One-to-one online interaction

Before discussing one-to-one quasi-synchronous interaction, it is worth noting briefly that one-to-one asynchronous interaction, such as e-mail has also been analyzed using CA.

Duranti (1986) examined the openings of e-mails, and noted that greetings were used in a similar way to spoken interaction. As e-mails were still quite new at the time of his research, he found that users made mistakes, such as typing the message in the subject line, while getting used to the system. Duranti noted that users may “bring in information and expertise from other communicative domains while at the same time learning to exploit the explicit properties of the medium” (p. 65). There has been relatively little CA-based research on private e-mails since Duranti’s, although McWilliams (2001) drew on CA when examining how users used conjunctions to link e-mails. In this sense, she was concerned with how sequences of e-mails were organized. Skovholt and Svennevig (2006) also drew upon CA methods when analyzing the practice of ‘copying’ e-mails in the workplace and more recently, the use of e-mails in counselling sessions has been analyzed using CA (Harris, Danby, Butler & Emmison, 2012). This research further demonstrates the utility of analyzing online interaction using CA, but also shows the need for further investigation of one-to-one interaction.

Research which examines one-to-one quasi-synchronous online interaction can be split into three broad categories. The first category focuses on the relationship between online and offline interaction, and therefore bears more similarities to work on human-computer interaction. For example, Aarsand (2008) examined how a group of students used the instant messaging programme MSN. The students were using MSN, but were in the same computer room and were sometimes switching between using MSN and speaking to one another

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offline. Aarsand suggested that the lines between online and offline are sometimes blurred, but that young people are adept at switching between the two forms of interaction. This type of research does examine the actual practices of using instant messaging, but is focused on how that relates to the offline world and to the wider interactional context.

The second type of work on one-to-one online interaction tends to use some CA terminology, such as turn-taking and adjacency pairs, but then applies this to other sociological features. In other words, this research analyzes online interaction, but is interested in how social factors impact upon the interaction. For example, some researchers have examined how gender impacts the number and length of turns taken in instant

messaging chats (e.g., Baron, 2004). Similarly, Woerner et al.’s (2007) study of workplace online interaction focused on the topics of instant messaging chats compared to the topics of face-to-face or telephone interaction.

Studies located in these first two categories may look at the actual interaction, but this is not necessarily the main focus of their analysis. In the final category of research, the focus is the interaction. In some cases the interaction is analyzed as if it were spoken interaction, with no consideration of the online context (e.g., Epperson & Zemel, 2008). In other cases, the aim of the study is to explore the differences between online and offline talk; however, some of these studies do not provide clear examples to support the assertions made (e.g., Neuage, 2004; Pangtay-Chang, 2009). Danby, Butler and Emmison (2009) do discuss the differences between online and offline talk. They analyzed one-to-one interaction in an institutional setting; that is, online counselling. They specifically explore the differences between the opening sequences of online and telephone counselling sessions. They found that due to the quasi-synchronous nature of the interaction, the counsellor was unable to do

‘active listening’, such as response tokens, while the client was formulating their problems.

They argued that “the sequential organization of turn-taking in online counselling has

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implications for the types of therapeutic strategies used by counsellors” (p.110).

There are also researchers who use CA to analyze instant messaging chats between friends and take the technological affordances into account. Rawclaw (2008) studied how the closings of instant messaging chats between friends compared with CA’s canonical closing.

One type of online closing sequence clearly resembled a spoken closing. However, Rawclaw noted that a difference occurred as a result of the medium; that is, once a person had closed a chat they could either log off or switch their status to ‘away’. Switching status triggered an automated message for the recipient, which informed them of their co-participant’s action.

The second type of closing sequence made use of this automated message, in that there was a pre-closing but no terminal exchange. Instead the automated message is triggered, effectively closing the chat. Rawclaw, then, used CA to address a specific issue in instant messaging chats, comparing closings with spoken interaction. He also addressed how the affordances of the medium have been adapted to by participants.

Berglund (2009) also studied instant messaging chats between friends and focused on disrupted turn adjacency. The findings suggested that even though there were only two participants in the interaction, there were still issues with maintaining coherence. However, participants used a variety of different interactional resources, including conjunctions, lexical substitution and lexical repetition to maintain coherence in their chats.

The research discussed in this section has provided us with some knowledge about instant messaging chats, particularly how coherence is maintained and opening and closing sequences are engendered. However, these studies have all been based upon chat logs, which provide information about what is actually happening in the chat. Berglund (2009) notes that a limitation of relying on chat logs is that there is “no way of knowing whether participants do manage to pay attention to information appearing on screen while preparing their own messages, other than by investigating their contributions to the subsequent interaction”

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(p.10). Berglund argues that it is not necessary for the analyst to have this information as it

“is not available to the other participant in the interaction either” (p.10). However, with most instant messaging programmes it is possible for a user to see when their co-participant is writing a message, and - as will be discussed in later chapters - this impacts the interaction.

Equally, other aspects are available for the participant, such as their own message

construction, the number of chats they are engaged in, and other programmes open on their computer. These activities may be relevant to the participant when using instant messaging, even if they are not relevant to the co-participant. Therefore, if we wish to more fully understand how individuals use instant messaging, and what they orient to when doing so, then screen capture data can be provide that additional insight. The relatively few studies which use screen capture specifically to examine interactional practices will be discussed in the next section.