CS6031 Interactive Media in Society Cristiano Storni Week 10 Assignment Colm Walsh

Transcription

1 CS6031 Interactive Media in Society Cristiano Storni Week 10 Assignment Colm Walsh New media can be considered to be a generic term for the many different forms of electronic communication that are made possible through the use of computer technology i.e. interactive digital media. For the purposes of this paper the focus is on Web advertising and search technologies. The advent of the Internet and the Web, in particular, since the early 1990s has facilitated the development of sophisticated search technology to aid users in discovering information relevant to their needs. The Web also quickly became a platform for advertising and the form of that advertising has evolved over time due to user response and economic drivers. It is the interactive nature of the Web that is crucial to the success of these applications. Old media forms such as print, newspapers and magazines consist of static representations of text and graphic information. The communication is one-way in the form of a broadcast and there is little or no opportunity for the end user to participate in an interactive manner with the material. The creation of search engines has allowed users to interact with information in a selective manner enabling a discourse between the technical object and the environment. The designer makes decisions during the design process that lead to a situation in which the characterisitcs of the real user match those assumed by the designer at the outset. The algorithm used by Google, for example, assumes that users who possess accurate information on a topic link to each other so that in effect the wisdom of crowds prevails and the results produced are in turn accurate and useful to the searcher. A vision of the world is therefore inscribed by the designer in the technical object, in this case a search engine. The user s reactions give body to the designer s project. The search engine can be classed as a technical object and both it and the people who use it are brought into being in a process of reciprocal definition in which the object is defined by the subjects and subjects by object. The search engine uses page rank over time to produce more accurate results reaching

2 a stage of greater and greater stabilization. Once stabilized the technical object becomes an instrument of knowledge. The search engine then becomes a tool in the hands of the media company that can be used to create an advertising model that is targeted, measurable and results driven. In the pre-internet age, advertising was a passive endeavour in which messages were communicated to users in media that were not interactive. The advertiser had very little information on who was consuming the ads or on how successful/unsuccessful they were. In other words, it was impossible to calculate return on investment (ROI). The phenomenon of Web advertising followed a process of negotiation between the designer and the user over time leading to the scenario today where advertising is tightly coupled with searching. The network of relationships involves the advertiser, the search engine (technical object), the media company providing the service and the user or consumer of the advertising. Other actors such as legislators and standards bodies are also part of the network. The actors in the network become enrolled in that they agree/disagree to adopt certain roles in the process. In the first place, users agree to allow cookies because the technology cannot work if the user does not cooperate with the technical object to facilitate electronic tracking. Advertisers agree to pay for the facility to communicate with users and the search engine provides privacy guarantees for example. During the process of stabilization, obstacles will present themselves. Users may decide to turn off cookies because of privacy concerns, advertisers may breach standards or legislation for short-term gain, the media company may decide to use private information inappropriately. Assuming that these issues are resolved, the user is displaced from their position in the network due to the data that is gathered about their behaviour on the Web site. This data is in the form of charts, graphs, formulae and spreadsheets. The user has in effect forfeited some privacy in return for greater convenience so that he/she is represented by that data. They are satisfied that such representation is accurate and serves their needs. A consensus is achieved but that consensus may be challenged at any time. An examination of the history of Web advertising demonstrates this well. The first ads to appear on the Web were of the banner variety. They were static and usually placed at the top of sites or at the side (skyscraper ads). They earned revenue on the

3 number of clicks per 1000 impressions. Over time, users became dissidents in that the number of clicks became less and less because they were found to be annoying and were not interactive. The consensus was challenged and as a result the economics of the model were not justified and the number of banner ads decreased substantially. Pop-up and Pop-under ads followed the same pattern. Users rebelled against them because of the inconvenience of having to close windows frequently and because of their intrusive nature. However, advertisers persist with their usage on some sites because the click-through rate is higher than banner ads. User animosity is such that credible sites avoid them altogether. This toing and froing between the technical object and the user continues on a recurring basis. Currently ads are being placed in between content in effect forcing the user to view them. This is also the case on sites such as YouTube where ads are displayed in the viewport of the video. These can take the form of either short clips before the desired video plays (which are unavoidable for the user) or ads that appear at the bottom of the viewport (which users must close if they wish to view the video ad-free). This is a good example of the technology attempting to configure the user placing constraints on users which are frequently not welcome. The user has no choice but to view the ad if they wish to see the content. In essence, the technology attempts to define the user by establishing the parameters for the user s actions. The response of users will determine how this situation will evolve in the future. Users may be willing to put up with the inconvenience in order to view content. Advertisers may not get the ROI expected and desist. Various actors may make decisions that alter the network of relationships. Users are not a homogenous group; they consist of different categories of users. Configuring the user involves the determination of likely future requirements and actions of users. This is an ongoing process involving continuous evaluation. In the case of search and advertising, beta testing and tools such as Google Analytics provide the means to achieve this on an ongoing basis. When there is still considerable ambiguity both about the capacity of the technology and about the character of the user, the machine becomes its relationship to the user, and vice versa. The technology is a metaphor for the search engine company so that, in particular, the boundaries of the technology are the boundaries of the

4 company. The search engine s interface symbolises the user's relationship to the company. Insiders know the search algorithm and how Page Rank works, whereas users have a configured relationship to it, such that only certain forms of access and use are encouraged. It could be argued that the boundary between the user and the technical object is blurred when discussing Web advertising and searching, specifically in the case of text ads on Google. Web advertising is closely related to search terms and the decision on which text-based ads will be displayed to the user is determined by the actual terms entered in the search box; the user determines the outcome of the search and thereby the nature of the ads that are displayed. This leads us to the question of technologial determinism and social determination with regards to new technologies. Does technology develop as the sole result of an internal dynamic and then, unmediated by any other influence, mold society to fit its patterns? Or is it the case that what matters is not technology itself, but the social or economic system in which it is embedded - the social determination of technology? Technologies are ways of building order in our world. Many technical devices and systems important in everyday life contain possibilities for many different ways of ordering human activity. Consciously or unconsciously, deliberately or inadvertently, societies choose structures for technologies that influence how people are going to work, communicate, travel, consume, and so forth over a very long time. The political influence of technology can have a bearing on people s relationship with the technology and with each other. The Web could be considered to be a liberating technology in that it provides access to information on a scale never seen before. However that access is dependent on availability of hardware, software and networks and the so called digital divide is an issue because access to information means power with ensuing consequences for people in disadvantaged regions of the world. Access can also be controlled by political systems as was evident when Google agreed to comply with censorship in China in The company were guilty of configuring the user by establishing constraints on the results that would be displayed thereby going against the company motto Don t be evil. The company had to decide between denying Chinese citizens some political searches and denying them all searches.

5 As has been demonstrated, the on-going configuration of the user with regards to Web advertising and search technology is constantly evolving. It remains to be seen what the final destination (if there is to be one) will be. References Woolgar, S., 1991: Configuring the user: the case of usability trials, A Sociology of Monsters: Essays on Power, Technology and Domination, Law, J. (Ed.), Routledge, London, UK. Callon, M., 1986: Some elements of a sociology of translation: domestication of the scallops and the fishermen of St Brieuc Bay: Power, Action and Belief: a New Sociology of Knowledge?, Law, J., Routledge, London, UK. Winner, L., 1986: Do Artifacts have Politics? : The Whale and the reactor: a search for limits in an age of high technology, University of Chicago Press, Chicago, IL, USA. Akrich, M., 1992: The De-Scription of Technical Objects: Shaping Technology, Bijker, W., and Law, J., MIT Press, Cambridge, MA, USA.