Abstract
The chapter examines social breaks from work taken on a virtual platform. Virtual platforms offer a different framework for social interaction than in-person meetings: where they provide a possibility to interact over distances, they also require the use of varying resources to create and maintain a sense of co-presence and social intimacy. By drawing on recordings of video-mediated breaks among members of relatively long-standing work communities in Finland, the study explores ways in which participants zoom in and bring depth to the two-dimensional rendering of the virtual platform. The study highlights the complex multimodal and spatial dimensions of virtual breaks and the characteristics related to sensorial experiences and intermediality as these appear in interaction. The study contributes to a deeper understanding of informal interaction in work communities, with a special focus on the role of social curiosity in being mindful of others, displaying closeness and strengthening existing ties.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Arminen, I., Licoppe, C., & Spagnolli, A. (2016). Respecifying mediated interaction. Research on Language and Social Interaction, 49(4), 290–309. https://doi.org/10.1080/08351813.2016.1234614
Barmeyer, C., Mayrhofer, U., & Würfl, K. (2019). Informal information flows in organizations: The role of the Italian coffee break. International Business Review, 28(4), 796–801. https://doiorg.pc124152.oulu.fi:9443/10.1016/j.ibusrev.2019.04.001
Clausnitzer, J. (2021, July 5). Consumption of roasted coffee per capita in Finland 2020–2020. Statista. https://www.statista.com/statistics/708603/coffee-consumption-per-capita-in-finland/
Coffee Culture in Finland: A Story of Togetherness. (2021, October 25). All things Nordic. https://allthingsnordic.eu/coffee-culture-in-finland-a-story-of-togetherness/
Due, B. L., & Licoppe, C. (2021). Video-Mediated Interaction (VMI): Introduction to a special issue on the multimodal accomplishment of VMI institutional activities. Social Interaction. Video-Based Studies of Human Sociality, 3(3). https://doi.org/10.7146/si.v3i3.123836
Elleström, L. (2021). The modalities of media II: An expanded model for understanding intermedial relations. In L. Elleström (Ed.), Beyond media borders, Volume 1. Palgrave Macmillan. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-49679-1_1
Fornel, M. de. (1996). The interactional frame of videophonic exchange. Réseaux. Communication, Technologie, Société, 4(1), 47–72. https://doi.org/10.3406/reso.1996.3305
Gibson, J. (1982). Reasons for realism: Selected essays. Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
Goodwin, C. (2000). Action and embodiment within situated human interaction. Journal of Pragmatics, 32(10), 1489–1522. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0378-2166(99)00096-X
Hartung, F. (2010). Social curiosity and its functions [Doctoral Dissertation]. University of Konstanz.
Hochuli, K. (2021, June 29). Visuality and co-presence in “face wall”-videoconferences: How participants organize attention and reference when taking turns in digital university lectures. Presentation at IPrA 2021 conference.
Hunter, E. M., & Wu, C. (2016). Give me a better break: Choosing workday break activities to maximize resource recovery. Journal of Applied Psychology, 101(2), 302–311.
Hutchby, I. (2001). Conversation and technology: From the telephone to the Internet. Polity; Blackwell Publishing.
Hutchby, I. (2014). Communicative affordances and participation frameworks in mediated interaction. Journal of Pragmatics, 72, 86–89.
Ibnelkaïd, S. (2021). Caring from afar: Video interaction as a safe heterotopia? 71st ICA (International Communication Association) Conference.
Ibnelkaïd, S. (2022). Technobodily literacy in video interaction. In A. Duranti, R. George, & R. Conley Riner (Eds.), New Wiley Blackwell companion to linguistic anthropology. Wiley.
Jefferson, G. (2004). Glossary of transcript symbols with an introduction. In G. H. Lerner (Ed.), Conversation analysis: Studies from the first generation (pp. 13–34). John Benjamins Publishing Company.
Kesselheim, W., Branderberger, C., & Hottiger, C. (2021). How to notice a tsunami in a water tank: Joint discoveries in a science center. Gesprächsforschung, 22, 87–113.
Kim, S., Park, Y., & Niu, Q. (2017). Micro-break activities at work to recover from daily work demands. Journal of Organizational Behavior, 38(1), 28–44.
Korczynski, M. (2003). Communities of coping: Collective emotional labour in service work. Organization, 10(1), 55–79. https://doi.org/10.1177/1350508403010001479
Liberati, E. G., Tarrant, C., Willars, J., Draycott, T., Winter, C., Chew, S., & Dixon-Woods, M. (2019). How to be a very safe maternity unit: An ethnographic study. Social Science & Medicine, 223, 64–72.
Licoppe, C. (2015). Video communication and ‘camera actions’: The production of wide video shots in courtrooms with remote defendants. Journal of Pragmatics, 76, 117–134. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pragma.2014.11.008
Licoppe, C., & Morel, J. (2012). Video-in-interaction: “Talking heads” and the multimodal organization of mobile and Skype video calls. Research on Language & Social Interaction, 45(4). https://doi.org/10.1080/08351813.2012.724996
Licoppe, C., & Veyrier, C.-A. (2017). How to show the interpreter on screen? The normative organization of visual ecologies in multilingual courtrooms with video links. Journal of Pragmatics, 107, 147–164. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pragma.2016.09.012
Luff, P., Heath, C., Kuzuoka, H., Hindmarsh, J., Yamazaki, K., & Oyama, S. (2003). Fractured ecologies: Creating environments for collaboration. Human-Computer Interaction, 18(1–2), 51–84. https://doi.org/10.1207/S15327051HCI1812_3
McIlvenny, P. (2002). Here’s me looking at me looking at me talking: Communicating in graphical cyberspace. In J. Haines, E. Kärkkäinen, & T. Lauttamus (Eds.), Studia linguistica et litteraria septentrionalia: Studies presented to Heikki Nyyssönen (pp. 127–144). Department of English, University of Oulu.
Mlynář, J., González-Martínez, E., & Lalanne, D. (2018). Situated organization of video-mediated interaction: A review of ethnomethodological and conversation analytic studies. Interacting with Computers, 30. https://doi.org/10.1093/iwc/iwx019
Mondada, L. (2013). Embodied and spatial resources for turn-taking in institutional multi-party interactions: Participatory democracy debates. Journal of Pragmatics, 46(1), 39–68.
Mondada, L. (2016). Challenges of multimodality: Language and the body in social interaction. Journal of Sociolinguistics, 20(3), 336–366.
Mondada, L. (2019a). Contemporary issues in conversation analysis: Embodiment and materiality, multimodality and multisensoriality in social interaction. Journal of Pragmatics, 145, 47–62.
Mondada, L. (2019b). Conventions for multimodal transcription, version 5.0.1. https://www.lorenzamondada.net/multimodal-transcription
Mondada, L. (2021). Orchestrating multisensoriality in tasting sessions: Sensing bodies, normativity, and language. Symbolic Interaction, 44(1), 63–86.
Oittinen, T. (2020). Coordinating actions in and across interactional spaces in technology-mediated business meetings. JYU Dissertations 225. University of Jyväskylä [Doctoral Dissertation]. http://urn.fi/URN:ISBN:978-951-39-8176-1
Pillet-Shore, D. (2017). Preference organization. In J. Nussbaum (Ed.), Oxford research encyclopedia of communication. Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/acrefore/9780190228613.013.132
Pillet-Shore, D. (2018). How to begin. Research on Language and Social Interaction, 51(3), 213–231.
Pillet-Shore, D. (2020). When to make the sensory social: Registering in face-to-face openings. Symbolic Interaction, 44(1), 10–39.
Relph, E. (1976). Place and placelessness. Pion.
Renner, B. (2006). Curiosity about people: The development of a social curiosity measure in adults. Journal of Personality Assessment, 87, 305–316. https://doi.org/10.1207/s15327752jpa8703_11
Rintel, S. (2015). Omnirelevance in technologised interaction: Couples coping with video calling distortions. In R. Fitzgerald & W. Housley (Eds.), Membership categorization analysis: Studies of social knowledge in action (pp. 123–150). Sage.
Rippl, G. (2015). Handbook of intermediality: Literature—Image—Sound—Music. De Gruyter.
Seamon, D., & Sowers, J. (2008). Place and Placelessness (1976): Edward Relph. http://dx.doi.org/10.4135/9781446213742.n6
Siitonen, P., & Siromaa, M. (2021). Accounting for leaving the break room: Work obligations as a resource in transitions from one activity to another at the workplace. Journal of Pragmatics, 171, 178–199. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pragma.2020.09.032
Stroebaek, P. S. (2013). Let’s have a cup of coffee! Coffee and coping communities at work. Symbolic Interaction, 36(4), 381–397. https://doi-org.pc124152.oulu.fi:9443/10.1002/symb.76
Working Time Act (Työaikalaki) 5.7.2019/872.
Acknowledgements
We would like to extend our warmest gratitude to Jakub Mlynář, Samira Ibnelkaïd, Caroline Debray and Stephanie Schnurr, who kindly acted as reviewers and helped us to clarify the focus and main argument of the chapter. We would also like to thank those who participated in the Langnet Multimodality group’s text seminar, as well as the panel ‘Practices of inclusion in workplace interaction’ at the IPrA conference in summer 2021 and provided helpful comments in early stages of the writing process. Furthermore, a special thanks to Kenan Hochuli for insightful comments about the data, as well as helping in specifying descriptive terminology.
Distribution of Work
All of the three authors actively participated in preparing this chapter. However, the corresponding author (Holmström), was primarily responsible for writing the chapter, as well as for initially inspecting the data and identifying the phenomenon in question.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Appendix: Transcription Conventions
Appendix: Transcription Conventions
The transcription conventions in this chapter have been adopted from Jefferson (2004) regarding talk, and Mondada (2019b) for the multimodal representation of interaction. The following is not an exhaustive list of all possible symbols but presents those utilized in this chapter. Talk is presented in regular black font, possible English translations in italics and descriptions of embodied conduct in regular grey font.
[word] | Overlapping talk |
(0.5) | Numbers in parentheses indicate silence, represented in tenths of a second |
(.) | ‘Micropause’, ordinarily less than 0.2 of a second |
. | Falling intonation |
, | Level intonation |
? | Rising intonation |
wo::rd | A colon indicates prolongation or stretching of the preceding sound. The number of colons indicates the length of the prolongation |
word | Underlining indicates emphasis |
°word° | The degree signs indicate that talk between them is markedly quiet or soft |
>word< | Increased speaking rate |
wo- | A hyphen after a word or part of a word indicates a cut-off |
(word) | Uncertain hearing, in case of empty parentheses there is no likely candidate |
£word£ | Smiley voice |
hhh | Outbreath |
.hhh | Inbreath |
(( )) | Transcriber’s descriptions of events, rather than representations of them |
** | Descriptions of embodied actions are delimited between two |
++ | identical symbols (one symbol per participant and per type of action) |
&& | that are synchronized with correspondent stretches of talk or time indications |
*–> | The action described continues across subsequent lines |
−>* | until the same symbol is reached |
−>> | The action described continues after the excerpt’s end |
noo | Participant doing the embodied action is identified in small caps in the participant column, unless the same as current speaker |
fig | The exact moment at which a screen shot has been taken |
# | is indicated with a sign (#) showing its position within the turn/a time measure |
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2022 The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Holmström, M., Rauniomaa, M., Siromaa, M. (2022). Zooming in on a Frame: Collectively Focusing on a Co-participant’s Person or Surroundings in Video-Mediated Interaction. In: Alarauhio, JP., Räisänen, T., Toikkanen, J., Tumelius, R. (eds) Shaping the North Through Multimodal and Intermedial Interaction. Arctic Encounters. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-99104-3_5
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-99104-3_5
Published:
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-030-99103-6
Online ISBN: 978-3-030-99104-3
eBook Packages: Social SciencesSocial Sciences (R0)