The
Researchers and the Concept:
Moving Beyond a Blind Examination of Interactivity
Sally J. McMillan
University of Tennessee
Introduction
What is interactivity in the context of computer-mediated communication? Researchers have been struggling with that question for at least two decades. Casual readers of the literature on interactivity would find so many different and conflicting definitions, explications, and ways of operationalizing the concept that they might reasonably ask: "Are these researchers talking about the same thing?" The question brings to mind the old fable of the blind men and the elephant. If one can't see the whole elephant, then feeling just a part of it is sure to lead to inaccurate descriptions of what an elephant is. Those who feel the trunk will perceive the elephant very differently than those who feel the tail. Similarly, those who examine interactivity in the context of person-to-person communication facilitated through a computer will conceptualize interactivity very differently than those who explore interactivity as a characteristic of the human interface with the computer.
Interactivity is big. But the job of researchers in the social science tradition is often to break things down into measurable parts. Researchers have been attempting to get a grasp on interactivity so that they can use it as a measure or construct in their research. If the field of interactivity research is to move beyond blind exploration, interactivity must be considered from a broader context. Elephant parts are important to understanding the elephant. The same is true of interactivity. But it is time to open our eyes and look at how the parts fit together.
Types of Interactivity
One of the earliest and most frequently cited definitions is Rafaeli's (1988) idea of interactivity as an expression that embodies references to earlier expressions. Ten years later, Ha and James (1998) wrote: "Interactivity should be defined in terms of the extent to which the communicator and the audience respond to, or are willing to facilitate, each other's communication needs" (p. 461). A more recent definition took a consumer-based focus (Schumann, Artis, and Rivera 2001): "Ultimately it is the consumer's choice to interact, thus interactivity is a characteristic of the consumer, and not a characteristic of the medium. The medium simply serves to facilitate the interaction." One of the most-recently published explications defined the concept as (Kiousis 2002): "both a media and psychological factor that varies across communication technologies, communication contexts, and people's perceptions" (p. 355).
Elsewhere (McMillan and Hwang 2002), I have reviewed literature that defines interactivity as being based in features (the characteristics of the communication environment that make it interactive), processes (the actual activity of interacting), and perceptions (whether or not users perceive the communication environment to be interactive). I have also identified three different "types" of interactivity in the literature: human-to-human, human-to-computer, and human-to-content (McMillan 2002). Table 1 suggests a way that these different ways of viewing interactivity might be brought together to help provide a larger picture of what interactivity is. The bullet points in the table are intended to be illustrative, not an exhaustive list of different "types" of interactivity.
Table 1. Putting Together the Parts of Interactivity
While Table 1 provides a tool for focusing on the big picture, it has the potential to mislead. It is like suggesting that an elephant can be understood by simply drawing out each of its parts in two dimensions. Clearly, elephants are three-dimensional creatures and interactivity is more than a three-by-three typology. But, this typology does provide a framework for thinking about interactivity. It also provides a framework for thinking about the articles that appear in this special issue on interactivity and advertising.
Fitting the Pieces
This special issue opens with an article by Sundar and Kim that examines interactivity and persuasion. The authors manipulated interactive features and operationalized interactivity as the number of hierarchically hyperlinked layers or levels found in an internet advertisement. This suggests that they see interactivity (at least in the context of this study) primarily as a human-to-computer phenomenon. They also measure the relationship between level of interactivity in an ad and perceived interactivity. The measures of perceived interactivity also focused primarily on human-to-computer interaction. The authors' primary concern is to identify characteristics of internet advertising that enhance persuasive appeal. Table 2 shows how their study "fits" into the picture of interactive advertising that I proposed earlier.
Table 2. Mapping the Articles in this Issue
The second article, by Chen, Griffith, and Shen, was designed to examine the effects of web site interactivity on consumers' trust in brands and product evaluations, and their subsequent purchase intentions in a multi-channel context. Their study goes on to look at the interrelationships between interactivity and other important factors, such as consumer trust, and consumer purchase intentions on key dependent variables. Their study also manipulated interactive features. Like the Sundar and Kim study it defined three levels of interactivity (high, medium, and low). But, rather than simply altering the number of hyperlinked layers, Chen, Griffith, and Shen provided varying levels of customization at an e-commerce site. Factors such as number of colors of fabric available seem to reflect varying levels of human-to-computer interaction while other manipulations such as creating a model that matched height, weight, and other characteristics of participants reflect more human-to-content interactivity. Chen, Griffith, and Shen also measured perceived interactivity as an important determinant of factors such as trust in a vendor and impact on evaluation of products. Their measures of perceived interactivity included items related to how "conversation-like" the web site seemed to be (seemingly a human-to-human measure of interactivity), how responsive the web site was (human-to-computer), and how well the site succeeded in providing participants with all the content they needed on a product category (human-to-content). Thus, as shown in table 2, this study seems to explore multiple "parts" of interactivity.
The experiment reported by Wu was specifically designed to "reconcile seemingly inconsistent findings regarding the effects of interactivity on communication outcomes such as attitude toward the website in the two different interactivity research streams (i.e., actual interactivity vs. perceived interactivity)." Thus, the study seems to combine the concepts of feature-based and process-based into a single construct (actual interactivity) that is placed in contrast to perceptual activity. However, the study operationalizes "actual interactivity" more in terms of the features that enable interaction rather than actual interactive processes. Wu coded sites for presence or absence of six "interactive features" that included human-to-human interaction potential (e-mail hot links and online chat rooms), human-to-computer interactions (mouse-over effects and searchable menus), and elements that enhanced the human-to-content interaction (product image and dynamic creation of content). Perceived interactivity was measured with a nine item scale that included ability to communicate with the site creator/other users and responsiveness to questions (human-to-human), control of navigation/pace and how well the site responded to commands (human-to-computer interaction), and control of content and how sensitive the site was to personal information needs (human-to-content interaction).
Tremayne's study follows the three experimental examinations in this special issue and offers some general insights into what past experiments have taught us about interactive advertising. He offers a framework for examining such studies based on antecedents, interactivity locations, and effects. While the typology he offers differs in some key ways from my Table 1, he makes some similar observations about the importance of matching measures with outcomes. He suggests that in past experiments "there is often a mismatch between the conceptualization offered in a particular study and the operationalization used." Because the primary purpose of Tremayne's article is to review past research and propose a model of interactivity designed to drive future explorations of interactive advertising it is not placed in Table 2. But the underlying message of Tremayne's article is very consistent with the basic concepts presented in Table 2.
Finally, Spurgeon offers two case studies as a context for examining interactive marketing in evolving media. This article suggests important ways that marketers are moving beyond the internet in their use of interactivity. The two case studies each look at mobile telephony companies as both the creators of interactive advertising campaigns and the "hosts" of those campaigns that use the mobile telephone as a device for interaction. She builds on early theoretical work that identifies four "types" of interaction: allocution, conversation, consultation, and registration. The first two are primarily focused on the human-to-human model while the latter two are based more in human-to-computer conceptualizations of interactivity. She also introduces the concept of "interactive" interaction, which grows out of the human-to-content interaction tradition. Given the descriptive nature of her study, it is not surprising that her primary focus is on the various features of interactivity and how they are used by marketers (as illustrated in Figure 2). One of the significant contributions of this study is the detailed examples that are provided of innovative interactive marketing that is being conducted outside of the United States.
A quick review of Table 2 suggests that the big "missing piece" in this special issue on interactive advertising is an examination of processes. It is difficult to examine what consumers actually "do" in interactive environments. But it is important. Without a clear understanding of actual online behaviors it is difficult to make clear linkages between features and perceptions. Many possibilities exist for examination of processes. These include styles of research that grow out of the qualitative research tradition and that are not addressed at all in this special issue. Among techniques that have been successfully used in the past are observation and recording of actual user interactions, as well as use of talk-aloud procedures that allow participants to explain what they are doing and why they are doing it (Hwang and McMillan 2005). Future studies could also include other techniques that are relatively easily implemented using the technology itself, such as examination of log files.
The other key "take away" from Table 2 is that it highlights the importance of "matching" manipulations with measures. The experimental studies reported in this special issue all manipulated interactive features, while also measuring perceived interactivity. But each study manipulated interactivity in a different way and measured perceived interactivity in a different way. As several reviewers noted, the "match up" between manipulations and measures were not always as clear as one might hope for. Tremayne offers multiple arguments for why such a match-up is important. In an emerging field such as interactive advertising, ambiguities are to be expected. It may be unrealistic to suggest that manipulations and measures need to be standardized, but it is important for researchers, particularly those who are conducting experiments, to make sure that they know what kinds of interactivity they are examining and use the best tools possible for measuring it.
The Big Picture
Does this special issue on interactivity provide a definitive picture of interactive advertising? No. But it does provide a solid contribution to our growing understanding of the role of interactivity in advertising. Interactive features, processes, and perceptions are still evolving. Even though the special issue includes an in-depth case study of industry practice, there is much that the academy can still learn from industry and vice versa.
Just as evolutionary processes result in changes to the basic shape and form of elephants, research on interactivity will also evolve over time. It is important for researchers to feel out all the "parts" of interactivity. Blind men can't begin to understand elephants until they have felt both the trunk and the tail. But to really understand the elephant, seeing eyes are needed. One must step back and look at the beast from all sides. The same is true of interactivity.
About the Guest Editor
Sally J. McMillan (Ph.D, University of Oregon) is an Associate Professor in the School of Advertising and Public Relations at the University of Tennessee. Her research focuses on exploring the concept of interactivity, use of the Internet as a research tool, health communication, and impacts of communication technology on individuals, organizations, and society. Email: sjmcmill@utk.edu
References
Ha, Louisa, and Lincoln James (1998), "Interactivity Reexamined: A Baseline Analysis of Early Business Web Sites," Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media, 42 (4), 457-474.
Hwang, Jang-Sun and Sally J. McMillan (2005), "How Consumers Think About "Interactive" Aspects of Web Advertising," in Web Systems Design and Online Consumer Behavior, Y. Gao, eds., Hershey, PA: Idea Group Publishing, 69-89.
Kiousis, Spiro (2002), "Interactivity: A Concept Explication," New Media & Society, 4 (3), 355-383.
McMillan, Sally J. (2002), "Exploring Models of Interactivity from Multiple Research Traditions: Users, Documents, and Systems," in Handbook of New Media, L. Liverow and S. Livingstone, eds., London: Sage, 162-182.
McMillan, Sally J. and Jang-Sun Hwang (2002), "Measures of Perceived Interactivity: An Exploration of Communication, User Control, and Time in Shaping Perceptions of Interactivity," Journal of Advertising, 31 (3), 41-54.
Rafaeli, Sheizaf (1988), "Interactivity: From New Media to Communication," in Advancing Communication Science: Merging Mass and Interpersonal Process, R. P. Hawkins, J. M. Wiemann and S. Pingree, eds., Newbury Park, CA: Sage, 110-134.
Schumann, David W., Andy Artis, and Rachael Rivera (2001), "The Future of Interactive Advertising Viewed through an Imc Lens," Journal of Interactive Advertising, 1 (2), <http://www.jiad.org/vol1/no2/schumann/index.html>.
