Hah, That's Rich........ Media

For the blog question this week we were asked to evaluate how rich media represent risks to people in my profession. Admittedly I was stumped for an answer to this as my profession is videogames and the industry responsible for some of the richest media available. There are several considerations to be made however, a major one being accessibility for the disabled, another being the inherent behavioural addiction that can affect people who enjoy the content you’re providing. Without sinking this blog entirely into an ethical debate on the apparent frivolity or necessity of play this blog entry will outlay these two major risks inherent with the richer media.

Rich media as a theory evaluates the effectiveness of a communication form with the more effective being ‘richer’ and the less effective being ‘leaner’ (R. H. Daft and R. H. Lengel). For example, text is fairly ambiguous and can often have several meanings attributed to the same phrases, simple text on a page addressed to nobody in particular would be an example of lean media and a face to face coffee shop conversation between two acquaintances would be an example of rich media (University of Twente).

Without a doubt the richest media available is plain old face to face conversation, this allows participation in the widest variety of ways and has the highest possible chance of the message being understood completely. In this conversational media participants can use their words, their body language, their facial expressions and their tone (not to mention smells and posture) to alter the meaning of their communication as required. They also have the opportunity to respond to feedback and questions and alter their approach if the message isn’t being received. Obviously language is the biggest hurdle here along with visual and hearing disabilities.

After face to face are the pseudo face to face communication methods, real time video communication for example. This offers very nearly the same richness as regular face to face conversation with obvious differences. For example, the camera generally won’t display the entirety of the communicator so some of the intended body language may be lost (along with the aforementioned smells). Once again these rich media suffer drawbacks for the disabled for the very same reasons.

For these reasons videogames suffer from the same drawbacks, the realism offered by today’s graphic engines count for absolutely nothing if you cannot see. The same goes for ultra high fidelity sound to the deaf. These problems may seem absurdly obvious but I believe they rate very highly on the drawbacks of the richer media.

Moving on....

Virtual reality is a concept that has been toyed around with for many years now. VR is being used for a variety functions such as treating post traumatic stress disorder for war veterans (Hamilton et al). The idea of creating a complete virtual space that a person could ‘enter’ or have their sensors surrounded by develops mixed feelings by everyone. Surely the experience could be very entertaining and offer unparalleled immersion when compared to current on-screen gaming technologies. But, as any gamer will tell you, the more a game is able to pull you into its world and make you a part of it the more time you’re able to sink into it without realising you’re doing so.

Doing things you enjoy is addictive, whether it is lawn darts, painting miniature models or videogames. Seeing as this is an entry about risks, behavioural addiction must be a part of the discussion when considering videogames. Videogames get a bad rap when it comes to a lot of things, a rap I believe it doesn’t deserve. But I also believe there are ethical considerations to be made for creating future generations of games, ones that will be undoubtedly more realistic and presumably more entertaining (this really isn’t the place for a debate about realism vs abstraction, maybe some other time).

Entertainment is addictive regardless of its form and videogames can reach such a large audience due to their ability to cater to so many different wants and needs. But as new and more interesting ways to reach these audiences are developed the industry runs the risk of firstly, creating massive public backlash on itself and secondly, drastically altering the human experience.

Don’t get me wrong, I think there’s room for improvement in the human experience. But surely a code of ethics for changing it isn’t a bad idea.

-Gibbo

Daft, R. L., and Lengel, R. H. “Information Richness: A New Approach to Managerial Behavior and Organizational Design,” in Research in Organizational Behavior, JAI Press, Homewood, IL, 1984, pp. 191-233.

University of Twente webpage entry on Media Richness Theory, retrieved 17/11/2009 from http://www.tcw.utwente.nl/theorieenoverzicht/Theory%20clusters/Mass%20Media/Media_Richness_Theory.doc/

J. O'C. Hamilton, E. T. Smith, G. McWilliams, E. I. Schwartz, J. Carey “Virtual reality How a Computer-Generated World Could Change the Real World” Retrieved 17/11/2009 from http://www.businessweek.com/1989-94/pre88/b328653.htm