| Chapter 2: | The Internet as an Object of Study |
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1994); benefits (Ang & Cummings, 1994); sociability (Fulk, Flanagin, Kalman, Monge, & Ryan, 1996); isolation (Dorsher, 1996); involvement (Trevino & Webster, 1992); and inconvenience (Stolz, 1995; Thomas, 1995). Furthermore, Ha and James (1998) cited playfulness, choice, connectedness, information collection, and reciprocal communication as relevant dimensions. In their study, they associated information collection and reciprocal communication with higher levels of interactivity, whereas the other three dimensions were connected to lower levels of interactivity. A recent study by Leiner and Quiring (2008) further extended this examination of interactivity by providing an in-depth analysis of the user's perception of interactivity.17 While these dimensions of interactivity may be highly useful when conceptualising empirical research, what is called for at this stage is a more comprehensive definition of what interactivity entails. Thus, it needs to be pointed out that the definition Williams et al. (1988) established, seeing interactivity as the degree to which users ‘have control over, and can exchange roles in their mutual discourse’, merely touches on one aspect of interaction—the exchange between two sides, both of which are people. The same goes for the definition Ha and James (1998) employed in their study, where they defined interactivity as ‘the extent to which the communicator and the audience respond to, or are willing to facilitate, each other's communication needs’ (p. 461). In order to move beyond these definitions that restrict interactivity to the level of interpersonal interaction, a more comprehensive analysis of this term is needed.
This can be found in a highly interesting article by McMillan (2004) that explored models of interactivity from various research traditions and compiled a three-dimensional construct, including users, documents, and systems. According to McMillan, interactivity is usually considered one of the main characteristics of new media, but what exactly makes them interactive remained to be defined. Thus, in her review of literature, she pointed towards Lee (2000), who proposed that there are basically two main types of interactivity: interacting with people or with technology. This perspective was shared by Hoffman and Novak (1996), who distinguished between person interactivity and machine interactivity,