Licoppe2012a

From emcawiki
Jump to: navigation, search
Licoppe2012a
BibType ARTICLE
Key Licoppe2012a
Author(s) Christian Licoppe, Julien Morel
Title Video-in-interaction: “talking heads” and the multimodal organization of mobile and Skype video calls
Editor(s)
Tag(s) EMCA
Publisher
Year 2012
Language
City
Month
Journal Research on Language and Social Interaction
Volume 45
Number 4
Pages 399–429
URL Link
DOI 10.1080/08351813.2012.724996
ISBN
Organization
Institution
School
Type
Edition
Series
Howpublished
Book title
Chapter

Download BibTex

Abstract

In this article, we report a study of the uses of mobile video telephony based on the collection and analysis of naturally occurring mobile and Skype video exchanges, with a focus on camera motions. We provide evidence for a set of phenomena characteristic of the organization of “video-in-interaction”: (a) mobile and Skype video calls are patterned, often alternating between a “talking heads” arrangement, in which both participants are on-screen and facing the camera, and moments in which they are producing various shots of their environment in line with their current interactional purposes; (b) openings occur almost always in the talking heads arrangement; (c) the video images on either side are produced and expected to be scrutinized with respect to their relevance to the ongoing interaction; (d) the talking heads arrangement is oriented to a default mode of interaction, with the implication that when there is nothing else relevant to show, the participants should show themselves on-screen; (e) in multiparty interactions, the party who is handling the video communication apparatus has an obligation to put other speakers on-screen when they talk, and the video callers orient to their appearance on-screen as making a distinctive participation status relevant. We show how these phenomena all derive from an orientation toward a single maxim, “put the face of the current speaker on-screen,” which plays a foundational role in the organization of video-in-interaction and its articulation with that of talk-in-interaction.

Notes