Interactivity and User Participation in the Television Lifecycle: Creating, Sharing, and Controlling Content

Interactive TV research encompasses a rather diverse body of work (e.g. multimedia, HCI, CSCW, UIST, user modeling, media studies) that has accumulated over the past 20 years. In this article, we highlight the state-of-the-art and consider two basic issues: What is interactive TV research? Can it help us reinvent the practices of creating, sharing and watching TV? We survey the literature and identify three concepts that have been inherent in interactive TV research: 1) interactive TV as content creation, 2) interactive TV as a content and experience sharing process, and 3) interactive TV as control of audiovisual content. We propose this simple taxonomy (create-share-control) as an evolutionary step over the traditional hierarchical produce-distribute-consume paradigm. Moreover, we highlight the importance of sociability in all phases of the create-share-control model.