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Chapter 7. Bringing Mobiles into the Conversation: Applying a Conversation Analytic Approach to the Study of Mobiles in Co-present Interaction
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119 7 Bringing Mobiles into the Conversation Applying a Conversation Analytic Approach to the Study of Mobiles in Co-present Interaction STEPHEN M. DIDOMENICO Rutgers University JEFFREY BOASE Ryerson University IN FOCUSING ON THE MUNDANE conduct of everyday life, Erving Goffman’s work drew attention to the fundamental practices that define mutual co-presence. Now, in the socalled digital age, we increasingly find ourselves having to reconcile new forms of communication with Goffman’s chief domain of face-to-face interaction. Although scholarly interest in new forms of mediated interaction has grown steadily, only recently have scholars begun to consider how communication technologies—particularly mobile devices—are woven into co-present interaction. It is the intersection of these two domains, specifically co-present interaction and mobile usage, that is the focus of this chapter. This chapter summarizes a study involving a single instance of conversation taken from a larger collection of videotaped naturally occurring interactions involving mobile phones. Using a conversation analytic approach, we draw on the concept of technological affordance and Goffman’s distinction between primary and secondary involvement to provide a nuanced look at how mobiles become integrated into co-present interaction. Three themes emerge from our data when mobiles are used during co-present interaction: shifting between primary and secondary involvement is highly dynamic, the shift to mobile use as a secondary involvement depends on the speaking role that is being enacted during the co-present involvement, and the distinction between primary and secondary involvement is blurred when reference to mobile interactions is made during co-present interaction. In each case we argue that these occurrences can be explained with reference to the time and space transcending affordances of mobiles. Mobile Communication Studies and the Study of Co-present Interaction Although a substantial and growing body of research has focused on the implications of mobile use for a variety of outcomes (see Campbell and Park 2008; Katz 2006, 2008, 2011), only a handful of studies have directly examined mobiles in everyday social encounters . Ling (2008), for example, draws upon the ritual-centered theorizing of Durkheim, Goffman, and Collins to discuss what he calls “mediated ritual interaction,” interactions afforded by new communication technologies.1 Ling describes a “social limbo” surrounding these mediated forms of talk, in which participants must balance competing lines of activity while dealing with “the pressure to either be clearly in or clearly outside a social interaction” (2008, 173). Humphreys (2005) offers a related account of how participants in public spaces respond to their interlocutors’incoming mobile calls. Using observations of public places and in-depth interviews, she identifies a range of general themes. One theme, referred to as “dual front interaction,” occurs when participants on the phone were observed to engage in various nonverbal behaviors to maintain interaction with their co-present interlocutor (such as iconic illustrators or the rolling of the eyes), unknown to the caller. This shows how mobile use may create situations in which participants must simultaneously manage their relations across multiple distinct speech events.2 One limitation to Humphreys’s study, however, is the exclusive focus on mobile use to make voice calls as opposed to other functions such as sending and receiving text messages. In this chapter we focus specifically on the occurrence of mobile texting during co-present interaction. To frame our understanding of how mobiles are used in co-present interaction, we draw on the concept of technological affordance. The concept originated from the work of Gibson (1977), who posited that animals and humans have an innate ability to recognize the opportunities that objects in their environments afford for particular actions. The concept has been adopted more loosely by computer and social scientists to refer to the idea that technology provides opportunities and constraints on human action, without the assumption that these opportunities and constraints are innately known by individuals (see Norman 1999). The concept has been used to strike a theoretical middle ground between technologically deterministic approaches that downplay the role of human agency, and social constructionist approaches that ignore the physical properties of technology (see Hutchby 2001). The concept is particularly well suited to our purposes because we wish to acknowledge the opportunities that mobile devices provide, while examining autonomous behavior of our participants outside of their use of this technology. As is discussed in our analysis, the affordances of mobile devices to transcend time—that is, asynchronous communication—and space, by permitting communication with distant others, are particularly relevant to...