That's Interaction!

Abstract

This paper provides a broad overview of how notions of interaction and participation relate to the economic interests of industry and to the cultural forms that commerce subsequently generates to protect those interests. In particular, it concentrates on the 'synergies' that entertainment monopolies of the 1990s utilise to 'synchronise' a variety of entertainment products across divergent sites. It is argued that such 'commodified intertextuality' is greatly assisted by the popularisation of new technologies. The convergence of commercial interests in new media technologies also coincides with the expansion of the so-called 'entertainment economy' into new cultural spaces, including those properly considered the province of architecture and design. The origins of such developments in an earlier phase of modernity can tell us much about the types of products and discourses of interaction presently being developed and promoted by the media- entertainment complex.