Unit 8 An Interactive Life

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Unit 8 An Interactive Life
---It will put the world at your fingertips,
changing the ways you shop, play and learn. But
when will the future arrive?

• from Newsweek

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Teaching Objectives

• To understand the text
• To learn the words and phrases about the
  interactive life
• To be familiar with the interactive life

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Teaching Points

• I. Background information
• II. Structual analysis
• III. Text analysis
• IV. Rhetorical devices
• V. Questions for discussion

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I. Background Information

• The text is taken from American Newsweek.
  Newsweek is American news weekly established in
  Dayton, Ohio in 1933. In it domestic and
  international news is summarized, analyzed and
  categorized according to topics each week. It
  also has special sections devoted to arts,
  science, medicine, sports, etc. it is one of the
  three largest newsweeklies of America and has a
  wide domestic and international circulation.

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Background Information

• Broadway
• New York City thoroughfare that traverses the
  length of Manhattan, near the middle of
• which are clustered the theatres that have long
  made it the foremost showcase of
• commercial stage entertainment in the United
  States. The term Broadway is virtually
• theatrical activity. Broadway gained its name as
  the axis of
• synonymous with American
• an important theatre district.

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II. Structure analysis

• Paragraphs 1-2 Introduction of interactive life
• a huge amount of information available to
  anyone at the touch of a button
• Paragraphs 3-18 description of interactive life
• A. difficult to understand because its still
  a long way
• B. four phases fake interactive, true
  interactive, complete viewer control, and final
  frontier
• C. possible dreams because of large capacity
  chip, fibre optic cables and digitalization
• D. dark side no privacy, wide gap,
  considerable debate
• Paragraph 19 Suggestion
• hanging on for the ride

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II. Structure analysis

• The authors describe an interactive life of the
  future from three aspects.
• First they introduce many imaginative images
  about an interactive life to readers
• then they go on to describe many possible
  features of this future life.
• At last they analyze the dark side of these
  dreams.

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III. Text analysis

• Whats the meaning of the title?
• An Interactive Life a life which acts
  reciprocally, mutually, receives and gives in
  return
• An Interactive Life refers to the future life,
  meaning a life which acts reciprocally, mutually,
  receives and gives in return. This interactive
  life is the life with Internet, and this life
  will familiarize you with the world, change the
  ways you shop, play and learn.

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What does the essay try to describe to us?

• The essay describes to us an interactive lifethe
  future life that will fully involves us all
  interactively, and suggest us that we should hang
  on for a ride even though we do not know when
  this life will come.

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Para. 1 Stepping into the past so as to
understand the future

• Why do people have to step back to see the
  future?

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• Because the past indicates the development of the
  human history. We learn from history that every
  invention in history brings about great
  development. Techniques have marked different
  eras over the centuries from the primitive tools
  of the Stone Age, to the Industrial Age marked by
  steam and electrical power and the discovery of
  turbines, and engines. Today, we have entered a
  new era the computer age and Information Age.

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Thomas Alva Edison (1847-1931)

• --American inventor
• --began to work at an early
• age and continued to work right up until his
  death
• --well known for his focus and determination.
• --more than 1,000 inventions, ( the electric
  light, the phonograph, and the motion-picture
  camera).
• --electric utilities, phonograph and record
  companies, and the film industry

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Edison National Historical Site

• For more than forty years, the laboratory created
  by Thomas Alva Edison in West Orange, New Jersey,
  had enormous impact on the lives of millions of
  people worldwide.
• Out of the West Orange laboratories came the
  motion picture camera, vastly improved
  phonographs, sound recordings, silent and sound
  movies and the nickel-iron alkaline electric
  storage battery.

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Why do the authors say Where he saw internal
memos, someone else saw Beethoven?

• Because by saying this, he means to gives an
  example how Edisons invention brought about the
  development.

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What do you think is the latest
breakthroughinteractivity?

• The Internet is the latest breakthroughinteractiv
  ity in particular, because it has created a brand
  new environment. A new culture has been born
  free, rapid, and universal where people share
  their knowledge and expertise. Information and
  communication techniques have been turned upside
  down, distance has been eliminated, frontiers
  abolished. A tremendous interactive potential is
  burgeoning on our planet Earth today. Like it or
  lump it none can stop it!

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What is called fake interactive?

• Channel-surfing with the remotes, ordering
  pay-for-view movies and running up the
  credit-card bills on the Home Shopping Network
  can be called fake interactive, because it is
  just one step past passive viewing, pure
  couch-potato mode.
• couch-potato  a person who spends most of his
  time on a couch watching TV

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Why does Caruso call this fake interactive?

• It is not considered genuine interactivity
  because it is not revolutionary enough and is
  just one step beyond passive viewing. It is still
  the traditional form of sitting on the couch
  watching. 

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What is called true interactive?

• The major changes in the technological and
  regulatory infrastructure can be called true
  interactive, for example, the use of the
  multimedia and World Wide Web,

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What is called complete viewer control?

• When people have access to thousands of
  channels delivered through some combination of
  cable, telephone, satellite and cellular
  networks, which provide data from computer-based
  archives and information services, complete
  viewer control is reached.

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Para. 10. final frontier
What is called final frontier? A complete
two-way link of video, audio and data is called
final frontier. According to Red Burns, chair
of the interactive Telecommunications Program at
New York University, Interactive means we are
all involved. There is no viewer. Interactive
is like a conversation.
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Para. 13 electronic highway clogged

• these electronic highways have become clogged
  the wires, cables or air can no longer carry the
  increased number of signalsbecome clogged
  become stopped up become jammed, blockedclog
  become blocked or filled so that movement or
  activity is very difficult

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Para. 17 gap between the haves and the have-nots

• Why may interactivity widen the gap?
• Because those who have access to the information
  may have better opportunities since information
  and the speed of acquiring information are
  decisive in todays competition.

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Para. 18 considerable debate

• In the next few years theres likely to be
  considerable debate over the realistic
  presentation of violence in the new generation of
  video games, which will include viewer-directed
  movies
• In the next few years there may be quite a lot of
  discussion over whether it is good or bad,
  whether it should be allowed to have display of
  actual violence in the new stage of video games,
  including movies planned and controlled by
  viewers. 

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IV . Rhetorical Devices

• metaphor
• simile

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V. Questions for Discussion

• What will an interactive life of the future be
  like? Describe some of its possible features.
• Why should a person step into the past to get an
  idea of what the future might bring?
• How would Peter Jennings become obsolete?
• What is called fake interactive?
• Why would video telephony mean an end of
  anonymous phone calls?