Structuring virtual spaces as television places: Internet television

RUNNING TITLE: INTERNET TELEVISION REMEDIATING CONVENTIONAL TELEVISION

Structuring virtual spaces as television places: Internet television remediating conventional structures, practices and power dynamics

Internet television remediating conventional television

Abstract:

As all major American broadcast and cable networks now provide some form and amount of

online distribution of their television programming, we are beginning to see more interactive

features being attached to this distribution to remediate the conditions of television consumption in

the physical world. Attaching such interactivity to their online distribution creates cyberspaces of

consumption that become places for virtual audiences to congregate as they view the program. To

illustrate how the virtual environments and worlds are constructed to become places for virtual

audiences, four case studies of virtual places are analyzed in terms of how interactivity is being

managed. Two types of interactivity are used to compare these case studies: social interaction

and narrative interaction. Broadcast networks CBS and NBC separately created virtual places to

imitate “living room” conditions of social interaction. Cable network SciFi Channel produced “live

events” to allow limited narrative interaction. Independent producer Metanomics created a virtual

“talk show” to encourage both social interaction and narrative interaction. The analysis is set into a

larger theoretical framework considering how these Internet-based interactive television examples

demonstrate the remediation of conventional conceptualizations of television distribution structures

and consumption practices, which then indicate the power dynamics of the producer-consumer

relationship. The form in which the interactivity occurs is controlled by the producers of the

programs through the structuring of the online distribution spaces. These structures constrain and

cue how the virtual audience is expected to, allowed to and desired to engage with the program.

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1. TV is not dead, it’s just online

When I moved outside of the United States, I was faced with a problem: I was worried

about my addiction to American television. As there were quite a number of shows I followed

habitually, I was concerned about how I would be able to maintain my fix. So I scouted the many

options: illegal torrenting, legal iTunes downloads, Slingbox, illegal re-routed streaming, legal

corporate sponsored streaming. To varying degrees I have tried all of these options.

For example, my loyalty to Comedy Central's The Daily Show with Jon Stewart. Under the

aegis of Viacom, the show is streamed with delay on the show's website, www.thedailyshow.com,

even outside of the United States. However, while in the first months of my time as an ex-patriot, I

could stream the entire episode; afterwards, I could only view them in the segments pre-

determined by the producers1. Sometimes when impatient for an episode, I used both iTunes and,

I will admit, illegal torrenting sites to fulfil my need. On the night of the 2008 presidential election, I

was up into the early morning following the live, legal, streaming from CNN and MSNBC, but when

The Daily Show was scheduled to air I found an illegal re-routing website that allowed me to watch

the show live and with other ex-pats and foreign viewers. Because of this ability, when Barack

Obama was announced on that show as the winner, I was immediately able to call – via my VoIP

Skype – my family stateside to join in the news. Only a handful of times have I actually watched

the delayed broadcast of the show on the local television channel.

As with my numerous other television addictions, my addiction to The Daily Show was not

being primarily met by "television" in the sense of a technological object – a box with a window to

the world. The object exists in my room, but it is used to display the entertainment provided by a

DVD player and a Nintendo Wii. It is the window to what those objects provide, and rarely to the

world at large. My computer is my window to the world.

I am not alone. At the time the data was gathered for this study, 11% of adults in the

United States aged 18-34 had gone online at least once to watch television (Brandon, 2008). In

December 2008, there had been at 41% increase in use from the previous year as the total

number of videos watched online was over 14 billion (Fritz, 2009). At the end of the 2008-09

television season, ABC saw their show Lost bringing in 36.4 million video streams; NBC had The

Office at 14.5 million; and CBS had NCIS at 11.6 million.

The experiences I and my fellow television viewers and fans are having is resulting in

rhetoric from industry professionals and academics that "television is dead", that we are living in a

post-television, post-broadcast era (Poniewozik, 2009), where someday, sooner or later, the "boob

tube" will be replaced as the central household media technology by the personal computer.

Whether or not this will be the case remains to be seen; predictions on the centrality of the

1 The use of the term "producers" in this paper is to refer to those media professionals, amateurs and industries responsible for the creation and dissemination of commercial media products, such as television series.

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http://www.thedailyshow.com/


computer change, as just over a decade ago people argued the Internet would never replace or

completely displace the boob tube (see Havick, 2000; Owen, 1999).

With the uncertainty of the future of "television", the tensions that exist are numerous

(Cover, 2006; Reinhard, 2008): passive versus active; consumer versus producer; author versus

audience; online versus over-the-air; interactive TV versus Internet TV; co-optation versus

reflection. This is an era of change in mass communication, with the rise of nichecasting perhaps

replacing broadcasting, perhaps being supplemental to it. It is a time when the audience, once

viewed as a unified, undifferentiated mass, now must be seen as multiple, diverse, fragmented,

selective, self-directed consumers as well as producers (Livingstone, 1999). It is a time when what

we call television is called into question (Grindstaff & Turrow, 2006), with "television" being

deconstructed into the content it relays, "television-as-text", and the technical interface it is,

"television as technology" (Wood, 2007). It is a time when the changes in the media landscape

and the actions of the audience(s) are changing the nature of what is television, and how we

should think of it and those who produce and consume it (Bruns, 2008; Green, 2008; Grindstaff &

Turrow, 2006; Meikle & Young, 2008; Tay & Turner, 2008; Wood, 2007). There are many

experiments currently going on with how to structure Internet TV to be something consumers will

want to use, either in replace or in supplement.

It is a time of renewed interest in interactive television – and not just as it has been

conceived as being attached to the "television-as-technology". There have been attempts, both

within the industry and the academy, to determine how to make the Internet fulfil the dreams

people have had about interactive television for decades. This paper is an analysis of several

attempts from both industry and academy that I had participated in during the fall of 2008. These

cases provide illustrations of how the dis-embedding of content from "television-as-technology" and

its re-embedding into various virtual environments produces interactive places for audience

consumption – places that become sites for academic analysis of the concepts of television

distribution, consumption practices and the power dynamics in the relationship between producers

and consumers. In considering how these cyberspaces have been structured to provide forms of

interactive television, I will discuss how the structures, practices and power dynamics2 that

currently surround "television" are not dead, they are just online.

2. Internet television

2 In deciding to separate these sections from one another, I realize I am enforcing perhaps an arbitrary separation among structures, practices, and power dynamics given the interconnectedness of the concepts. For the purposes of this paper, "practices" means the activities people perform as part of their consumption of the media; "structures" means the physical nature of the technology that cues/constrains such practices; to “power dynamics” means the analysis of such practices and structures to understand how power shifts between the diametrically opposed positions of consumer and producer.

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At the turn of the century, it was a common for American corporate controlled content

providers to not worry about television being displaced by the Internet because of the difference

between the passive consumption associated with television and the active consumption

necessitated by the Internet (Havick, 2000; Van Tassel, 2001). In 1999, of the main networks

broadcasting in the United States, only NBC and CBS were making synergistically coordinated

strides towards colonizing the Internet for the (re)transmission of their goods (Van Tassel, 2001).

In 1999, several private firms, not associated with any of the major corporations, began to offer

"netcasting" of genre programming like talk shows, contending that the active nature of the Internet

allowed for greater audience interaction than possible with conventional OTA talk shows (Vonder

Herr, 1999). Such attempts at "microbroadcasting" or "nichecasting" could be seen as providing

the framework for future internet TV business models, interested in aggregating the disaggregated

audience around specialized topics (Tay & Turner, 2008).

Professionals and academics point to several occurrences as the triggers for prompting

corporate content providers to take netcasting seriously: the rise of YouTube and Web 2.0; the rise

of Apple's iTunes and video iPod, and the diffusion of broadband technology into households

(Conhaim, 2006; Smith, 2005; Streisand, 2007). With increased broadband networks, online

streaming and downloading could be more effectively and efficiently accomplished, reducing

buffering time that would cause frustration for the consumers (Edwards, 2009). Then with its 2005-

06 season, ABC began offering downloads of its most popular shows via iTunes, which prompted

other networks to see the potential for this distribution route (Fritz, 2009; Streisand, 2007). By the

2006-07 season, the Big Four networks in the United States (ABC, CBS, NBC, and Fox) were

offering their most popular series for free via online streaming, either directly at their website or on

related, corporate-controlled sites (Setoodeh, 2006). Episodes were even being offered online

before being broadcast OTA as a means to further promote a show, such as CBS's Jericho

(Streisand, 2007).

The threat from YouTube prompted NBC/Universal and News Corp to jointly produce

streaming website Hulu.com in 2007, which would serve as an archive for their television series as

well as a library of films (Fritz, 2009). Since the initial joint venture, in 2009 Disney signed a deal to

use Hulu.com as a streaming distributor (Littleton, 2009). The tactic against YouTube has had

some apparent success, as it has been steadily increasing in the amount of streams viewed since

its inception (Gelman, 2009). In less than a year Hulu.com went from start-up to logging over 300

million video streams (Fritz, 2009). In the fall of 2008, when the case studies in experimentation

discussed in this paper were analyzed, 235 million videos were streamed in October alone at

Hulu.com (Brandon, 2008). Nielsen's division dedicated to measuring online audience ratings

found that both OTA and online television consumption are increasing in the United States

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population (Edwards, 2009); the online trend was indicated as being the result of spending time

with the corporate-controlled streaming websites. Media professionals agree that consumers who

want to time-shift are willing to sit at a computer and watch a full episode just to catch what they

have not yet seen (Holahan, 2007).

The presence of Internet television, and particularly corporate-controlled versions of

netcasting, is both increasing and potentially stabilizing as an alternative, supplemental, or

replacement distribution source. With more and more people going online for their daily television

programming, Internet TV becomes increasingly a part of people's everyday lives. As such, the

usage of Internet TV produces sites of distribution and consumption for analysis. Specifically, for

this paper, the sites of analysis are considerations for how the newer television compares to the

older. How does the distribution structure of Internet TV compare to the conventional distribution

of over-the-air broadcasting? How do the consumption practices of conventional television

compare to those of internet television? And what does the structuring of cyberspaces to become

places for distribution and consumption tell us about the relationship between television producers

and consumers?

2.1. Purpose of this paper

The purpose of this paper is to look for answers to these questions by considering four

case studies where several corporate and academic producers have been experimenting with how

to provide television content that is more than the basic streaming and downloading currently

available. It may seem that focusing only on four experiments does not provide any insight of

value as it excludes the majority of internet television distribution and consumption activities

currently driving the growth of internet television. However, the purpose in examining these

experiments lies in what the analysis can tell us about how content producers are considering what

to do with interactivity – that elusive concept and tension for the television industry in the world of

increasingly networked computers.

Distribution and consumption places like Hulu.com and TV.com, and other streaming sites,

have the format of YouTube.com. The video is at the top of the screen and you scroll down to

add/read comments to the content that are gathered asynchronously and without any direct link to

any particular point of the content. There is interactivity in the sense that the individual user can

time-shirt, control what she wants to consume and when and where. However, there are other

conceptualizations of interactivity that go beyond the ability of the user to access a database of

readily available archival content (Mcmillan, 2002); notions of interactivity as synchronous, dialogic

communication between human and human or human and content (Cover, 2004, 2006). The first

has been alternatively called conversational and interpersonal (Mcmillan), and in this paper is

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referred to as "social interaction". The second has been discussed by Cover (2004, 2006) without

labelling, but has been discussed as content interaction (Mcmillan, 2002); in this paper it is referred

to as "narrative interaction".

What I discuss in the next section of this paper are four experiments in providing social

interaction and narrative interaction. My interest in these experiments focused on how the

producers were attempting to distribute "television-as-text" by creating cyberspace locations

(websites and virtual worlds) to become places structured to cue and/or constrain consumption

practices to specific acts; which specific acts could be inferred by analyzing the type and amount of

social and/or narrative interactivity utilized to craft that place3.

The experiments will be discussed in three sections, based on what type of structuring of

distribution and consumption they attempted. First are the attempts by CBS and NBC to produce

"virtual living rooms". Second is the attempt by The SciFi Channel (now The SyFy Channel) to

produce "virtual ghost hunting" with a live investigation of a haunted location. Third is the attempt

by Dr. Robert Bloomfield to utilize the virtual world Second Life for his own talk show.

I should first make clear my position to these experiments. I call them experiments not

because they were the product of a study conducted by myself or any specific research entity.

They were experiments in the sense that the structuring of these virtual spaces for online

distribution and consumption were unique in form as the producers attempted to offer new

interactivities to potential consumers. As they were public offers, I approached them as interested

consumer and researcher. Thus I approached these experiments with the methodological tensions

of participant observer and fan-scholar. In analyzing the structure of these experiments I

manoeuvred my dual identity by alternatively immersing myself in the experience and withdrawing

to take notes and screenshots, which are displayed in this paper.

In this way I engaged with the experiments as often as I could from late September to late

December in 2008. This period was chosen for several reasons. First, one of the experiments

discussed here is a special event that only occurs once a year, on October 31; I had had

experience with it in 2007, and I knew I wanted to analyze their subsequent attempt as part of this

study. Second, this was the period in which CBS rolled out their experiment, which also

highlighted NBC's attempt at something similar. Third, through my post-doctoral research project,

we had been visited by the scholar who was experimenting with television broadcast in virtual

worlds. What follows then are my observations on how these experiments have structured their

distribution of television content and their conception of what should constitute interactive

consumption practices.

3 I take my understanding of the distinction between space and place, as they relate to virtual environments and worlds, from Jensen's (2008) discussion and analysis of the structuring of the Second Life grid space to become places for human interaction and meaning-making to occur.

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3. Cases studies of experimentation

3.1. Virtual living rooms

The first two case studies are examples of experiments similar in both distribution structure

and consumption practices. They are attempts by CBS and NBC to structure online spaces to

become virtual “living rooms” for retransmitting content that has already been transmitted via

conventional OTA and cable. The observations come from the fall of 2008, but the services

continue to run with minimal change to either distribution or consumption structures. These

attempts are technically not original, as ABC Family, MTV, and an entertainment portal Lycos had

attempted something similar years before (Kaplan, 2008; Walsh, 2008). However, they are unique

these were the first attempts to produce ongoing services directly tied to on-demand libraries the

content providers could offer on their websites.

The CBS and NBC experiments have in common the idea of providing synchronous

communication between viewers for the duration of the video stream. That is, while the video is

playing, people are linked to each other via a chat function so that they may engage in dialogue

with one another as if they were in the same room watching the show on a television set – hence

the conceptualization of the virtual "living room". Where the experiments differ is in what videos

are available, how to find people to be "in the room" with you, and how to interact with each other

in these rooms.

3.1.1. CBS Social (Viewing) Rooms

This experiment began in October 2008, as part of the CBS Labs and CBS Interactive

attempt to find innovative ways to display television online by promoting the ability to interact with

people as if "he's sitting right next to you." (Walsh, 2008). When I started participating in this

experiment, these spaces were called Social Viewing Rooms. Their name subsequently was

shortened to simply Social Room, accessible via http://www.cbs.com/socialroom. CBS, with its

partnership with Viacom, and extensive libraries from Paramount and Spelling Entertainment,

offered a variety of series from all the dayparts as well as classics, such as: Survivor, NCIS, Young

and Restless, The Late Late Show, Star Trek, Twilight Zone, MacGyver, Love Boat, Family Ties,

and Melrose Place.

Scrolling through the selection of series offered, however, I found an imposed limitation. As

seen in Figure 3.1.1a, I could not choose any episode I wanted from a particular series. Each

series had a particular episode being played when I would visit the website, and if I wanted to

participate by watching that series, then I had to accept watching that episode. Moreover, the

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http://www.cbs.com/socialroom


episode could already be in progress by the time I entered the Social Room; if I wanted to see it

from the beginning -- say if I had never seen the episode, as was the case when I watched one

from the series Numb3rs -- I had to wait for the next screening to begin. Going into a Social Room

while the show was in progress made little difference to me when the series was the original Star

Trek; I knew from memory the episode that was airing.

On the list of what was available to watch, each entry offered how many other people were

currently "in the room", watching the series, at that time. I found this useful to locate rooms where

there would be people. As mentioned above, and shown in Figure 3.1.1b, there was a

synchronous chat field, similar to chat rooms, underneath the video as it streamed. Each person

would be represented in this field by a pictorial icon of their choosing. In these chat fields I could

talk to the other viewers about what was going on in the show, make comments about the series in

general, or talk about some non-related topic. All of this happened in real time, with my text and

their text appearing as cartoon dialogue balloons above our icons, actually overlapping the video

being played. There were also asynchronous communication possibilities, with a message board,

and quizzes that were offered regarding the series being watched.

One feature set apart the Social Room from NBC's experiment. As well as interacting with

fellow viewers, I could superficially interact with the content of the video. Rolling over the video

field, a menu appeared with a series of cartoon icons, as seen in Figure 3.1.1c. These icons

represented a series of actions I could perform at the video stream, even to particular spots on the

screen that I choose. These actions included showing love, kissing, throwing a dart or tomato,

and, most telling, putting on the screen an image to reflect the corporate sponsor of the Social

Room. The first sponsor I encountered was Intel, who was even highlighted by CBS as being a

partner in their experiment. A subsequent sponsor I encountered was Coca-Cola.

3.1.2. NBC Viewing Parties

I will confess I could not spend as much time in NBC's experiment, the Viewing Party. At

the beginning of my data collection period, the CBS Social Rooms were viewable to people living

outside of the United States, such as myself. NBC/Universal, on the other hand, prevented access

to their video streams outside of the United States; thus, I was only able to participate in this

experience at the end of my data collection period, when I had returned stateside. Since I had

been made aware of the NBC experiment by looking into the Social Rooms, I felt it necessary to

see how they compared.

NBC's Viewing Party structure is located as part of MyNBC and NBC Video Rewind, which

they label as a way to combine community, personalization and video on demand. The service

was launched in the spring of 2008, but it appears to have been kept more secretive than CBS's

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Social Room. The service is accessed not as directly as CBS, through one central webpage, but

through the shows that allow Viewing Parties to be formed; http://www.nbc.com/shows/ is the place

to find the option "Start a Viewing Party", as seen in Figure 3.1.2a. There is no central list as is

found on CBS Social Room. It appears more that you have to know that the service is available for

the series you are interested in; perhaps this is a function of being part of the MyNBC community

that fans and users will communicate about Viewing Parties. However, as there is no list saying

what is available when you log on, and the focus is more on the series than a particular episode

being available, there is a wider selection of episodes from the library that can be viewed at any

time. Unlike CBS, the user has more control over what to watch and when – and indeed, even with

whom.

As with CBS, I could go into any party already started by going to the lobby and finding a

party in progress. However, NBC structured the service more towards those individuals interested

in creating their own unique parties – to become a host in a virtual living room, so to speak. As

shown in Figure 3.1.2b, a person could initiate a Viewing Party by choosing the episode to watch,

then sending out invitations by selecting friends who are also members of MyNBC or sending

emails to individuals not part of the community. This structure is similar to the physical world

phenomenon of gathering friends to watch a series, perhaps week after week, making it a ritual.

Giving individuals this control is what leads NBC to call such spaces "viewing party". With CBS,

the space is simply a place to watch video, or a room. With NBC, the space is a place to be with

your real friends, or a party.

As with CBS, there is a chat field to allow synchronous communication between all viewers.

There are also polling and quizzing functions, but unlike CBS here the host could potentially create

one to test his friends. Again, this can be understood in terms of structuring the experience as a

"party" and empowering the user who created the party as a host. Unlike CBS, there was no

superficial interaction with the video's content.

3.2.3. CBS, NBC, and interactivity

These two experiments share in common their allowance for consumption practices that

control what to watch and when and with whom, although CBS restricts these controls more than

NBC does. However, such time-shifting capability is increasingly a common feature for television

consumption in the United States. With DVRs and various websites that stream video, time-

shifting appears to be the central interaction promoted and used with interactive and Internet

television. Where innovation occurs in these experiments is that both structures promote the

incorporation of a synchronous communication capability. This social interaction feature is

provided, and rhetorically promoted in press releases and the labelling of the services, to reduce

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http://www.nbc.com/shows/


the feeling of watching alone, as Internet use is often described as a physically solitary experience

(Poniewozick, 2009).

As far as narrative interactivity, neither CBS nor NBC offered the ability for the user to

control the content of the video in these spaces. However, CBS provided a means to express

emotionality towards the content, perhaps attempting to replicate the perchance for such outbursts

in other viewing contexts. For all but the last icon, these activities represent what could be

considered as conventional audience reactions to content – conventional in the sense that they are

examples of a parasocial interaction that is either positive (showering with love, blowing kisses) or

negative (throwing darts or tomatoes). These restricted activities represent a conceptualization of

how audiences in their own living rooms may emotionally act out towards the content. The last

activity is akin to product placement, but it is product placement at the control of the user. Rather

than be subject to either covert or overt advertising integrated into the content, here the user has

the option to place the advertisement wherever the user desires. Including it with the other

activities may be an attempt to treat ironically the idea of product placement, as you can throw an

ad at the screen as easily as a kiss or a dart.

Meanwhile, the lack of such superficial interactivity in the NBC Viewing Parties can be

understood in how these two experiments differ regarding with whom you watch the video. With

CBS, unless you have negotiated a coordinated viewing external to the Social Room, you are most

likely watching with strangers. In that instance, if you do not find your fellow viewers to be

interesting enough to speak with, then you may be glad to have some other activities to perform

while watching the video. With NBC, unless you wander into someone's party, you are most likely

with people you consider to be friends, partly because of being able to talk to them. In that

instance, if the content does not hold your attention, you have your friends to talk to, and no other

interaction may be necessary.

3.2. Virtual ghost hunting

This next experiment is also an attempt by a corporate producer. However, unlike the

experiments from CBS and NBC, this case describes a special event in the season of a television

series, Ghost Hunters. Airing on American cable network The SciFi (SyFy) Channel, Ghost

Hunters is a reality series where a documentary crew follows The Atlantic Paranormal Society

(TAPS, http://www.the-atlantic-paranormal-society.com/) crew as they investigate potential

hauntings with pseudo-scientific methods. The series began airing in 2004. In a typical episode,

the crew investigates a potentially haunted location with several teams of two to three people,

collecting audio, video and other data that would be analyzed for any activity that could not be

explained. Since premiering, the series has produced three live shows as Halloween specials, all

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http://www.the-atlantic-paranormal-society.com/


called Ghost Hunters Live. Each year they select a specific location, either well-known or

supposedly high in paranormal activity, from which to broadcast.

Starting with the 2007 special, The SciFi Channel created a webpage, hosted at their main

site, to promote viewers to also be online during the show to give the crew feedback about the live

investigation, including asking viewers to become "part of the hunt". The website featured live

video streams of the investigation, with footage not airing on the cable network, and a "Panic

Button" that viewers could use if they saw something suspicious to send the crew suggestions for

those places to investigate. I am focusing on the 2008 event because it occurred during the data

collection period. It was similar to the 2007 event in terms of promoting participation and offering

non-cable broadcast footage for such participation. The 2009 event continued the gimmick of

providing additional footage online for individuals to monitor for possible evidence, including

allowing the user to choose which of five cameras they wished to monitor. The 2008 event differed

from the other two in that the producers attempted to stream the actual episode online to

compliment the cable viewing.

The 2008 event aired October 31, Halloween night, starting at 8pm EST. The main

broadcast was on The SciFi Channel, with video streaming at www.scifi.com/ghosthunters/live/.

The seven hour long event followed a return investigation to Fort Delaware, a location that had

been investigated earlier with purportedly good results. A SciFi.com press release, dated Oct 28

2008, indicates the various interactive features they hoped would entice cable viewers to become

online users:

"SCI FI.COM INVITES FANS OF SCI FI CHANNEL'S HIT ORIGINAL REALITY SERIES 'GHOST HUNTERS' TO "JOIN THE HUNT" WITH NEW SOCIAL NETWORK … And once again, SCIFI.COM will serve as the online destination on Halloween night, offering a multi-layered digital experience for fans including an exclusive, multi-camera online video feed and thermal imaging camera views, exclusive access to photos from the live event, live Q&A with the TAPS team members and the return of the "Panic Button" for web watchers to alert the team of something they are seeing live on TV."

In the press release we can see promise of narrative interactivity as the corporation promoted the

idea that viewers could vicariously or virtually join the crew on their investigation by helping to

monitor the live feed and make suggestions about possible paranormal activity. But that is the

promise; what of the execution?

Going into this experience, I was worried the licensing embargo that prevented me from

watching video streams on corporate websites would be in effect here as well. I was fortunate,

and amazed, that this was not the case. The live stream worked; however, the audio did not. The

website informed me I had to update my Windows Media Player, but in trying to do this I was

informed by the program that I had the most updated version. Thus, I only had video. However, I

could use RealPlayer to record the live stream so that I would be able to compare it with the

content that was broadcast on the cable network, which I obtained via an illegal torrent.

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http://www.scifi.com/ghosthunters/live/


Additionally, during the show, I was using my Yahoo! IM program to chat with my mother, another

fan of the show, so that I could keep apprised of what was happening.

Had the audio been functioning, I most likely would not have been chatting with my mother;

however, in doing so, the ability to talk with her pointed out something the website was lacking.

Unlike the experiments by CBS and NBC, there was no structure to allow synchronous chatting

with other viewers. Given that the promoted purpose of the website was to allow fans and viewers

of the series to "join the hunt" by incorporating the Panic Button and watching footage online that

was not being shown on cable, the producers may have felt that providing conduits for

communicating with other fans would have distracted them from their vigilance.

The webpage was divided into four parts. The main feature of the website was the video

streaming of live feed from the investigation site. This live stream was promoted as being different

from what cable viewers would see, calling it "exclusive access to view locations in the Fort that

won't be shown on TV". The live stream provided footage that appeared shot from security

cameras – high angle, very still -- for viewers to monitor and thus feel like part of the action. By

comparing what I recorded from the live stream to the cable footage, I could see that when the

show was not in commercial, the live stream tended to show what was being broadcast, although

not always. At times when the cable broadcast was focused on one team as they investigated, the

online footage would follow different teams. When the cable broadcast would be in commercial,

the live stream would show the exclusive footage, which consisted mostly of the security camera

footage from various spots around the location.

Besides the live stream, there were channels to allow three types of asynchronous

communication. As mentioned, there was the Panic Button, actually designed to be a big, red

button, as seen in Figure 3.2a. Using this feature, the user is prompted to indicate what the

investigators should look at and why. Users were also given two fields to send comments or

questions directly, supposedly, to three crew members, as shown in Figure 3.2b. One field was to

ask questions to Amy Bruni, a new TAPS crew member, who was tasked for the night with

answering these questions and posting the answers online, shown in Figure 3.2c. Amy and the

producers saw the questions asked before they were posted with the answers. The other field was

designed to allow users to send questions to the two founders and chief investigators of TAPS,

Jason Hawes and Grant Wilson. No answers from Jason and Grant were posted online, and there

was no indication of what happened to the questions.

3.3.1 Ghost Hunters Live and interactivity

As indicated by the event's producers, the goal of the online distribution was to promote a

type of consumption whereby fans and loyal viewers could feel they were having impact by being a

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part of the investigation. With this intention, the producers structured the virtual space to promote

ways of interacting with the investigating crew, such as the Panic Button and the two fields for

asking questions. The producers promoted an ideal of narrative interactivity, leading users to

believe they could potentially spot the big piece of evidence that will become the focus of the

investigation.

However, in the experience, this narrative interactivity was more for promoting viewership

than it was a consumption practice that impacted the progress of the content. The potential

narrative interaction occurred asynchronously, and through the filters of the producers. For

example, the Q&A with Amy. These posts were not terribly frequent during the event, and when

they did occur, they had the feel of being public relations style communication management. The

following examples were typical of the exchanges posted:

William: Amy , will you be doing any investigating?Amy: Tonight I will be in the interactive center only. But I have been investigating with

TAPS for awhile now. I was on the last episode at the USS Hornet and you will see me in a few more episodes this season and a lot more in season 5. :)

Mike: how is the atmosphere amyAmy: Pretty intense actually. Everyone takes this very seriously and of course, with so

many viewers watching it adds a different and exciting element. Of course, the team is always fun, so even with a little added pressure, we have a good time. :)

Dave: Amy. since I've been watching this show I've been real interested in the paranormal. What struck your interest in this field?

Amy: I was actually raised in a house that had a lot of paranormal activity. My family was very open about it and I started reading books on the paranormal when I just a kid. A couple years ago, I decided to take that interest and knowledge, and use it to investigate.

Jon: Amy, where or who do I ask, about the team investigating a tunnel and a trail that is in my area? They are extremely creepy and I've had some weird things happen to me there.

Amy: You can check out the TAPS web site, www.the-atlantic-paranormal-society.com for information on where and when to send case requests to TAPS. Good luck!

The answers concerned basic information about the episode, the series or TAPS. There was no

indication of questions posted challenging TAPS or the veracity of their evidence. There was no

discussion about whether or not ghosts actually do exist. No doubt not all questions posed to Amy

were answered, and as there was no way to verify the existence of those people who did ask

questions, this interactive feature could just as well have been scripted.

Additionally, there was very little acknowledgement of the show's investigators using

comments from the audience during the course of the episode. At many times the cable broadcast

would display in a crawl at the bottom suggestions generated from the online consumers; as seen

in Figure 3.2.1a, the person's name, location and suggestion would be shown, giving the viewer

the sense of having a presence in the show, but with no impact as these suggestions were not

used to prompt any investigations. Several times Amy and other crew members mentioned how

many Panic Button hits they had, but only once was there a pause in the episode narrative to

13


address the suggestions. At 3 hours and 55 minutes into the investigation, Jason and Grant

answered live a call from a viewer who claimed his ancestor was a Confederate soldier and thus a

prisoner at the Fort. The viewer suggested whistling Dixie to provoke the spirit; Jason and Grant

both chuckled at the suggestion, but promised to try it. However, the broadcast never showed

them fulfilling this promise.

In all, it would appear that the attempts at narrative interaction were constructed more to

"pay lip service" (Cover, 2004, 2006) to the desires of loyal viewers and fans who may wish to be a

part of the investigation. To gratify this desire, the producers structured the site to contain various

means by which they could interact with their objects of affection – the TAPS team members and

the concept of ghost hunting. But the extent to which those viewers actually had an impact on their

object of affection appears to have been minimal at best.

3.3. Virtual world talk show

The last experiment I report on here occurred within the new media of a virtual world –

Linden Lab's Second Life, to be exact. This experience was with a television series created and

broadcast inworld, within Second Life, as well as streamed to a related website. It is not a

production supported by a corporation; instead, it is the work of a professor of economics, Dr.

Robert Bloomfield of Cornell University. As part of his research interest in the economics of virtual

worlds, Dr. Bloomfield began producing an inworld talk show, Metanomics, in September of 2007.

All programs are archived at their website, www.metanomics.net, for time-shifting consumption.

However, it is the live shows that occur inworld and on the website that are the focus of my

analysis.

I must first clarify that Metanomics was not the first time television production as been

attempted in a virtual world for distribution inworld and through other conventional media. A

decade ago a research group in the United Kingdom, in partnership with a local television system,

attempted to create a virtual world that would be used to create broadcast material via a process

they dubbed "Inhabited Television" (Craven et al, 2000). They designed the virtual world to contain

areas and events they hoped would entice virtual world inhabitants to visit their space; then they

would film the activities that occurred and use the footage for broadcast content. According to the

researchers working on the project:

"The defining feature of this medium is that an on-line audience can socially participate in a TV show that is staged within a shared virtual world. The producer defines a framework, but it is audience interaction and participation that brings it to life. … Furthermore, inhabited TV extends interactive TV to include social interaction among participants, new forms of control over narrative structure (e.g. navigation within a virtual world) and interaction with content (e.g. direct manipulation of props)." (Benford et al, 1999, p. 180)

14

http://www.metanomics.net/


In essence, this earlier research project is similar to what the producers of Metanomics have

accomplished with their creation of an ongoing television series that even operates within standard

television seasons.

I began participating inworld and online with the September 23, 2006 episode, and was

there for seven episodes. All the shows in some way deal with topics about virtual worlds: from the

study to the design of them. At the time, the show was broadcast from an "island", or a region of

the virtual world owned by the show's producers, in Second Life called Sage Hall4. On this island

stood a building designed to mirror a physical building at Cornell University. As seen in Figure

3.3a, in this building was a large hall festooned with virtual objects intended to replicate a

conventional three-camera television studio built for a talk show. There was a stage decorated

with chairs for the host, Dr. Bloomfield's avatar Beyer Sellers, as well as his guests for the show.

Behind the chairs was a basic backdrop with an integrated video screen that could show graphics,

text and video. There were stadium-style stands for the audience to sit in – or, rather, for the

physical audience at their computers to position their avatars at as an anchor in the studio. There

were no objects representing cameras, as the technology allowed for recording to occur either

linked to a user's avatar or to a point in the virtual world of the user's choice.

The production staff of the show was geographically dispersed around the United States,

and at times around the world. For the September 23rd show, Dr. Bloomfield was at our university,

but was still able to conduct his show as if he was doing it from his standard location. The series

was "filmed" and transmitted by SLCN (Second Life Cable Network), which since the data

collection period has become Treet TV (http://archive.treet.tv/programs/metanomics). The show

was broadcast within Second Life to special islands, or event partners. During data collection this

included: MetaPartners, New Media Consortium, Rockcliffe University Consortium, Muse Island,

and Orange Island. As mentioned, the show is also streamed live at their website for those who do

not have access to Second Life, either in general or due to a technical glitch, as happened to me

once.

As part of my experience, I visited all of the event partners to understand how the

transmission worked. At each island, for example MetaPartners and New Media Consortium seen

in Figure 3.3b, a theatre was constructed that allowed users to position their avatars in chairs or

stadium-style stands and orient their avatars, and thus what they could see in the world, towards a

screen that would exhibit the show. Once I was forced to attend an event partner because I had

arrived too late at Sage Hall to become part of the live studio audience. Each island has a limit as

to how many avatars can be there at any given time; by the time I had arrived at Sage Hall, the

studio was full. Also, because this experiment combined both a virtual world and live streaming,

4 The show currently airs from a new island in Second Life in a building not designed to reflect a physical world location; however, it does retain the conventional set-up of stage and stands for studio audience.

15

http://archive.treet.tv/programs/metanomics


there were technical glitches. For the October 13 show, the audio and video feeds were distorted

at the New Media Consortium island, which I had scheduled to visit. Then, in teleporting to the

Rockcliffe University Consortium island, my avatar, and thus myself, became stuck in a blue void

and I was unable to move. That night I ended up going to the website to watch the show and

participate from there.

While the use of a virtual world to produce an ongoing television series is itself innovative,

the experiment's most innovative feature may be the utilization of an inworld feature to facilitate,

encourage, and utilize active audience participation. The series created a "chatbridge" or

"backchat" structure wherein audience members can utilize the world's standard texting feature to

talk amongst themselves and address questions and comments to the host, guests and producers

during the live show. As depicted in Figure 3.3c, this feature produces what Dr. Bloomfield called a

"constructive cacophony".

At each of the locations in Second Life, there were balls in the audience sections that were

treated metaphorically as microphones. If the audience member sat her avatar within a specified

range to this "microphone", then anything she types in her chat field will automatically be included

as part of this "constructive cacophony". Individuals who watched the live stream at the website

could likewise log in and participate in the chatbridge from there. The host and the guests were

also a linked to the chatbridge and would sometimes partake in the conversation. Audience

members were encouraged by producers to ask questions for the host and guests, allowing for the

backchat to actually provide feedback to influence the content of the show. The producers also

used this chatbridge to send out announcements before, during and after the show, such as

information about the show's sponsors, links to websites discussed in the show, and information

about upcoming episodes.

3.3.1. Metanomics and interactivity

The fact that a section of a virtual world was structured so as to produce a television series

is itself an attempt to foster greater interaction on the part of the consumer. More than just logging

in to a website and clicking on the hyperlink for a specific page, the consumer must initiate the

Second Life program, which includes creating an avatar, then orient her avatar to a place where

the episode will be shown and to face the screen within the virtual world so that what appears on

the user's computer screen is that episode. These steps require more activity on the part of the

user, and more reactivity on the part of the medium in order to function.

Furthermore, the producers of Metanomics have attempted to simultaneously promote

social and narrative interaction through their promotion of constructive cacophony. The chatbridge

allows individuals to communicate with each other during the show with the same type of

16


synchronicity both CBS and NBC provide. Because the producers, host and guests are also part

of the chatbridge, there is the possibility that any audience member could impact the course of the

show, utilizing the same potential promoted by Ghost Hunters Live.

In one sense it is unfair to include an analysis of this experiment with the others for two

reasons. First, this is an academic program within a less used medium, a virtual world, about a

highly specialized topic; thus, the overall audience size is not comparable to those generated by

the corporate controlled examples. Because of this smaller size, it is possible to generate the type

of social interaction Ghost Hunters Live could not. Second, it is a talk show and not generally

designed for high audience feedback, whereby a solitary question from the audience could

completely change the course of the show. Thus the genre is different than the formats used by

CBS and NBC, which use their virtual spaces for the distribution and consumption only of scripted

material. The genre is also different than that of Ghost Hunters Live, but as with those special

event shows, not every question directed at the producers of Metanomics becomes utilized by the

producers to impact the content of the show.

However, there are reasons to include this experiment when discussing attempts to further

the interactivity of television distribution and consumption. In both the Ghost Hunters Live and

Metanomics examples, the producers act as gatekeepers and decide what communication from

the audience will be passed along to become part of the show's content. From the user's

perspective, there was no one-on-one correlation between the user's actions and the content's

reactions. Instead the content responds to the aggregated audience by reacting to perhaps the

"best" actions, where the actions are determined to be as such by the producers. Additionally, in

the Metanomics and CBS and NBC experiments, individuals alone at home or work, seated before

a computer, can be in conversation with individuals perhaps thousands of miles away, both

strangers and friends; indeed, friendships can be fostered via such communicating, and even a

sense of community can form. Also, in all three of those experiments, there was some attempt for

the producers to bring into the virtual space the practices of a physical space; with CBS and NBC,

these would be the practices of watching television with others in a living room; with Metanomics it

would be the practices of being part of a live studio audience for a talk show.

4. Remediating conventional television online

Through my participation with these experiments, what I have discussed is what I found the

most interesting: how the producers were attempting to provide different types of interaction in the

experience of internet TV. They appeared interested in creating structures that would promote

some form of social interaction and/or narrative interaction. I found such experimental attempts at

increased interactivity interesting for two reasons. First, for what such attempts say about the

17


desire of the producers to remediate the structures and practices of conventional television.

Second, for what such attempts say about the power dynamics in the relationship between

producers and consumers. In this section I will elaborate on my observations and reflections

considering both of these points.

4.1 Remediation

Remediation, as originally conceptualized by Bolter and Grusin (1999), is used in this

discussion to understand how to compare conventional television distribution and consumption to

the structures and practices promoted in these four experiments; remediation helps us understand,

as we compare the movement of content from one medium to another, what was or was not

changed in that the meaning of the content and how it was distributed. For the purposes of this

discussion, I am focusing the notion of remediation involving not only content, but the forces that

are surrounding and embedded in that content and its distribution structures.

"No medium today, and certainly no single media event, seems to do its cultural work in isolation from other media, any more than it works in isolation from other social and economic forces. What is new about new media comes from the particular ways in which they refashion older media and the ways in which older media refashion themselves to answer the challenges of new media." Bolter & Grusin (1999, p.15)

"Remediation is, above all, the borrowing and refashioning of the representational practices of one media or media form into another, and such practices are constituted as a combination of technical choices and ideological positions. The measure of these practices is not a standard dictated by any essential features of a technology; it is instead their ability to capture the 'real' with reference to some cultural standard." Bolter (2007, p. 201)

I refer to these two quotes as they seemingly acknowledgement that a media text, new or old, does

not only involve how the content is refashioned, and the ways in which the refashioning speak to

the nature of mediation. "Television-as-text" is a product of the multiple layers of meaning and

behaviours that surround it as it is enmeshed in social and cultural networks. In remediating, it is

possible to attempt to refashion these meanings and behaviours: either to make them transparent,

where the consumer is in relation to them through the new media as they would be through the old,

or to make them aware of the new media's mediation in bringing to the consumer to the text

(Bolter, 2000; Bolter & Grusin, 1999). In this sense, along with comparing the technical structure of

the text that is being remediated, one can also compare the behaviours that are either implicitly or

explicitly also brought into the new consumption space (Crang, Crosbie & Graham, 2007; Deuze,

2006).

In this discussion of Internet TV, the analysis is on how the Internet compares to television

in refashioning the distribution structures and consumption practices of and around conventional

"television-as-text" content. In the following three sections I will discuss how the experiments can

18


be seen as attempts to remediate three aspects of conventional television: practices, structures,

and power dynamics.

4.1.1. Remediating practices

In this analysis I will focus on a practice that is often used to separate the two distribution

technologies under consideration, networked computers and television sets. Engaging with any

aspect of the Internet, from emails to massive multiplayer games, is typically considered to be a

solitary experience, at least in the sense that in the physical world the ratio is one person to one

computer screen (Poniewozik, 2009). Television is typically considered a social activity, whether at

the time of consumption or later on as a focal point for conversation (Chorianopoulous & Lekakos,

2008; Ryu & Wong, 2008; Wood, 2007).

The virtual livings rooms created by CBS and NBC and the virtual talk show Metanomics

are examples of attempts to remediate the social practices of consumption that happen in living

rooms or any place people congregate in-person to consume the same televised content. The

producers consciously programmed their virtual spaces to promote synchronous social interaction.

NBC and CBS marketed their products to highlight such capability, even labeling them with terms

that would conjure up the physical surroundings and the practices that inhabit them.

The question remains, however, did they effectively remediate the practices? Part of

remediation is determined by the subjective experience of the user; this would perhaps be most

true for the activities that surround the television set and constitute the engagement with it. If the

user does not perceive the social interaction activities in the online spaces to be similar to those he

is familiar with in the physical spaces, then can they be considered the same? Critic Chris Albrecht

(2008) tested CBS's Social Rooms and found the social interaction not a true remediation of those

physical world practices. Albrecht argued there is a difference between virtual and physical social

interaction, and one of his key points is that without the body language and sound aspects it is not

the same type of social interaction.

The lack of such cues is particularly true in the NBC case, but less in the CBS and

Metanomics cases. With NBC, there is only the option of textual chatting. With CBS, the users

can interact with the screen through the various actions, and each user's actions will be visible to

the others in the room. In this way, each person in the virtual living room could comment upon the

actions of the others, as they could do were such interactions occurring within a physical living

room. With Metanomics, the avatars are full bodied representations of humans and other

creatures, capable of making gestures akin to physical body language. In each of the event

partners, where the avatars congregate to consume the live feed, people can use their digital

selves to relay communication other than through the text channel. Of course, none of these

19


virtual spaces can completely remediate all the dimensionality of social interaction that occurs

within the physical world, but the virtual world can come closest with the combination of embodied

and text communication.

4.1.2. Remediating structures

As I have discussed, what I consider makes these cases experimental are the attempts at

different types and amounts of interactivity. In the previous section I discussed social interaction.

Narrative interaction was also attempted in two of the case studies as an attempt to refashion the

distribution of television from one-way transmission to a more two-way dialogic model. A more

dialogic distribution model is one of the features proponents of interactive television have

attempted to develop: the ability for the consumer to interact with the content so as to have the

content reacts in real-time to his actions. Since the rise of digital games with increasingly

complicated narratives, there has been growing interest in how to learn from these interactive

media for the production of interactive television (Cover, 2004; Ekman & Lankoski, 2004; Ursu et

al, 2008).

In both the Ghost Hunters Live and Metanomics cases, there was structured into the nature

of the show an attempt to include the consumers in the production process, to limited extents.

Being live shows, both examples structured their virtual space so that the audience could provide

feedback to the producers that could impact the progress of the content as it was broadcast. For

Ghost Hunters Live, such feedback was through specified structures of asking questions to the

producers and providing suggestions to assist the investigation. For Metanomics, such feedback

was through the communal chatbridge that linked audience members with one another and with

producers during the course of the show. By allowing, and promoting, such feedback potentials,

both cases were explicitly indicating they did not intend to distribute their content in the

conventional linear model; instead, they attempted to bring in real-time audience feedback, thereby

creating a dialogic distribution model.

However, the narrative interactivity of these experiments is not equitable with the truest

form seen in digital games due to the lack of a one-to-one action-reaction ratio. What this means

is that the progress of the television content was not reactive to each single user. Instead, the

content reacts to the aggregated audience. In Ghost Hunters Live and Metanomics, the producers

selected only certain questions or suggestions to incorporate into the live content; everyone who

wanted to influence the content could not directly do so. In digital games individuals playing alone

or in groups have the one-on-one relationship as their actions can be shown to directly influence

the game’s content as it reacts to them. Game players can have the experience of having their

20


actions matter for the progress of the game's content; such subjective experience is not possible

with either of these experiments.

While these examples show interest in narrative interactivity, there remains the tension

about producing a true one-on-one ratio. Even research studies that have attempted to create

television broadcasts that were interactive also relied on the aggregated response model (Hales,

Pellimen & Castrén, 2006; Ursu et al, 2008). What these experiments reflect is the tension Cover

(2004, 2006) described as the problems involved in overcoming the "author-text-audience"

relationship. With both Ghost Hunters Live and Metanomics, the lack of the one-to-one narrative

interaction can be seen as "paying lip service" to the desires of consumers to fully participate in the

content.

4.2. Remediating power dynamics

The conclusion of the previous section leads directly into the discussion of this section.

Conventional power dynamics in television are based on the producers being empowered over the

creation and distribution of content, with consumers having increasing control over their

consumption. The attempts at interactivity found in these case studies can be read as attempts to

refashion this conventional power dynamic for the new media landscape. In examining the rise of

interactive marketing techniques, I have argued (Reinhard, 2008) that the attempts by producers to

structure interactivity into their offered media products is to maintain the ability to utilize the labour

of aggregated audiences for their own purposes.

I believe we can see a similar power dynamic at work in these case studies. While it is true

that these experiments provide more interactivity than has been found in other internet television

offerings, they are not the type of interactivity that empowers the individual to explore her desires

fully. Instead, the interactivity is limited in terms of the choices available, as predetermined or

determined in real time by the producers – a system that is reflexive to programmed parameters,

but is not flexible beyond that (Kim & Sawhney, 2002). While the consumers are empowered in

certain ways, the producers have determined how, when and in what way those consumers will be

empowered, thereby retaining ultimate power over distribution, and to a lesser extent consumption.

Rather than deconstruct the traditional television model to truly make interactive television,

Kim and Sawhney argue the industry is more interested in maintaining the conventional model

(2002), albeit with adjustments to reflect the increasing active nature of consumers. From one

perspective, maintaining this model is commonsense. The producers have to be responsive to an

audience, an aggregated collection of users, even if it is not numbering in the millions. A

technological medium can be responsive to the actions of a user, but to the providers that

individual user is just one of many. While the user may be able to interact with and respond to the

21


whole network, the whole network, in order to be economically viable, must respond and interact

with the aggregated audience (Van Tassel, 2001). Limiting the type and amount of interactivities

can reflect this necessity of responding to larger, variable marketplace of consumers.

What this points to is the tension discussed by Cover (2004, 2006) and Jenkins (2004) on

the traditionally dichotomous identities of producer and consumer. Producers have attempted to

respond to changes in the marketplace and the media landscape by simultaneously including

consumers more in the production of television (Bennett & Strange, 2008; Deuze, 2007) and

offering them greater control over the distribution and exhibition of television (Becker, 2006;

Holahan, 2007), and then using their ability to maintain aggregating audiences to further grow and

develop their media empires that are ultimately not disempowered in relation to the audience

(Deuze, 2007). The television industry has learned lessons from the music industry that to remain

powerful in a world mediated by the Internet (Holahan, 2007; Seiter, 1999), the industry must

provide some power to the consumers to fulfil increasing interest in interactivity

From a critical approach, these attempts to remediate the power dynamics may appear

oppressive, disallowing the consumer to fully express herself by interacting on all levels of

television content, from production to consumption. I will not argue this is not potentially true.

There does appear to be pandering to those who want interactivity by providing limited forms that

could potentially become accepted as the norm by the majority of users, thereby reducing the

likelihood of truer interaction, and more equitable power dynamics, in the future.

However, to what extent does such an argument celebrate the consumer as being always-

active, or indeed all consumers being as interested in interactivity as the most active fans studied

by Ross (2008). Seen from another perspective, this remediation may be interpreted as basic

"supply and demand" economics, of producers responding to a majority of the audience being

unwilling and/or not ready to embrace a fully interactive television. The majority of consumers may

be more interested in the passive reception of the content rather than having to negotiate and

navigate a highly interactive technical interface (as seen in discussions by Benford et al, 1999; Van

Tassel, 2001). This tension in the marketplace continues when we consider potential consumers

to be an aggregate of a variety of groups, some that may be more or less likely to be in the ready-

to-interact category. Studies indicate acceptance and desire for truer interactivity will come sooner

with younger, more affluent demographics and those experienced/comfortable with computers and

online environments, such as fans of television shows that began colonizing the Internet as a place

for their fandom (Ross, 2008; Sperring & Strandvall, 2008; Ursu et al, 2008; van Dijk & de Vos,

2001).

From this perspective, perhaps what these case studies illustrate are attempts to remediate

the practices and structures of conventional television because these practices and structures can

22


replicate the logics of television to which consumers have become accustomed (Green, 2008). As

Ekman and Lankoski (2004, p. 168) discussed in their survey of British people, finding both this

duality of interest and hesitation:

"Although new media may be emerging, people are slow to change. They will prefer the old and reliable to the new and suspect, until the new medium becomes familiar. … interactive television will have to maintain some familiar aspects of television, mainly its broadcast nature, in order to be perceived as television at all."

In providing a hybrid, a middle ground of something familiar combined with something novel,

progress could be made toward that dream of the interactive television that better balances the

power between producers and consumers. However, the assumptions of this perspective require

reception studies analyses of the wants and needs of the aggregated audience(s) in relation to

these experiments and similar attempts to colonize cyberspace to become places for television.

5. Conclusions

As the Internet and broadband technology grow in scale and diffuse throughout the

marketplace, we may continue to see more attempts to bring to online distribution and

consumption of television the type of interactivity that proponents of interactive television had

hoped to bring to the television set. Already all online television structures foster time-shifting;

consumers can visit a variety of Internet applications, both legal and illegal, to find whatever

content they wish. This ability is similar to the control offered by DVR devices for television sets.

What these case studies show is how virtual spaces can become places to offer two types of

interaction that have not become widely available in the public marketplace: social interaction and

narrative interaction.

While we are seeing progress being made towards interactive TV, and the potential such

interactive TV would hold for empowering the consumers, the current experiments also seem to

indicate that the consumer/producer power dynamic and tension continues to underlie much of the

structuring of online virtual environments and worlds for television production, distribution,

exhibition and consumption. The producers are increasingly responding to the interactive desires

of the consumers in the marketplace, especially to those who are Internet-savvy and thus most

likely to go to such places. However, if the majority of the marketplace does not indicate the desire

for that control, then there may be less experimentation that could offer more empowering

interaction, such as true narrative interaction. Then the minority who do wish for such control may

have to continue to colonize virtual worlds like Second Life, which is founded to promote user-

driven innovation, to have their needs met.

In the discussion of these experiments, I have attempted to consider the remediation

occurring as neither completely oppressing or empowering the consumers or producers. Indeed,

indicating either as occurring would be to see a resolution to the tension, and I do not believe such

23


a resolution has occurred, or is likely to occur. The experiments illustrate the result of the

intertwinement of structure and agency, as discussed by such scholars as Giddens (1984). The

experiments were developed in response to the changes in the activities of consumers, and these

activities were themselves in response to changes in the media landscape. Perhaps the

interactivity offered in these cyberspaces do not promote completely empowering the audience, but

should the places fail to produce measurable consumption, especially among the corporate

controlled experiments, then these spaces will be restructured. Indeed, their very presence, and

their promotion of interactivity, may foster greater desire in the marketplace for such control,

thereby prompting more manipulations of cyberspace. Or the experiments could be economic

failures, and such attempts to create online places of interactive consumption may stop or be

delayed.

As long as both structure and agency are constituted by changeable actions and material

conditions, there cannot be an either-or resolution to the tension of producer-consumer. There will

only be the tension manifesting in new ways and in new sites, such as these experiments. My

analysis of these sites attempted to focus on their structures in how they relate to, reflect upon, and

are influenced by the surrounding cultural and economic forces at the time of their manifestation.

Situating the experiments in this larger fabric provided a way to speak to both the concerns of

political economics on the positioning of the producer and reception studies on the understanding

of the consumer. As Jenkins (2004) spoke to, these new media sites can provide us the

opportunity to understand the necessity of combining these disciplines, so as not to succumb to the

need for an either-or resolution to what is a very complex situation. Investigating these sites from

both perspectives can help us understand the complexities of these tensions and what and how

they speak to the sociohistorical moment(s) in which they exist.

24


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Figure 3.1.1a. List of shows available for CBS Social Rooms

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Figure 3.1.1b. Example of CBS Social Room chat

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3.1.1c. Example of CBS Social Room icons

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3.1.2.a. NBC Viewing Party selection process

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3.1.2.b. NBC Viewing Party creation process

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Figure. 3.2a. Ghost Hunters Live Panic Button

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Figure 3.2b. Ghost Hunters Live fields for asking questions

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Figure 3.2c. Ghost Hunters Live Amy Bruni answers questions

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Figure 3.2.1a. Ghost Hunters Live examples of viewers' suggestions

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3.3a. Metanomics Sage Hall stage

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3.3b. Metanomics event partners theatres, MetaPartners and New Media Consoritum

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Figure 3.3c. Metanomics chatbridge at Sage Hall

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Documents

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