: Audience Scope and the Perception of Interactivity in Viewer Mail on the Internet

Abstract

A content analysis looked at 650 Internet mail messages sent to NBC Nightly News in response to an invitation during a series dealing with the impact of new technologies. Message indexes were created to reflect the scope of the audience they addressed. Macro-scopic messages were formal, dealt with political issues, and either did not mention technology or mentioned mass media. These messages resembled a letter to a newspaper editor. Mezzoscopic messages were positive and avoided political issues. They congratulated NBC as a team for their work on the technology series and tended to mention computers. Micro-scopic messages stood out for their authors' high perception of interactivity. These messages mentioned computer technology more than any other group and appear similar to face-to-face communication in many ways. Results are discussed in terms of how the relationship between media users' perceived sense of interactivity and the scope of the audience they address are related to message style and content.