oid, relates the tale while little R2D2 projects
holographic images of battling spaceships. The Ewoks are dazzled by
R2's special effects and engrossed in C3PO's tale: the how and the
what. They are so moved by the story that they not only release their
prisoners but fight a violent war on their behalf! What if the
Empire's villainous protector, Darth Vader, had arrived on the alien
moon first and told his side of the story, complete with his own
special effects?

Television programming communicates through stories and it influences
us through its seemingly magical capabilities. The programmer creates
a character we like and with whom we can identify. As a series of plot
developments bring that character into some kind of danger, we follow
him and within us a sense of tension arises.

This is what Aristotle called the rising arc of dramatic action. The
storyteller brings the character, and his audience, into as much
danger as we can tolerate before inventing a solution, the rescue,
allowing us all to breathe a big sigh of relief. Back in Aristotle's
day, this solution was called Deus ex machina (God from the machine).
One of the Greek gods would literally descend on a mechanism from the
rafters and save the day. In an Arnold Schwarzenegger movie, the
miraculous solution might take the form of a new, super-powered laser
gun. In a commercial, the solution is, of course, the product being
advertised.

TV commercials have honed this storytelling technique into the perfect
30-second package. A man is at work when his wife calls to tell him
she's crashed the car. The boss comes in to tell him he just lost a
big account, his bank statement shows he's in the red and his
secretary quits. Now his head hurts. We've followed the poor guy all
the way up Aristotle's arc of rising tension. We can feel the
character's pain. What can he do? He opens the top desk drawer and
finds his bottle of Brand A Pain Reliever and swallows the pills He
swallows the pills while an awe-inspiring hi-tech animation
demonstrates the way the pill passes through his body. He, and us, are
released from our torture.

In this passive and mysterious medium, when we are brought into a
state of vicarious tension, we are more likely to swallow whichever
pill and accept whatever solution that the storyteller offers.

Interactivity: the birth of resistance

Interactive media changed this equation. Imagine if your father were
watching that aspirin commerci