La originalidad como vuelta al origen

Interactivity has been identified as one of the characteristics of the new media being provided via the World Wide Web (Mahmoud & Auter, 2009).

Defining interactivity is mainly an issue because it is still relatively a new concept and it is a valid way of thinking for communication studies (Banna et al., 2009).

The concept of interactivity has been mentioned for the first time in the late 1920s, when Berlot Brecht and Water Benjamin criticized the one-way direction of the mass media and said that this form of communication is very limited; however, the importance of interchange of the message between the sender and the user has been mentioned for the first time in Willbur Scharmn’s book, The Process and The Effect of Mass Communication, which was published in 1954 (Mahmoud & Auter, 2009).

In general, the definition of interactivity has always been summarized into four areas, which are the medium, the user perception, the process, and the combined approach (Mahmoud

& Auter, 2009; Banna et al., 2009)

According to Mahmoud and Auter (2009), definitions that focus on user perception like Day 1998, Wu 1999, and Kiousis 1999 definitions describe interactivity as a characteristic of the user not a characteristic of a medium. Such definitions confirmed that the essence of interactive communication is the use of information by the users based on their own perspective, perceptions, and choices.

Other definitions like those of Carrey 1989, Massy and Levy 1999, and Mawani 2000 focused more on types of channels involved in the communication exchange and considered interactivity as a functional feature of the medium (Mahmoud & Auter, 2009).

Meanwhile, definitions that focus on process usually highlight the interchange between the user and the senders; these definitions focus on responsiveness, action and reaction, and participation as key dimension to interactivity (ibid).

However, other definitions like the definition of Carrie Heeter combine process, users perception, and the medium together.

2.5.1 Cyber Interactivity

The last decades have witnessed a revolution in the mass media field. The primary cause for this revolution was the new media. New media have many advantages that discern them from traditional media such as selectivity, immediacy, demassification, inexpensiveness, and the interactivity. Yet interactivity is considered to be the main characteristic of the new media (Mahmoud & Auter, 2009; Banna et al., 2009).

The concept of interactivity has developed more during the last century, with the interactive feature of new media, because the receiver began to gain recognition as an active participant rather than passive reader and viewer (Mahmoud &Auter, 2009).

The varied forms of new media and their different configurations revealed the connection between the characteristics of interpersonal communication and the characteristics of mass media (Mahmoud & Auter, 2009)

Before the web, interactivity was seen as an attribute of interpersonal communication (Morris & Ogan, 1996). However, with the rise of the web as a commercial medium, interactivity appeared as an important factor that distinguishes the web from other traditional

media and it became a crucial concept in computer mediated environment because it is a central advantage of the medium (Banna et al., 2009).

People now seek and select information rather than receive information by the senders and enjoy doing that. The extent to which the communicator and the audience are willing to facilitate each other’s communication needs is used to determine the level of interactivity in the medium (Ha & James, 1998).

Chung, Deboran,, Yoo ,and Chan (2012) stated that there are 3 stages of interactivity in any website. The lowest stage is the execution of control: in this stage the provider of the website has more control over the content and limits the actions of the users to only take oriented searches. In this stage, you find the users only capable to link to external sites download files, rate the content, and so forth but cannot be involved in the content generation itself. In other words, all the interactivity in this stage is between the user and the provider in order to give the provider the chance to know the need of the audience before they express it.

The second stage is the human-medium stage. In this stage, the users express their own opinion by uploading public content.

The third, highest stage of interactivity is human-human stage; this stage is all about Communications between users; it includes creating online communities through messaging systems and user created profiles.

A relatively high level of interactivity of networked electronic media confirms the presumed suitability of those electronic media for multidirectional processes which support the idea that human rights organizations in the process of empowering people to exchange information may help the effective change by supporting decentralized, participatory development.

On the contrary, lower level of interactivity presumed the tendency of the provider to have more centralized power structure (Selian ,2002).

In general interactivity gives sites their stickiness or continuing appeal beyond information content, which users have come to routinely expect (Bucy & Erik, 2003).

People expected to find in the site, more than just information, especially if the site belong to an entity that suppose to promote for public involvement, that ‘s why they expect videos, audio, and testimonies and they expect to find a way by which they can ask all the questions that come in their mind and get answers (Ibid, Bassiouny , 2012).

The literature review revealed that Human rights organization in order to put pressures on policy makers requires the lobbying of public. In the past such mission was easy through interpersonal communication; however, it become much more difficult now. Now organizations have to find ways that could permit them to reach audience quickly and with low cost, because late report leads to late intervention. (Barrigan& Hemingawy , 2002 )

The literature also reveled that In Egypt after the revolution, the reputation of human rights organization become negative due to media attack on them. Human rights defenders have been accused to be betrayals; therefore, this image should be changed (Bassiouny , 2012 ; Silence is not an option , 2014)

A lot of researches recommended that the organization should take care of their website, if they want to gain a positive image among their audience (Sundar& Kim, 2005)

Therefore, it become vital nowadays to assess the level of interactivity of the websites of Human rights organization, to know how these organizations work and how the negative image created by the media could be changed.

CHAPTER 3