The article is dedicated to the study of the cultural and social roots of the audience's desire to interact with works of art and media, focusing on television. The relevance of the work is determined by the processes of digitalization and hybridization of media, leading to the formation of new interactive forms of screen art and the transformation of traditional broadcasting formats. The aim of the research is to identify stable cultural patterns underlying the evolution of television interactivity. Tracing the path from early strategies of imitating dialogue to complete technological convergence with the internet, the work demonstrates how the basic proto-interactive form of participation consistently evolves, acquiring new technological manifestations—from rhetorical techniques of the host to the integration of interactive applications into the broadcast stream (HbbTV). The study also includes a socio-philosophical analysis aimed at uncovering the deep-seated reasons behind the audience's desire for interactivity. The research is based on a historical-artistic approach and structural-functional analysis. Methods such as historical reconstruction of media practices, comparative analysis of interactive practices across different eras, as well as theoretical analysis of key concepts from philosophy, sociology, and media theory (alienation, "mass man," "textual poaching") are employed in the work. The scientific novelty of the research consists in the introduction of an original typology that differentiates forms of audience interaction with works (proto- and para-interactivity). The proposed typology is applied to identify and analyze the historical continuity in the development of television. The evolution of television interactivity is systematically examined as an embodiment and technological development from the proto-interactive paradigm (from imitation of dialogue and the institutionalization of feedback to its complete technological hybridization with the internet). The study reveals the interconnection between the development of interactivity in media and the culturally rooted need for participation. In the context of mass society, where the individual experiences a lack of genuine agency and meaningful activity, interactive media play a compensatory role. They create a symbolic space in which the causal relationship between action and response is reproduced, offering the user a sense of control and immediate feedback. Consequently, the emergence of hybrid television appears as a logical stage in media evolution aimed at symbolically satisfying the demand to overcome alienation and achieve participation.
Demid Maksimovich Khotin (Thu,) studied this question.