Traditional mass communication media such as television and radio are so
much a part of our lives that we sometimes fail to notice technological
innovations that are changing the nature of media as we know them. Oftentimes,
the "early adopters" among us are the only ones aware of these "new media,"
these new communication technologies. The rest of us simply live life without
considering the implications of these innovations. We think that we have all we
need in order to be informed and productive, until we are either forced to use the
new methods of communicating or until we see direct and personal advantages
to making use of them. Once confronted with them directly, we wonder at how
suddenly our lives have been altered by a new or modified technology (and also
how we ever got along without it in the past). We also tend to take innovation for
granted without stopping to give serious consideration to its impact on our lives.

New technologies are also changing the very nature of mass communication
processes. In the past few decades, traditional forms of mediated communication
with large, heterogeneous, and anonymous audiences (e.g., television and radio
broadcasts) have gradually given way to other forms of mediated communication
in which audience members have far more potential for feedback and much more
"user power." In other words, one-way (primarily), mass communication has
been slowly evolving into a more interactive or transactive process. Many of the
new communication technologies allow and even foster interpersonal
communication as well as mass communication among users. Moreover, the
interactive components of certain new communication technologies make it
difficult to distinguish between the classic "sender" and "receiver" that for so
long were seen to be basic components of the mass communication model.

The characteristics of the new technologies force us to take a step beyond the
realm of mass communication. We label this new domain transactional mediated
communication. Transactional implies a give and take situation--an
interpersonal communication relationship in which parties alternate in their roles
as sender, receiver, and information processor and thereby exchange information.
Mediated signifies that media--technologies--are still involved. In most media
systems that support transactional communication, mass communication is also
possible. In other words, communication transactions may occur between many

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