Analyzing interactivity is key to understanding how new media needs its own study. Some people had to learn how to use new media while others were born into it. There were people who had to experience all of the flaws and come up with solutions for the issues in these platforms. Therefore part of the traditional methods were brought into new media to try and understand it. However, we cannot keep doing that anymore. We are not analyzing texts in a book anymore. We are talking about how we interact with text in new media. Besides, how this media needs its own theories and ways of thinking.
Supporting Eyman
Eyman explains why traditional methods are not enough to analyze new media. As he point out “qualities of new media or digital texts should be considered as new forms, perhaps requiring the development of new theory or method” (Eyman 33). I have stated many times before how we need to learn about the changes in technology. And, how important it is to keep up with them. Therefore it is not surprising that we also need new ways of thinking about how new media and its interactivity deserves their own theories and methods. We have the studies of rhetoric in traditional media, the same thing needs to be done for new media. It is unfair to apply the old methods into something that we have been experimenting with for not as long as old media.
Every little action, even if it might be insignificant for the everyday user, it has a reasoning behind it. Every picture, hyperlink, font and color size in a site has a reasoning. The author of the site designs it that way because they are persuading people about a certain topic or action that needs to be taken. Analyzing interactivity in new media is fundamental to understanding digital texts.
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