Week of 1/19 Blog Post
Question: What is interactive narrative and in what ways does it relate to websites? Use examples. What narrative elements do you find in most websites? One of your assignments is to create your own homepage. What do you want your homepage to say?
An interactive narrative is one that draws the user or reader into the subject. What type of interaction will work is largely dependent on the perspective of the user. For example, when my uncle first accessed the internet, he was disappointed that it involved so much reading; he wanted something more like TV or the movies, where the story was told to him by someone else with associated pictures. Bilgil's "History of the Internet" is an example of the type of narrative that my uncle desired that was not readily available when he started using the internet. The story is told to the reader/user along with associated graphics. My uncle's topic of choice would be much different, but that is another discussion. In contrast to my uncle, I enjoy reading the text on web pages and find that I can read the same information more quickly than it can be presented in video presentations; however, I agree that multimedia helps to catch the readers/users' interest and pull them into the world presented on the web page. One website that I visit frequently is Hungry Girl. This website features a ticker that runs the latest story posted to the site, along with links to Hungry Girl approved products and an ask Hungry Girl section. Hungry Girl tells a story that captures the attention of those who are trying to enjoy favorite foods, while maintaining a reasonable size. Another example of an interactive website is Facebook. Members of Facebook can track down friends, play games, and interact in the virtual world. My employer, ACS Publications, is also moving to a more interactive website by providing ACS members with the ability to blog, interact on wikis, link articles to Facebook, Digg, etc., and to receive podcasts, among other things. ACS Chemical Biology has the most-developed interactive page of the ACS journals with an "Ask the Expert" section, a wiki, podcasts, and "Thematic Compilations".
I have been struggling with a topic for my personal website. My husband has suggested that I create a website focusing on my weight loss struggle. At first, I cast that idea aside because that is a very personal and embarrassing topic that has been well covered by others (for example, Hungry Girl, Kim Benson, Pamela Mallow, etc.), but the more I think about it, the more I am leaning toward that topic. I want my website to speak about determination and to maybe help someone else.
An interactive narrative is one that draws the user or reader into the subject. What type of interaction will work is largely dependent on the perspective of the user. For example, when my uncle first accessed the internet, he was disappointed that it involved so much reading; he wanted something more like TV or the movies, where the story was told to him by someone else with associated pictures. Bilgil's "History of the Internet" is an example of the type of narrative that my uncle desired that was not readily available when he started using the internet. The story is told to the reader/user along with associated graphics. My uncle's topic of choice would be much different, but that is another discussion. In contrast to my uncle, I enjoy reading the text on web pages and find that I can read the same information more quickly than it can be presented in video presentations; however, I agree that multimedia helps to catch the readers/users' interest and pull them into the world presented on the web page. One website that I visit frequently is Hungry Girl. This website features a ticker that runs the latest story posted to the site, along with links to Hungry Girl approved products and an ask Hungry Girl section. Hungry Girl tells a story that captures the attention of those who are trying to enjoy favorite foods, while maintaining a reasonable size. Another example of an interactive website is Facebook. Members of Facebook can track down friends, play games, and interact in the virtual world. My employer, ACS Publications, is also moving to a more interactive website by providing ACS members with the ability to blog, interact on wikis, link articles to Facebook, Digg, etc., and to receive podcasts, among other things. ACS Chemical Biology has the most-developed interactive page of the ACS journals with an "Ask the Expert" section, a wiki, podcasts, and "Thematic Compilations".
I have been struggling with a topic for my personal website. My husband has suggested that I create a website focusing on my weight loss struggle. At first, I cast that idea aside because that is a very personal and embarrassing topic that has been well covered by others (for example, Hungry Girl, Kim Benson, Pamela Mallow, etc.), but the more I think about it, the more I am leaning toward that topic. I want my website to speak about determination and to maybe help someone else.
posted by Jessica Badger at
10:06 AM
6 Comments:
This post was a little later than planned because my computer had to go to the computer doctor.
I think that what ACS is doing is excellent--sounds a lot like the kinds of website interactivity I'm interested in (see my post, etcetera, blah). Thinking in context of recent discussions about CCC's journal and the future of academic journals in general, this is really cool.
It's refreshing to me that you've completely skipped the whole personal/professional debate that a lot of us seem to be grappling with right now and are heading straight to personal. There are so many bad professional homepages out there that suffer from being merely self-serving. I get stuck on "I'll do a professional homepage because I feel like I should" instead of because I have some interesting, compelling, and yes, even helpful narrative to tell to other people.
Kudos.
I agree that interactivity means different things to different people - the example of your uncle is particularly effective. I think interactivity not only means different things to different people, but that different people seek various levels of interactivity and engagement. It's important to understand this and design interactive sites in a way that allows for various levels of "exposure" or engagement. I know that I struggle with the idea of putting myself out there on social networking sites for the world to see (and no, it's not cause I'm paranoid or anything). It still feels like too much exposure for me (and I'm not even that old!). My point being that while the students I teach can't seem to get enough interactive opportunities in all of its forms, I am quite content to be interactively limited for the sake of my privacy. Websites and interactive experiences should try to account for these different levels of engagement (if at all possible).
"In contrast to my uncle, I enjoy reading the text on web pages and find that I can read the same information more quickly than it can be presented in video presentations; however, I agree that multimedia helps to catch the readers/users' interest and pull them into the world presented on the web page."
Multimedia is good! This section of your blog makes me think about the different learning styles individuals have, like you preferring to read (visual learner) while others do best with video/audio (visual/auditory learners), and maybe some rare birds just want to listen (auditory learners). I wonder if tactile learners like learning from the Internet best since there is so much touching going on with the keyboard and mouse?
I like the idea of the ACS social network. At CISER, we created a Facebook Group so we could do about the same thing, for free, in an environment our largest audience is familiar with. Our Facebook research showed that our professionals could have major successes on Facebook as well. For example, one of our faculty mentors, who met a new peer on Facebook through a professional group, collaborated, and now the two scientists have a publication in press in a major science journal. Plus, we have 400 Alumni to track for our annual reporting narrative. Facebook's ability to archive narrative is invaluable! Presently, we are working on linking our Facebook into our SharePoint database for member surveying purposes.
I'm going to review your ACS links for potential ideas for CISER.
Thanks for a vibrantly honest blog!
Jessica, I enjoyed reading your post. Your uncle's story sounded familiar to me. I have often heard my father express the similar sentiments when working on the Internet. For those of us who have grown up with computers, we often see the existing framework us something given, never stopping to think that what we see today did not always exist. Like most other things, computers and the Internet have too been through a slow and steady process of evolution. Bigil's history of the Internet was a refresher in that way. It reminded me a lot of small facts that I almost forgotten. I personally find it amazing how the idea of net as a site of social networking has caught on in the past couple of years. Sometimes it is difficult to imagine that blogs are a relatively recent phenomenon or that the Facebook (a great example of interactive narratives) did not even exist until four years ago. It’s really a great time to be around. See you in MOO.
~Sharba
Great feedback, y'all, on one another's blogs.
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