as companies are attracted to the Internet and the Web
as a solution to interactive television.
1. Instead of being controlled by a small number of corporate
players, the technology and service of the Web and Internet are
in the public domain, and changing fast. The innovation
environment is diverse, heterogeneous, and involves a multitude
of companies and most importantly users in shaping the
technology and services, which makes management of
innovation more complex and give the market a much stronger
voice.
2. There is major uncertainty over the relevance of Web-style
interactivity to the use of television. Many commentators
believe that content and services on the Internet or designed for
the PC terminal may not be relevant for many users of the
television, while others bet on the explosion of e-commerce
through TV Web terminals.
3. The television is no longer the only window for interactive
services to the home. The PC is an increasingly common
alternative, and is a more flexible and open platform or
interactive services. The cheap web set-top box may restrict
innovation and fix service and uses in a way that is frustrating
to end users and service providers alike.
What is more, there is an emerging paradigm in the technology
industry of multiple ‘low profile’ terminals for interactive
services. This could turn investment and attention away from
both the PC and the television.
What links these issues is the importance of the end users as
active players in the innovation-diffusion process. It was end-
and intermediate-users adopting the Internet and Web that
attracted interactive television developers, and it is these users
who are now directly involved in the innovation process.
This paper uses social learning (S?rensen 1996) as an analytic
framework of socio-technical change that includes an
integration of end users in the innovation and diffusion process.
Social learning goes beyond the development and diffusion of
technology and content to include the creation of new
knowledge, regulations, expectations, institutions and cultural
norms. In particular it focuses on the role of users in innovation,
including the development of user knowledge and practices,
and the interaction between users and producers. In this
process different actors (users and producers) orient to poles of
attraction, including utopian visions, projects and trials,
technologies, regulations, user groups, markets, uses, or
emerging cultural norms, all of which may crystallise into real
products and institutions or disappear to be replaced by a new
ones. The process of creation, diffusion and use of new
technology and content is not controlled by those innovating
the products. Users and producers of technology and content
related to television and new media slowly appropriate and
shape each other’s products and patterns of use, learning from
each other over a protracted period of time. Previous examples
that provide useful parallels to interactive television are the
telephone and videotext. Both are network systems which
changed as people began to use them, and found how they
could be useful in ways that the developers had originally not
considered as important.
In interactive TV, the Television has always been the dominant
pole of attraction for both the producers and users, but only
industry was interested in interactive technologies. Industry
therefore drove innovation independently of any need or desire
of potential users. Now the Internet has emerged, and it is pole
of attraction shared by users and producers: the innovation
process now is shaped strongly by the market. One outcome
is a slow change from early models of technology and content
based around individual use of media to one that integrates the
existing collective use of media and the social practices that
surround media products and technologies in everyday use. At
the same time, users are altering their everyday practices of
media and technology use with the new systems that are
currently available, changing the possible market for new
products almost before they have a chance to come to that
market.
This can be illustrated this by looking at evidence of the first
few years of the co-existence and evolution of TV and the Web,
covering attempts to integrate them technically, and find
synergies between them, from the perspective of technology
companies, broadcasters and end users.
Looking to the future, this article reviews qualitative research on
how people actually watch and use television, and some
experiences from current use of the interactive material on
computers. Combined with reports of interactive television
trials, it is possible to illustrate the rich use of both traditional
and newer interactive media in the home. We can then more
critically approach the uncertainly over the relationship between
the Web and television. Fortunately for the optimists, the Web
is not static – developments of services and content that reflect
the way television is used at home for could make the Web
and TV marriage a success. However in the long run through a
slow process of social learning we can see interactive
television developing into a richer medium that either the Web
or TV offers today, but one that is far from the homogeneous
television system of today.
1.1 The Wild World Web – innovation in a open
environment
Most of the previous attempts to make interactive services for
the home have had to start nearly from scratch, and
concentrate on creating large-scale technical systems. The
television has seemed the most obvious terminal to use as the
display. In general, developers worked with technologies and
services that, prior to roll-out, were not available to users. They
tried to create ready-made systems that could be delivered
fully functioning to the public. In general they were able to
develop the systems without involving the end users, or at least
without them being any more active in the innovation process
than as subjects of research or controlled trials. Intermediate
users, such as service providers (retailers, information
providers, banks, and publishers) who could be persuaded to
share in the technology based vision were generally involved in
a partnership and exclusive manner.
However there is a problem facing developers of these network
systems such as interactive television. While the technology
can be made to work in the lab, these systems depend on
building a critical mass of users (e.g. Rogers 1995 p. 313,
Schneider 1991) among many others), and on the content and
uses of the system. These non-technical elements are much
more difficult and expensive to develop from scratch, and to a
large extent out of the control of developers, especially when
user participation is voluntary.(Note 3)
One way to get round this, is to appropriate or modify an
existing and established set of content, technologies and uses
and users, and try and dominate the market, or improve that
service or technology or extend its use to new users. The idea
behind interactive television can be seen as an attempt to
appropriate the mass market of television users and the
existing infrastructure of television sets in homes. With the rise
of the Internet and the Web as mass market interactive
technologies and systems, it would seem an obvious choice for
i-TV developers to try and use this as a resource for creating
i-TV. In many ways it reduces uncertainty and costs
associated with designing a system from scratch.
However, following this path this completely changes the
innovation environment and process. Previous projects were
dominated, if not completely controlled, by a small smaller of
industrial and government players. The innovation process
could be analysed as the interaction between corporate actors,
and the individuals working in them. However, the Internet and
the Web have evolved and continue to develop in a very different
manner. End users and a multitude of intermediate user firms
and technology firms have been responsible their development.
Many different uses have been established and a huge variety
of content exists. There is incredible dynamism in the
innovation process, with competition between many technology
companies and network service providers. This alternative
innovation environment needs a different approach to managing
innovation, and the marketing of interactive television. It also
requires an analytic approach that can account for the large
numbers of actors, especially the end users in shaping the
technology, content and its uses.
1.2 The Web and Television ? an uncertain
marriage
There is no guarantee that a marriage of television and the
Internet would be a happy and prosperous one. There is major
uncertainty over the relevance of Web-style interactivity to the
use of television. Most simply it is the following: the television
is a collectively consumed medium, viewed ‘passively’ and from
a distance, sitting in a comfortable chair. In contrast, the Web
and computer-based interactive products demand a high level
of engagement and interaction with the content, and are used
by individuals sitting close to a computer screen. These are
thus incompatible uses, technologies and content. While there
are strong arguments for this position, it would be naive to
accept it without further investigation, especially in the light of
existing early-adopter uptake of Web on TV products, and
other trials of interactive television.
Another factor has also complicated the vision of interactive
television. There is now an alternative to the TV as the terminal
to the home, the PC. I-TV developers may get a free user
network and content, but with it comes competition from the
PC, the expectations of existing users, and uses and content
developed around the PC not the TV. Many people have both
television and computers at home. Does it make sense to
develop the television as an interactive terminal, even if there is
still a huge number of PC non-owners or users who might use
it.
These uncertainties, and the on-going process of innovation
that accompanies the working out of the answer between the
market or users, and the various players of the supply
industries, is an important example of complex socio-technical
change that needs addressed.
2 The Struggle To Make Television
Interactive
Interactive television should not be defined as a particular
technical or information system : it is a term that has been
appropriated and rejected by many of the players trying to
change television, and could be applied to many widely
different systems. I define interactive television as bringing
possibilities of interactive multimedia technology to Television.
It is therefore crucial to understand Television to understand
what interactive television might be. Television is not just a
technical system or a series of programmes. It must be
considered as a major business, and placed it in a wider
technical and social context. Television is also a mass market
and cross-society phenomenon, almost everyone watches TV,
and it is the sheer reach of the medium that makes the
integration of new technology into Television a major issue.
Television is central to most people’s domestic life, and to our
cultural, social, political and consumer awareness. In other
words, ‘television is everyday life’ (Silverstone 1994). Most
people in the developed world, and increasingly in developing
countries, rely on television as a primary source of global
news, of entertainment, of political awareness, product and
cultural knowledge, and a resource to construct and reflect
self-identity. It is also embedded in the cultural and political
(Williams 1990 (first pub. 1975)): national and now global
culture would be very different and may not exist without
television in its current form. Television is also an important
industry, a huge money earner, and a controversial business
that challenges political and cultural norms as is becomes
more commercial and international.
Interactive television may involve changing television in one or
all its aspects. Changes in technology that are worth their
investment will certainly run in parallel with changes in the
industry, use, content and regulation. The social shaping
approach indicates that attempts to create interactive television
systems are the result of the interaction of these factors,
including commercial interests, competing products,
regulation, developing user needs etc (MacKenzie and
Wajcman 1985; Williams and Edge 1996), as well as the
invention of new technology. Successful i-TV projects will be
the ones that take advantage of the embedded nature of
technology, however much the most technically sophisticated
or creatively daring ones may inspire us.
2.1 A brief history of i-TV
Many attempts have been made to develop ‘interactive’
television (Carey 1996). These have been undertaken around
particular poles of attraction that provided the motivation for
experimentation and change ? sometimes the technology has
been the attraction, sometimes the content, and sometimes
the users and consumers. These poles of attraction have
generally only been of concern for small groups of technology