Visual media, such as art, photos, and movies, use special techniques called "rules of notice" to guide what viewers pay attention to and how they feel about what they see. Understanding these rules helps both creators and those trying to understand the messages in visuals.

The commercial features and distribution models of the movie, traditional television, streaming video and online video industries each exert an influence on the type of content produced, how it's crafted and how audiences engage with it.

Interactive media, such as games and social media, use many of the same "rules of notice" as visual and video media, but also use “rules of action” that both allow users to make choices but also limit and influence those choices.

Where all media communicate through rules of notice, interactive media are fundamentally defined by their structural possibilities – what might be called "rules of action " – which significantly influence how users communicate and behave.

Social media is best understood as a collection of capabilities, or affordances, overlaid on various platforms. Instagram, for instance, is a platform for visual and video media with social media capabilities, while Scratch is a gaming platform with social media capabilities. It represents a major change from older media, shifting from one-way communication to a decentralized network where everyone can be a producer.

Unlike movies or books, games are unique because they focus on agency and interactivity, meaning player do things rather than just watching or listening.

The social media industry represents a profound transformation of the traditional media landscape, moving from hierarchical, one-way communication to decentralized, interactive digital networks.[1] Today’s dominant platforms are best defined as "two-sided platforms that primarily host user-generated content distributed via algorithms, while allowing for interactions among users.”[2] This highly interactive and networked environment has created immense wealth for the platform operators while simultaneously establishing