images received’ (Thompson, 1995: 89–90). Thus, many face-to-face
conversations have a reference to TV as their content.
However, in the above models of intersecting forms of communica-
tion, face-to-face interaction continues to be privileged. Thompson’s
primary aim is to show the complex ways in which extended forms of
interaction mediate the face-to-face.
Thompson’s model does not view the extended forms of interaction as
themselves social ontologies except insofar as they mediate all of those
‘local contexts’ of production. Moreover, it can be argued that an oversight
of Thompson’s analysis is that the very idea of ‘local’ contexts of commu-
nication is made possible by communication that is stretched across space
and time. The very experience of the local qua local, in its contemporary
form, is made possible by more universal and extended forms of symbolic
exchange. To appreciate the fact that extended contexts should be regarded
just as important as ‘local’ contexts would also address the problem of
describing quasi-interaction as a form of interaction.
Remember that the second media age theorists see the problem of
broadcast as being one-way, whereas networked, horizontal forms are
two-way. But this holds true only from a logocentric conception of inter-
action. With the aid of Thompson, we can reveal a sense in which broad-
cast contains forms of reciprocity.
To return to Figure 3.1 (p. 53) regarding the architecture of broadcast,
we can note that at the level of interaction it is a largely one-way form of
communication. Thompson notes, in relation to television, that there can be
various kinds of ‘right of reply’ and interviews with audience members,^11
but the overwhelming volume of ‘transmitted’ messages is one-way.
However, there is another way to view this architecture which rein-
states its interactive quality. To appreciate this view, we must abandon the
idea that interaction must take place directly between agents, and view it
instead as something that can occur within a circuit of symbolic exchange
which may involve both human and technical agents.
In the architecture of broadcast that is illustrated in Figure 5.1, the
arrows have been located in both directions to suggest a dialogical rela-
tionship. The idea that embedded within broadcast is a form of reciproc-
ity is not easy to see. It usually means establishing that the one-way
communication that is said to exist within broadcast is actually two-way
after all. This means establishing how the audience is a producer of a
media form as much as a destination for it.
Broadcast is a communication architecture in which a number of
forms of reciprocity are embodied.- Broadcast isn’t entirely monological. There is the reciprocity which
occurs when media consumers also become producers. Thompson
gives examples with television, but it needs to be appreciated that it is
common to all forms of broadcast: ‘letters’ to the editor, opinion pages,
talkback radio and street interviews; and also on television, non-acting
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