Showing Objects: Holding and Manipulating Artefacts in Video-mediated Collaborative Settings

In this paper we report on a pervasive practice in video-mediated communication: where participants show one another one or more objects. This is a distinct activity from others considered by researchers of video-mediated technologies that focus on a face-to-face orientation, or just on the support necessary to help people to refer to objects. We first present examples of this pervasive phenomenon in naturally occurring Skype conversations, revealing how this conduct is configured and organized within the interaction between participants. We reveal how the subtle adjustment of the position of the body, the head and gaze with respect to the handheld objects offers crucial resources for participants to achieve joint seeing. Then we report on a quite different setting, a naturalistic experiment where participants collaborate on a collective task with remote colleagues through maneuverable, orientable devices (Kubis). Again, in these experiments participants frequently show objects, and at times the devices provide additional resources to support these activities. But at other times they also involve some difficulties. We conclude by suggesting possible technological developments, some quite simple, others more radical, that might support participants to show objects, whether they are in domestic settings or undertaking work activities.