Tech-Tied or Tongue-Tied? Technological versus Social Trouble in Relational Video Calling

Maintaining a relationship via video calling requires intertwining relational and technological talk. Using detailed qualitative analysis of transcripts from naturalistic recordings of couples in a video calling field trial, this paper explores how couple members use the possibility of technological distortion as a resource for negotiating around the problem of inattentive or inappropriate responses. Inattention may be cast as technological trouble, and, conversely, the technology can be blamed for an apparently relationally inappropriate response. It is argued that research on technologically mediated relationship creation and maintenance should not treat technology as simply a container of relationships or a variably rich transmission system for relational material. Rather, mediation should be explored as a fundamental participant concern in online relationship research.

[1]  S. Harrison.  Media Space 20+ Years of Mediated Life , 2009, Computer Supported Cooperative Work.

[2]  Ian Hutchby,et al.  Conversation and Technology: From the Telephone to the Internet , 2001 .

[3]  Karen Ruhleder,et al.  Co-Constructing Non-Mutual Realities: Delay-Generated Trouble in Distributed Interaction , 2004, Computer Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW).

[4]  DourishPaul,et al.  Your place or mine? Learning from long-term use of audio-video communication , 1996 .

[5]  Anita M. Pomerantz.  Agreeing and disagreeing with assessments: some features of preferred/dispreferred turn shapes , 1984 .

[6]  John C. Tang,et al.  What video can and cannot do for collaboration: A case study , 2005, Multimedia Systems.

[7]  Wanda J. Orlikowski,et al.  Using Technology and Constituting Structures: A Practice Lens for Studying Technology in Organizations , 2000, Theory in CSCW.

[8]  Morgan G. Ames,et al.  Making love in the network closet: the benefits and work of family videochat , 2010, CSCW '10.

[9]  William Housley,et al.  Membership categorization, culture and norms in action , 2009 .

[10]  J. Chatwin.  Conversation analysis. , 2004, Complementary therapies in medicine.

[11]  L. Suchman,et al.  Reconstructing Technologies as Social Practice , 1999 .

[12]  Joanna McGrenere,et al.  Affordances: Clarifying and Evolving a Concep , 2000, Graphics Interface.

[13]  Joanna McGrenere,et al.  Affordances: Clarifying and Evolving a Concep , 2000, Graphics Interface.

[14]  Yutaka Ishibashi,et al.  Influences of network latency on interactivity in networked rock-paper-scissors , 2006, NetGames '06.

[15]  Stephanie L. Day,et al.  Capturing the complexity: Content, type, and amount of instruction and quality of the classroom learning environment synergistically predict third graders' vocabulary and reading comprehension outcomes. , 2014, Journal of educational psychology.

[16]  Stephanie Tom Tong,et al.  Relational Maintenance and Computer-Mediated Communication: Understanding the role of new technologies , 2010 .

[17]  Lucy Suchman.  Plans and situated actions: the problem of human-machine communication , 1987 .

[18]  P. Drew.  'Open' class repair initiators in response to sequential sources of troubles in conversation , 1997 .

[19]  Wanda J. Orlikowski,et al.  Research Commentary: Desperately Seeking the "IT" in IT Research - A Call to Theorizing the IT Artifact , 2001, Inf. Syst. Res..

[20]  Yue Lu,et al.  Measurement Study of Multi-party Video Conferencing , 2010, Networking.

[21]  E. Sean Rintel,et al.  Conversational management of network trouble perturbations in personal videoconferencing , 2010, OZCHI '10.

[22]  Daniel B. Horn,et al.  The effects of spatial and temporal video distortion on lie detection performance , 2002, CHI Extended Abstracts.

[23]  Austin Henderson,et al.  Your place or mine? Learning from long-term use of Audio-Video communication , 1996, Computer Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW).

[24]  E. Schegloff,et al.  The preference for self-correction in the organization of repair in conversation , 1977 .

[25]  M. Angela Sasse,et al.  The good, the bad, and the muffled: the impact of different degradations on Internet speech , 2000, ACM Multimedia.

[26]  Donald A. Norman,et al.  Affordance, conventions, and design , 1999, INTR.

[27]  Abigail Sellen,et al.  One is not enough: multiple views in a media space , 1993, INTERCHI.

[28]  Kevin Jeffay,et al.  Readings in multimedia computing and networking , 2001 .

[29]  Steve Harrison,et al.  Family portals: connecting families through a multifamily media space , 2011, CHI.

[30]  Paul Dourish,et al.  Where the action is , 2001 .

[31]  J. Gibson.  The Ecological Approach to Visual Perception , 1979 .

[32]  Judith S. Donath,et al.  Presence and portrayal: video for casual home dialogues , 2006, MM '06.

[33]  J. Walther.  Theories of Computer-Mediated Communication and Interpersonal Relations , 2011 .

[34]  Sean Rintel,et al.  Video calling in long-distance relationships: the opportunistic use of audio/video distortions as a relational resource , 2013 .

[35]  Hiroshi Ishii,et al.  Video play: playful interactions in video conferencing for long-distance families with young children , 2010, IDC.

[36]  John C. Tang,et al.  What video can and cannot do for collaboration: A case study , 1993, MULTIMEDIA '93.

[37]  E. Sean Rintel,et al.  Maximizing Environmental Validity: Remote Recording of Desktop Videoconferencing , 2007, HCI.

[38]  Gerardine DeSanctis,et al.  Capturing the Complexity in Advanced Technology Use: Adaptive Structuration Theory , 1994 .

[39]  Deborah A. Newton,et al.  Technology in Action , 2013 .