The Importance of Interactive and Social Media

14.1 Identify three reasons for learning about interactive media.

Interactive media are a constant reality in our lives and affect our daily activities in multiple
ways. This pervasiveness provides the first and primary reason for learning more about this
topic. A second reason is that understanding interactive media and having good media skills
provide opportunities for self-expression and can help you be more successful personally. And a
third reason is that understanding and using social media effectively in your professional life can
help ensure career success.

First, we say that interactive media are pervasive because most of us interact with these
communication technologies almost constantly and increasingly access them on mobile devices
(Auxier et al., 2019). Recently, people have to rely on interactive media more than ever;
because of remote work/learning/health environments, there has been a shift in thinking of
interactive media as entertainment for pleasure to thinking of it as something we need in our
daily lives for school and professional purposes (Vogels et al.,
2020). You probably know that social media use has grown dramatically over your lifetime. In
2005, just 5 percent of U.S. Americans used social media, compared to today when 75 percent
of all adults and almost 90 percent of young people (ages 18-29) use social media. Although
communication technologies are a huge boon for many people around the globe, they present
challenges to communication researchers (and textbook authors) in trying to understand and
study the implications of these interactive media in our daily lives. Communication technologies
come and go at a rapid rate. By the time researchers design a study, the particular technology
may have lost prominence, and the study results can then seem irrelevant. In addition, it’s
difficult to predict which technologies will be important in the future or how we will use current
ones differently.

That said, we have to start somewhere to describe the role of interactive media in our everyday
lives, and most experts agree that we currently use communication technologies primarily for (1)
connecting with others in various ways, through social networks, media sharing, social blogging,
and discussion/community blogging and (2) consuming content (verbal and visual).
These interactive media offer many ways to stay connected and, as Charee discovered, present
many communication choices. Our friends can know immediately what movies we’re streaming
and what brand of sunscreen we’ve purchased as well as the restaurant where we’re eating.
Digital apps help us connect with new friends who share our interests (e.g., Meetup, Meet My
Dog, Nextdoor) and potential sexual or romantic partners (e.g., Grindr, Tinder, Scruff, Bumble,
OkCupid). Perhaps more importantly, social media can provide a quick way to notify friends and
loved ones that we’re safe during natural or human caused disasters (e.g., Facebook’s Safety
Check).

Of course, different social media platforms have different audiences that require different
approaches. What you post on LinkedIn, for example, differs from what you post on Instagram
or TikTok. We are constantly making choices about which information we want to share with
which
friends/acquaintances/colleagues and in which medium. Throughout this chapter, we will
examine how this pervasive connectivity can affect our communication choices as well as our
sense of identity, personal privacy, and romantic, work, and acquaintance relationships.

Connecting with others can provide opportunities for civic engagement and activism. Interacting
on social media (eg., Twitter) offers opportunities for closer access to political leaders and
celebrities. Some journalists say this direct access has upset the traditional role of journalists.
But social media also presents opportunities for civic engagement and political activism. For
example, one analysis found that the #MeToo hashtag had been used more than 19 million
times on Twitter from October 15, 2017 (when actress Alyssa Milano tweeted, urging victims of
sexual harassment to reply “me too”), through September 30, 2018 (Auxier et al., 2019). And
the #BlackLivesMatter campaign started with one tweet after the murder of Trayvon Martin and
Michael Brown in 2012, gathered momentum over the years, and led to the 2020 massive
protests after the killing of George Floyd.

Activism that takes less effort, or “slacktivism,” involves supporting a cause merely by
connecting with others on social media (e.g., by changing a profile image, retweeting an
opinion, or using a trending hashtag). It turns out that
“slacktivism” or “clicktivism” (a less negative term) is actually more effective than we might
assume. By spreading little-known ideas and publicizing non-mainstream notions, these actions
collectively can provide momentum to fledgling social and political movements (Fisher, 2020).
Even seemingly insignificant daily social media activities can provide social solidarity and be a
gateway to political participation (Stewart & Schultze, 2019; Yamamoto et al.,
2019).

In addition to organizing and promoting social causes, interactive media have been used
successfully to raise money through crowdfunding to support individuals, charities, or start-up
companies. People can contribute to crowdfunding requests with no expectation of repayment,
or companies can offer shares of the business to contributors. Kickstarter, the most popular
crowdfunding site, has raised over $5 billion with more than 182,000 projects funded since its
inception in 2009. Indiegogo and Causes are popular for nonprofit fundraising, and GoFundMe
is used to raise money for personal causes (soliciting money, for example, for healthcare costs
or travel). Kiva enables people from developing countries who cannot afford bank loans to
crowdfund temporary loans (Nguyen, 2020).

Another important interactive media activity is searching for
information/consuming content (visual and verbal). Some activities may be less interactive (e.g.,
reading news reports; getting directions; reading reviews of restaurants, movies, or home repair
professionals; obtaining stock quotes or weather reports; watching funny cat videos), but others
are quite interactive, like commenting on political/news/opinion blogs, posting your own opinions
and reviews, or sharing a funny TikTok video to a friend along with your comments (see
Communication in Society: The Role of Social Media in a National Health Crisis).

Communication in Society

The Role of Social Media in a National Health Crisis

In a national health crisis, some people panic, and some remain calm. Why is there this
vanation, and what types of official messages are most effective in helping citizens deal with
such a crisis? Can you relate this information to national health issues today?
Communication scholars Glowacki and Taylor (2020) investigated this topic by examining 400
social media responses (Facebook posts and Tweets) to three different media sources during
the three-month crisis when the deadly Ebola virus entered the United States in 2014. The three
sources represented a range of political/cultural positions: (1) the Centers for Disease Control
and Prevention (CDC), viewed as a scientific and relatively neutral source; (2) the White House
(WH), with a progressive Democratic President Obama; and (3) Alex Jones’s show Infowars, a
politically far-right, self-proclaimed conspiracy theorist known for stoking fear and concern from
followers.

As expected, the messages from the CDC were focused on explanations of the virus and the
health situation, the WH’s messages on calming fears. However, these attempts at informing
and calming citizens were often met with social media responses of criticism, distrust, and
scepticism (e.g., the CDC was incompetent, hadn’t provided best practices for handling the
virus, and so on).

Not surprisingly, messages on Infowars’ Facebook page stoked fear and anxiety. For example,
some messages accused the U.S. government of “draconian powers” and detaining Americans
Other messages accused the CDC of a “hidden” past, saying that
the CDC knew Ebola had mutated into an airborne virus much earlier in 1989. Not surprisingly,
social media responses to these messages centered on distrust of the government rather than
concerns over Ebola (e.g., accusing the government of intentionally bringing Ebola into the
United States and withholding treatment).

The CDC continued to send out facts and advice about the virus, quickly countering Infowars’
false information; responses of accusations and blame slowly turned to scepticism and
frustration, and finally the tide seemed to turn and responses to the CDC messages were more

thankful and even asking for guidance. Responses to Infowars’ fearmongering messages
became sceptical, with some labeling the messages as “scare tactics.”

Glowacki and Taylor draw several conclusions: (1) When faced with a potential health crisis,
citizens respond to fear with “hyperbolic” (exaggerated) rhetoric: scepticism and blame,
apprehension, and/or an unwillingness to comply with the prescribed guidelines
(2) This hyperbolic rhetoric seems to feed off of established patterns but “has a shelf life, lacks
the endurance to withstand prolonged discussion.” Suggestions for health officials: Monitor
social media posts to get a sense of what the public perceives as concerning. Use specific
rather than vague language when communicating about health recommendations and practices.
The CDC’s vague language at the beginning of the crisis seemed to lead to panic, mistrust, and
scepticism.

SOURCE: Glowacki, E. M., & Taylor, M. A. (2020). Health hyperbolism: A study in health crisis
rhetoric. Qualitative Health Research, 30(12), 1953-1964.

Searching for information presents a choice: When do you do a Google search, post a question
on Quora (crowdsourcing), or ask friends on Instagram? One group of researchers found that
people carefully choose their platform based on the nature of their question and the audience
they’re interested in. People used Facebook to ask questions when they wanted opinions from
their friends, were seeking very specific information, or were asking friends to supplement
information from a search engine. They tended to use Twitter when they needed a broader
audience or were seeking information they thought inappropriate (too sensitive or too
controversial) for other social media friends.
They used search engines when they didn’t think their Facebook friends would have the answer
or the topic was too sensitive for social media (Oeldorf-Hirsch et al., 2014). How do you
choose?

Closely related to crowdfunding, discussed earlier, is crowdsourcing. While crowdfunding seeks
to obtain money, crowdsourcing is a way of getting information or opinions from a large group of
people through interactive media. Originally, crowdsourcing was used like a Google search for
general information; it is now increasingly monetized, used by businesses or marketing firms to
solicit new business or raise capital. Individuals who respond to the crowdsourcing questions
may be paid employees or freelancers hired to promote organizations/businesses, often by
including links (to those businesses/organizations) in their answers.

A second reason for learning more about interactive media is that developing good digital skills
can help in your personal life, for example, by helping overcome the challenges of problematic
interactive media use Busch & McCarthy, 2020; Tanega & Downs, 2020). As we’ll discuss in
more detail later in the chapter, knowing how to use social media effectively can lead to better
self-esteem (Firth et al., 2019), better mental health, and emotional well-being (Faelens et al.,

2021). Understanding the challenges of virtual relationships (romantic and friendships) can lead
to safer interpersonal relationships and higher relational satisfaction (Verduyn et al., 2021).

Finally, you may not choose a career in social media (e.g., social influencer, digital marketer),
but knowing how to use social media effectively to find and secure a job or using social media
and other communication technologies in your chosen career will enhance your chances of
professional success. For example, recent research shows a strong relationship between
professional success and active use of social media such as LinkedIn. It appears that users of
these platforms report more timely access to resources and referrals to career opportunities
than nonusers do. (LinkedIn explicitly promises to connect its members with professionals from
all over the world.) These professional informational benefits are positively related to career
satisfaction, which is also linked to overall life satisfaction (Utz & Breuer, 2019).

Understanding the role that interactive media can play in employer employee relationships and
understanding organizational rules and practices involving interactive media, including
surveillance, privacy concerns, and “netiquette,” will serve you well. You have probably read
news reports about employees who lost their jobs or were penalized as a result of not
understanding the informal or formal rules about media behavior in the workplace (Doyle, 2020).
Perhaps you wonder when employers can (and cannot) terminate employees for social media
practices. We will discuss this question later in the chapter as well as various challenges and
guidelines for effective interactive media use in work contexts (Miller, 2018).

What Are Interactive Media?

14.2 Define interactive media.

We define interactive media as a collection of mediated communication technologies that are
digital and converging and tend to be mobile, all accessed on a variety of devices, from desktop
and laptop computers, smartphones, tablets, and other mobile devices. Let’s unpack this
definition a little further and distinguish interactive media from mass media — the topic covered
in Chapter 13. In contrast to in-person communication, both mass media and interactive media
are mediated forms of communication, meaning that the messages are carried through an
intervening system of digital electronic storage before being transmitted between two or more
people.

In contrast to mass media, in which messages are generally one-to-many, interactive media
messages converge, meaning that they can be sent one to one, one to many, or many to many.
Also in contrast to mass media, they are interactive, meaning that communication goes both
ways and permits individuals to connect and interact with others. So what are examples of

interactive media? There are many, but the easiest description is: Interactive media include
social media, online games (e.g., massively multiplayer role-playing online games
(MMORPGs)], messaging apps, remote learning platforms, virtual reality, and email.

Social media is “a group of Internet-based, web applications that allow the creation and
exchange of user-generated content” (Kaplan & Haenlein, 2010, p.61). For our purposes, social
media include social networking sites (SNS), like Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn; media
sharing networks, like Instagram, Pinterest, and YouTube; social blogging networks, like Tumblr;
discussions, like Reddit and Quora; and review networks, like Yelp and TripAdvisor. These
categories are not set in stone. Twitter, for example, is an SNS but is also categorized as a
microblog. Snapchat is a messaging app but functions like a social media platform. Remember,
in addition to social media, interactive media also include mobile messaging and email.

One of the characteristics of interactive media is new versions are always emerging. It is a
dynamic form of communication, and increasingly mobile.
Distinctions between mass and interactive media are becoming more and more blurred. For
example, some mass media forms like television reality shows viewed on mobile devices
incorporate audience reaction and participation. And some media, like podcasts, may not allow
interaction, functioning in a way that is similar to traditional mass media. For the purposes of this
chapter, we focus on the interactive elements of media, where the “real give and take of social
life” in cyberspace occurs (Walther & Parks, 2002, p. 3).

How do this mobility and this constant connection with others and information sources through
interactive media affect our communication choices and uses?
Before addressing this question, we need to understand how various communication
technologies differ from each other and from in-person communication —the topic we turn to
next.

How Does Interactive Media Use
Affect Our Communication Choices?

14.3 Describe the dimensions of interactive media and how these dimensions help us
understand and choose among various media.

Because interactive media are rapidly changing forms of communication, it is difficult to arrive at
definitive conclusions about their exact role in everyday life. Researching these forms of
communication can be like trying to hit a moving target. Still, with a basic understanding of what
interactive media are and some of the ways they can differ, we can get some sense of their
increasingly important role.

To begin, let’s consider Charee’s constant connectivity and her reaction to the various interactive
media. Why do online classes and remote work frustrate her to some degree? Why is she
happy to consult her cooking video and order her groceries online? Like Charee, perhaps you
find yourself happy to engage with certain interactive media and not others. Or perhaps you
have had an issue to discuss with a friend or acquaintance and were unsure what the most
effective mode of communication would be. If so, you had good reason to feel unsure.
Interactive media differ in important ways, and these differences can affect your response, the
outcome of your interaction, and even your sense of wellbeing and happiness. One way to
understand these reactions and choices is to examine the characteristics of various media and
how they vary along two dimensions.

Interactive Media and the Individual

14.4 Describe issues that can arise in identity and relationship development when using
interactive media.

Clearly, interactive media use presents us with a range of choices, and those choices can have
a powerful impact on communication between individuals in terms of identity, and in turn,
personal relationships. Let’s examine the way this works.

The Individual, Interactive Media, and Society

14.5 Understand the role of power and privilege in interactive media use.

All media activities —whether for fun, socializing, or information seeking — are enacted by
humans within a social context and the larger society. These activities both reflect and influence
larger societal norms. For example, some of the same social hierarchies that exist in the larger
society also exist in the realm of interactive media. When we sort people out by various
identities (for example, gender, ethnicity, or race), we find differences not only in how many of
them use communication technologies, but also in how they are perceived to use these media.
In this section, we’ll first look at how various identities influence technology use and then
examine some of the inequalities in communication technologies use.

Ethics and Interactive Media

14.6 Identify four ethical challenges involving interactive media use.

One message we hope you take from this chapter is that interactive media are not good or bad
in themselves, nor better or worse than offline communication.
They are simply different. However, these differences can allow for irresponsible, thoughtless, or
even unethical communication. How can you become an ethical user of social media?

There are at least four areas of ethical consideration: (1) presentation of identity online, (2)
privacy issues, (3) posting ethical messages, and (4) building online relationships.

Improving Your Mediated Communication Skills

14.7 Discuss ways to improve your own mediated communication skills.

What should you take from this chapter that can help you be a better communicator? First, you
can strive to communicate more effectively in educational, personal, and professional contexts.
Just as we have norms of courtesy for traditional, in-person communication, we also have
etiquette for virtual communication.