A Perspective on Producing 'Real' Experiences in Electronically Mediated Spaces

Submitted by David Zemmels

Comm 7380 – Communication Process

11/30/04

Abstract

 Attempts to define the process of successful realistic reproduction of experience in mediated spaces are the genesis of such conceptualization as ‘liveness’ and ‘presence.’ This line of questioning did not begin until the advent of mechanical reproduction of physical objects by devices such as the earliest camera and continues to modern viewing of images on World Wide Web using modern high-speed networking and virtual reality simulations.  However, questions of ‘liveness’ and ‘presence’ are based on a desire to create the illusion of a ‘real’ experience in technologically mediated spaces.  In this essay, I postulate that the focus need not be on how to create an  ‘illusion.' Instead, we need recognize that the reality of all electronically mediated experiences will be ‘unnoticed,’ and therefore perceived as 'real,' unless there is reason not to do so. Using Reeve and Nass’ (1996) research, I argue that we humans tend to readily respond to and accept anything that seems real as if it were real in electronically mediated experiences.  In other words, it is not something that needs to be produced, only sustained. This is an important distinction when it comes to designing positive mediated experiences, and frees us from the pursuit of the photorealistic to reproduce the 'real.'

Introduction

Attempts to define the process of successful realistic reproduction of experience in mediated spaces are the genesis of such conceptualization as ‘liveness’ and ‘presence.’ This line of questioning did not begin until the advent of mechanical reproduction of physical objects, that are ‘in the world,' by devices such as the earliest camera and continues to modern viewing of images on World Wide Web using modern high-speed networking.

Prior to mechanical reproduction, the definition of the ‘liveness’ was relatively unproblematic. A ‘live’ experience can be defined (in terms of communication and entertainment) as accomplished in the physical proximity to other individuals, within earshot as it were. There was no need for a distinction of ‘live’ events since everything was live, or to put it another way, “historically, the live is actually an effect of mediatization, not the other way around” (Auslander, 1999: 51). The concept of ‘live’ is really only conceived as a relationship to an opposing possibility. I suggest the only thing the word ‘live’ really means is ‘not recorded.’  Since all electronic reproduction is recorded in some fashion, even if only to be rebroadcast instantly, ‘liveness’ is no longer a useful criteria for evaluating the wide variety of electronically mediated experiences now available.  This effectively separates issues of liveness from the discussion of electronically mediated experiences in the digital domain.

         Along the same lines, another term, ‘presence,’ is often used to conceptualize a successful mediated experience, but it is used extensively with regard to electronically mediated experiences. From literary theory to virtual reality (VR), a review of the literature offers many dimensions of what constitutes a positive sense of ‘presence.’ This is where successful mediated experiences are defined as truly "natural," "immediate," "direct," and “real,” in which there is a “perceptual illusion of nonmediation” (Lombard & Ditton, 1997). Similarly, Lee (2004) defines 'presence' as “a psychological state in which the virtuality of experience is unnoticed” (32).

         In this essay, I postulate that the focus need not be on how to create an  ‘illusion.' Indeed, no special ‘psychological state’ is necessary. Instead, we need recognize that the reality of all electronically mediated experiences will be ‘unnoticed,’ and therefore perceived as 'real,' unless there is reason not to do so. Using Reeve and Nass’ (1996) research, I argue that we humans tend to readily respond to and accept anything that seems real as if it were real in electronically mediated experiences.  In other words, it is not something that needs to be produced, only sustained. This is an important distinction when it comes to designing positive mediated experiences, and frees us from the pursuit of the photorealistic to reproduce the 'real.'

I will then present various examples related to this phenomenon by looking at media experience that exist in multiple forms, especially the Web, and the factors that detract from our complete acceptance of mediated experiences as ‘real.’ I will explore some of the factors that constitute ‘good’ media experiences, such as user interfaces, narrative qualities, and the logic of remediation in these events. The hope is that this redefined perspective on creating ‘real’ mediated experiences in electronic media will help move the focus of research away from attempts to ‘reproduce' reality through photorealistic techniques alone.

Electronic Media and the Real Experience

         Scholars in this research have defined ‘real’ mostly as an attribute of successful mediated ‘presence’ as discussed above.  Lombard & Ditton (1997) summarized the literature on ‘presence’ as an experience that is truly "natural," "immediate," "direct," and “real.” What they found could be stated thus: presence = real. As with any mathematical equality statement, the reverse is also true: real = presence.  Thus it is possible to appropriate and modify Lombard & Ditton’s definition of presence as “perceptual illusion of nonmediation.”

         I define ‘real’ in this context as the acceptance of a mediated experience as ‘apparently not mediated,’ a definition that bears a close resemblance to that of ‘presence.’ However, my definition of ‘real’ diverges from traditional definitions of presence by suggesting that all mediated experience is perceived as ‘real,’ unless there is reason to question the reality of the experience. No ‘illusion’ need be created.

         Thus, factors in creating a sense of presence become, in fact, merely measures of obstacles to our natural desire to accept an experience as ‘real.’ In a sense, we want to accept mediated experience as real and only notice otherwise when there are noticeable problems, such as poor qualities of transmission, inadequate equipment, immature technologies, and even poor narratives. This is not to say that even under less than ideal conditions, acceptance of an experience as ‘real’ isn’t possible, it just becomes more challenging to ignore the mediating devices.  This argument can successfully be applied to all electronic media including the Web, telephones, television, films, and video games.

This position poses a few problems. If what I suggest is true, then why must a new media ‘jockey for position’ in our culture, with regard to its relationship to other existing media?  Why aren’t new media forms immediately accepted as ‘real’ experience? These questions relate to the process of remediation, as described by Bolter and Grusin (1999), in which newer medias try to look like older ones, while at the same time older ones incorporate elements of the new.  This is addressed later in this essay.

Electronic Media and the Media Equation

Contrary to vast amounts of literature discussing the production of a sense of liveness and/or presence in our mediatized culture, recent evidence suggests people readily accept mediatization of what was once only ‘live,’ apparently without any great sense of lose.  Indeed, Philip Auslander (1999) and Steve Wurtzler (1992) both argue in various ways that the ‘live’ has become a degraded version of the recorded and that mediation has become necessary to achieve the ‘aura’ around an event, to use Benjamin’s term (Benjamin, 1968).  Sporting events are now expected to provide hypermediated qualities such as sound amplification and Jumbotron video screens, in attempts to emulate the televisual experience (Wurtzler, 1992).  Video projection, prerecorded voice tracks, and other effects are standard in rock concert presentations, in attempts to emulate the rock video (Auslander, 1999). 

Turning our attention more towards computer mediated experiences, there is research that suggests age seems to play an important role in how people interpret and experience mediated spaces, and even perceive a medium as alive, as a social actor.  Sherry Turkle (1984) noted that while adults dismiss computers as "just a machine," many young children she observed playing with interactive computers treated them as a ‘real’ person, a psychological entity. Children "entered into 'social relationships' with the machine in which they get competitive, angry, and even vindictive" (47). 

More to the point, Reeve and Nass (1996) offer compelling evidence for what they call the media equation – media equal real life.  They provide methodologically sound data from a social science point-of-view that people, of all ages, respond to and treat the content of their media experience just as they would another human being, with media defined as both the means of transmission (computer, TV, radio, etc.) and the content of transmission (images; still and moving).

They offer this answer to the phenomenon:

The answer is that people are not evolved to twentieth century technology.  The human brain evolved in a world in which only humans exhibited rich social behaviors, and a world in which all perceived objects were real physical objects. Anything that seemed to be a real person or place was real (author’s emphasis, 12).

There is a false assumption in our culture, according to Reeve and Nass, that the ‘confusion of mediated life and real life’ is rare and easily corrected through greater education and life experience. Instead they argue that the media equation – media equal real life, is true because “individuals’ interactions with computers, television, and new media are fundamentally social and natural, just like interactions in real life” (Reeve and Nass, 1996: 5). 

This fact is somewhat counter-intuitive, but Reeve and Nass provide convincing arguments by demonstrating clinically that it does not matter how old or young, how educated or unsophisticated, all humans do this.  We can overcome this natural acceptance if we choose, but it requires intellectual labor, which most people do not bother with.  Entertainment shouldn’t have to be work. If questioned, we know that what we are seeing is not real, but we don’t bother to question it unnecessarily.

Reeve and Nass offer convincing evidence based on experiments conducted using accepted social science research techniques, substituting person-to-person social scenarios with person-to-computer ones.  Their findings clearly indicate that when looking at such diverse social dimensions as politeness, flattery, personality, arousal, and gender, people interact with the computer using the same rules of society as they would use with ‘real’ people.

When accessing images on the Web, for example, there are several factor that limit the size of an image on the screen.  But in any case, the issue of image size only affects a level of emotional involvement in the experience, not the reality of it.  This tends to minimize the importance of the specific technologies involved, since the outcome is the same.

Even the simplest of media are close enough to real people, places, and things they depict to activate rich social and natural responses. Many of our studies generate these responses with rather pathetic representations of real life: simple textual and pictorial materials shown on garden-variety technology.  The equation still holds, however.  Mediated life equals real life. (Reeve and Nass, 1996: 7)

Thus, there is an implicit and even explicit assumption in these interactions that the computer is a ‘real’ person, place, or thing, usually until such time as there is reason to believe otherwise, such as when the computer makes a mistake in communication.  These kinds of assumptions have been demonstrated in a number of other diverse projects, notably Joseph Weizenbaum’s system developed in the mid-1960’s called ELIZA and the program ‘Doctor,’ which impersonates a psychotherapist. Despite the fact that the conversation was carried out through typed statements only, users felt the program was empathetic to their problems, even those that knew they were communicating with a computer program rather than another human (Weizenbaum, 1976).  This and other projects show that if a computer demonstrates some sign of intelligence and/or personality traits, people assumed even greater intelligence and personality, and tended to accept the computer as a ‘real’ person, even when they knew this not to be true.

Electronic Media and Remediation

 “A new medium is never an addition to an old one, nor does it leave the old one in peace.  It never ceases to oppress the older media until it finds new shapes and positions for them.”

                                                            -Marshall McLuhan (1964:158)

“The content of any medium is always another medium”

                                                            - Marshall McLuhan (1967)

Examples of ‘remediation’ are always around us. From live performance to television, and film, to the World Wide Web (WWW), Bolter and Grusin (1999) view remediation as ‘the representation of one medium in another” which is a “defining characteristic of the new digital media” (45).  This leads to the paradox created by the double logic of remediation, whereby we humans want both immediacy and hypermediacy in any mediated experience.  The logic of immediacy "dictates that the medium itself should disappear and leave us in the presence of the thing represented" (9). The logic of hypermediacy is our fascination with the media itself.  They argue that this is not a new paradox, nor is it specific to electronically mediated experience, and offer several historical examples from the worlds of art and architecture to make their point.

The quotes by Marshall McLuhan at the beginning of this section offer support to this idea of remediation, where newer media borrow from older ones.  However, Bolter and Grusin argue effectively that this borrowing is actually bi-directional.  While digital media is oppressing analog media as McLuhan would claim, the "older electronic and print media are seeking to reaffirm their status within our culture as digital media challenge their status" by invoking "the twin logics of immediacy and hypermediacy in their efforts to remake themselves" (5).

Hence, Bolter and Grusin argue, “all mediation is remediation” (55). They assert that each new media moves through a period of hypermediacy, towards a greater immediacy as it ‘jockeys for position’ in a culture.  The desire for greater immediacy leads digital media to borrow avidly from each other as well as from their analog predecessors such as film, television, and photography, mediums that have already achieved a greater level of immediacy in their content. At the same time, older media begin to incorporate this hybrid representational style in an effort to maintain their status in a culture.

Bolter and Grusin argue that this desire for immediacy depends on hypermediacy, our awareness of a new media, and its ability as a medium to incorporate elements of other media. This could be seen as posing a problem for my assertion that human acceptance of all mediation as 'real.'  They argue, "in every manifestation, hypermediacy makes us aware of the medium or media and (in sometimes subtle and sometimes obvious ways) reminds us of our desire for immediacy" (34).

If we are constantly aware of the medium in a new type of electronically mediated experience, and that awareness only intensifies our desire to 'forget' that the experience is mediated, can we truly accept any mediated experience as natural, and therefore 'real?’ This would appear to be contrary to the findings of Reeves and Nass. However, I argue that immediacy, as Bolter and Grusin define it, is the sense of a mediated representation being natural, true, or 'real' in an electronically mediated experience. The accomplishment of a successful sense of 'immediacy' is the same as the acceptance of an experience as 'real,' as 'forgetting' that an experience is mediated. If this be the case, then it is reasonable to say that all media experiences would be perceived as ‘real,’ as Reeves and Nass' research demonstrates, until there is reason not to do so.

However, I further suggest that the process of accepting a new kind of mediated experience does move through the process described by Bolter and Grusin, through hypermediacy and our fascination with the means of transmission, and into immediacy, where the mediation becomes 'unnoticed,' but that the perception of the content is always as 'real' at each of those stages.   All that is really changing is the level of acceptance in the form of the medium, since the content remains essentially the same.  In this context, the immediacy of an experience (and the accompanying acceptance of it as ‘real’) and the hypermediacy of the same experience do not necessarily exist in opposition.  They can co-exist in time and space; we can accept the content while fetishizing the form in which it is presented.

Electronic Media and Form

I have shown that there is significant research demonstrating that no matter what the content of the mediated experience, it is generally accepted as ‘real.’  However, Reeve and Nass, in The Media Equation, go on to recognize that content of media isn’t the only issue in their equation.  The forms of media, such as image size and fidelity, are also important factors.  We respond to the form the media takes based on how we respond to similar experiences in real life.  We accept the content as real, but the form in which the media is viewed affects how visceral and emotional the response to the experience.

This speaks directly to my assertion that humans accept media experiences as real to the extent that the computer, TV, or film image, for example, allows.  In other words, the constraints of the technology, such as screen size, image quality, or data rates, are factors in the level of emotional involvement in mediated experience as ‘real’ experience. 

As an example, let us look specifically at the form factor of image size as researched by Reeve and Nass. The experience of viewing the same film on a small screen is not identical to viewing it on a large one.  However, the content of the film, the actors, script, lighting, etc. hasn’t changed, only the form in which it was viewed. Reeve and Nass argue that this is because size is one of the most primitive cues we have about what is happening in the environment. Larger images posed a greater potential threat than smaller ones, so we respond more viscerally to larger images.  Hence, the size of the image affects all other dimensions of perceived reality in an experience, and therefore our perception of how 'immediate' the experience is, to use Bolter and Grusin's (1999) term.

            Here the factors closely parallel those of creating 'presence' in electronically mediated experiences.  While the arguments of this essay differ from the literature on 'liveness' and 'presence' in terms of our acceptance of the content of mediated experiences as 'real,' the form factors that affect the immediacy of the experience appear to be very similar and even interchangeable. 

            Solid research is somewhat limited in this area. Conclusions tend to be based on trial and error, and personal opinion more than objective research methods.  Reeves and Nass offer six factors they have tested with regard to the form of media: image size, fidelity, synchrony, motion, scene changes, and subliminal images.  However, we can look to 'presence' research for a similar but much more detailed analysis of factors of media form that affect mediated experiences.  Lombard and Ditton (1997) offer perhaps the best review of the literature on 'presence' research in electronic media, and outline the 'causes and effects of presence,' where they identify 37 causal variables and effects in the production of presence. While there is not space in this essay to examine the form of mediated electronic experience in greater detail, I do not believe there is significant divergence there from the arguments of this essay.

Electronic Media and Interactivity

            Brenda Laurel argues that a key purpose of the computer isn't just its ability to crunch numbers, but its "capacity to represent action in which humans could participate" (Laurel, 1993: 1). Laurel suggests several variables in a successful and fulfilling interactive experience, but offers a more general measure of interactivity: "You either feel yourself to be participating in the ongoing action of the representation or you don't" (21).  While Laurel purposes the metaphors of theatre, drama, and Aristotelian Poetics in computer interface design, what is relevant to this essay is that the sense of participation Laurel addresses is clearly an important factor in sustaining ‘real’ experiences, and  of immediacy and hypermediacy as defined by Bolter and Grusin. 

Laurel offers several user interface metaphors by which we humans can participate in the action on a computer. Metaphors are useful because they help us understand how to use new media, the first step towards immediacy. I see the user interface as an important factor in sustaining what I have called the sense of ‘real,' specifically in computer related media experiences such as navigating the Web, since the user interface is the means by which the computer and the human communicate and interact. This ‘interactivity,’ a matter of human agency in a mediated experience, becomes a major factor in sustaining the sense of the ‘real.'

            As always in this essay, I suggest that these are issue of form of the media, not content. What Laurel is calling for is a user interface with more immediacy. In other words, the greater the sense and ease of human agency, the more realistic the experience.  The interface allows us to act within an electronic representation, and it is through action that things become more 'real.'

            The computer, through its screen, has a historically unique ability to represent multiple medias in the same space, such as text, sound, computer generated still and moving imagery, and live camera feeds.  Through remediation, we can see this style of representation in many other spaces, such as a typical CNN broadcast, but what is different about the computer is interactivity. Through a web browser, the user is calling for and navigating through all these medias, and cannot help but be aware of the computer itself (hypermediacy), since navigation is generally via a mouse and keyboard, a poor and outdated method to be sure.  The media is not just passively presented as it is in film and TV, instead the user must have some knowledge of how the web works, with links and URL, etc.

            Therefore, the form of the interface in interactive experiences is an important factor in sustaining a greater level of involvement in an electronically mediated experience on the web, and in other digital environments.

Electronic Media and Storytelling

Janet Murray (1997) sees the changes in the way stories are told as a result of “the dizzying physics of the twentieth century, which has told us that our common perceptions of time and space are not the absolute truths we have been assuming them to be” (34). 

Murray focuses her discussion of narrative in the digital domain on the historical transition for an 'additive art form,' in which existing media are combined to create a new one, to an expressive art form, one that has developed its own unique language of representation.  She sees the term 'multimedia' as a catchall for what is currently only an additive art form of digital media.  She postulates on what form digital media will take as its own expressive language develops and matures.

Murray gives us “The Four Essential Properties of Digital Environments,” interestingly in the context of Joseph Weizenbaum’s program ELIZA mentioned above, which make the computer “a powerful vehicle for literary creation” (71).  These properties represent dimensions of the two more general qualities of the computer as interactive and immersive. The interactive qualities are its procedural and participatory properties, and spatial and encyclopedic are the immersive properties of a computer environment. 

I see the procedural and participatory properties as characteristics of the user interface, as discussed in the section above, since the procedural power of the computer is its “ability to execute a series of rules” (71), and computers are participatory because “they respond to our input” (71).  It is through the user interface that each of these properties manifest themselves.

The third property, spatial, is also a characteristic of the interface. This is the computer’s power to represent ‘navigable space.’

Linear media such as books and films can portray space, either by verbal description or image, but only digital environments can present space that we can move through. (79).

The last property is interesting because it is not a dimension of mediated experience that has come up before.  It refers directly to content, rather than form of mediated experience. This is the encyclopedic property of the computer, which refers to the capacity of the computer to store “paintings, films, books, newspapers, television programs, and databases.” But perhaps more importantly, it is the computer’s ability to share this information with other computers, hence other computer users, that is reshaping the narrative in the digital age.  In her words, “the encyclopedic capacity of the computer and the encyclopedic expectation it arouses make it a compelling medium for narrative art” (84).

These are strong arguments for the importance on focusing on new and innovative interfaces that help us sustain a sense of the ‘real’ in these experiences, reducing or eliminating distractions from our natural acceptance of electronically mediated spaces.  Murray also presents an important argument for the place of narrative in sustaining a ‘real’ experience.  It is very difficult to become emotionally involved in a database, it is the story that compels we humans more than anything else.  She reminds us that the technology and interface are not everything.

The Case for ‘willing suspension of disbelief’

            The concept of 'willing suspension of disbelief' is an interesting one in this argument, if only because it is a factor in the acceptance of an experience as ‘real’ mentioned by all the authors above.  The concept was first proposed by early 19th-century critic and poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge, and is commonly cited by theatrical and literary scholars as a necessary ingredient for a successful emotional experience when attending the theatre or reading literature.  More recently, this concept has also been extended to the discussion of electronically mediated experiences.

            Brenda Laurel (1993) discusses the traditional idea of 'willing suspension of disbelief' in terms of experiencing media and defines it as "the state of mind we must attain in order to enjoy a representation of the action."  She goes on to say:

Coleridge noticed that, in order to enjoy a play, we must temporarily suspend (or attenuate) our knowledge that it is "pretend." We do this "willingly" in order to experience other emotional responses as a result of viewing the action" (Laurel, 1993:113).

            Thus, the case for the necessity of ‘willing suspension of disbelief’ is premised on the effort to ‘forget’ that a mediated experience isn’t ‘real.’  However, if we humans readily accept an experience as ‘real,’ there is no need to suspend disbelief, willing or otherwise. The argument of this paper seems to make moot this rather popular and oft discussed issue of belief or disbelief.  Reeves and Nass addressed this question quite specifically and noted that "the traditional notion of 'suspension of disbelief,' suggests that it is work to accept the reality of what is present" (187).  Based on their findings, "accepting what is present--that mediated life is real life--is no work at all" (187).  As stated earlier, entertainment shouldn't have to be work.

            Janet Murray (1997) addresses this concept as well, but from the point-of-view of creating narratives in mediated experiences, and from a somewhat different tack.

The pleasurable surrender of the mind to an imaginative world is often described as the 'willing suspension of disbelief.' [However,] we do not suspend disbelief so much as we actively create belief" (Murray, 1997: 110).

While Murray argues for what she calls the 'active creation of belief,' this process still requires the viewer to work to achieve a state of believing that an experience is real, work, which Reeves and Nass argue we are not generally willing to do.  Again, entertainment shouldn't be work. 

            In this context, it is also interesting to consider the paradox of remediation that Bolter and Grusin (1999) proposed.  One could argue that 'immediacy' is similar to ‘willing suspension of disbelief’ since both are the desire to 'forget' that an experience is mediated. The other side of the paradox, 'hypermediacy,' is the fascination with the medium itself.   Perhaps these two ideas are not so paradoxical after all.  If immediacy is natural, as Reeves and Nass suggest, then it should be easy for the desire for immediacy to coexist with the fascination with the hypermediacy, since the two would no longer be in opposition.  We can accept an electronically mediated experience as real and still enjoy the means of transmission in the mediated experience.

Summary

            As with any narrative, it needs an ending.  I hope I have presented a compelling argument that the focus on the production of apparently ‘real’ experiences in electronically mediated spaces should not be on constructing technologies to represent more photorealistic images and sound, but on designing user interfaces to electronic media that sustain our natural tendency to accept mediated experiences as ‘real.’

These new developments should minimize the interference and obstacles towards that goal.  As Reeve and Nass (1996) point out, “Even the simplest of media are close enough to real people, places, and things they depict to activate rich social and natural responses” (7).  The solutions can be simple, but should be well considered.  Designers do not necessarily need to focus on expensive technologies that move us closer to photorealism.  Design solutions might be as simple as Aristotle’s 3000-year-old advice on constructing a good story plot: “A whole [plot] has a beginning, a middle, and an end” (Fergusson, 1961).

References

Auslander, P. (1999). Liveness: Performance in a Mediatized Culture. New York: Routledge.

Benjamin, W. (1968). Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction (H. Zohn, Trans.). In H. Arendt (Ed.), Illuminations (pp. 278). New York: Schocken Books.

Bolter, J. D., & Grusin, R. (1999). Remediation : understanding new media. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press.

Fergusson, F. (1961). Aristotle's Poetics (S. H. Butcher, Trans.). New York: Hill and Wang.

Laurel, B. (1993). Computers as Theatre. Reading, Mass.: Addison-Wesley Pub. Co.

Lee, K. M. (2004). Presence, Explicated. Communication Theory, 14(1), 27-50.

McLuhan, M. (1964). Understanding media; the extensions of man. New York: McGraw-Hill.

McLuhan, M., & Fiore, Q. (1967). The Medium is the Message: An Inventory of Effects. New York: Random House.

Murray, J. H. (1997). Hamlet on the holodeck : the future of narrative in cyberspace. New York: Free Press.

Reeves, B., & Nass, C. (1996). The media equation : how people treat computers, televisions, and new media as real people and places. Stanford, Calif.: CSLI Publications.

Turkle, S. (1984). The second self : computers and the human spirit. New York: Simon and Schuster.

Weizenbaum, J. (1976). From Computer Power and Human Reason: From Judgement to Calculation. San Francisco: W.H. Freeman and Company.

Wurtzler, S. (1992). She Sang Live, But The Microphone Was Turned Off: The Live, the Recorded and the Subject of Representation. In R. Altman (Ed.), Sound Theory Sound Practice (pp. 87-103). New York: Routledge.