Close analysis of interviews with families and friends who used video calling apps such as Skype, from two sets of interviews held in 2014 and 2015.
Two interview setsOne set in 2014 was about everyday video calling. The other, in 2014 and 2015, was part of a study of a new form of video connection.
Families and friendsInterviewees used video apps such as Skype with family and friends. The paper does not state their number.
Opening questionInterviews began by asking whether and why people used Skype.
Close analysisTranscripts were analysed for where reasons were placed, how briefly they were put, and which kinds of people and actions they invoked.
BWhat the study found
Reasons to video callwhat interviewees said and what the paper argues
•Interviewees gave brief, ordinary reasons for video calling at the start of interviews.One example was a mother wanting to see a new room. The paper argues the brevity let the interview move on to particulars.
•Interviewees presented seeing as the main reason to video call.Interviewees tied seeing to who was being called, such as a mother, a niece or a partner.
•The paper argues relationships grant rights to look, which it calls the interrogative gaze.What a caller may ask to see depends on the relationship. A mother may have rights to see things that an acquaintance may not.
Reasons not towhat interviewees said about avoiding video and what the paper argues
•One interviewee said her partner's mother refused video calls because she disliked how she looked on camera.The paper argues ordinary reasons to video call also outline accountable reasons not to. Emotional life may not be helped by showing things.
•Some interviewees said being seen limits what can be talked about.One daughter found serious talk with her mother easier when the two were not looking at each other, as when driving.
•The paper argues reasons for and against video calling are accomplished in talk rather than being fixed causes.Reasons were shaped by when and how interviewees offered them in the interview.
CKey takeaway
Close relationships can license an interrogative gaze, making seeing a natural reason to video call. Being seen can confine talk to the visible, so avoiding video can also be reasonable.
Made for this site with AI assistance from the verified research brief. It is not the paper's own figure.
Abstract
This paper identifies salient properties of how talk about video communication is organised interactionally, and how this interaction invokes an implied order of behaviour that is treated as ‘typical’ and ‘accountably representative’ of video communication. This invoked order will be called aninterrogative gaze. This is an implied orientation to action, one that is used as a jointly managed interpretative schema that allows video communication to be talked about and understood as rationally, purposively and collaboratively undertaken in particular, ‘known in common’ ways. This applies irrespective of whether the actions in question are prospective (are about to happen) or have been undertaken in the past and are being accounted for in the present or are ‘generally the case’ – in current talk. The paper shows how this constitutive device also aids in sense making through such things as topic management in video-mediated interaction, and in elaborating the salience of the relationship between this and the patterned governance of social affairs – viz, mother-daughter, friend-friend – as normatively achieved outcomes. It will be shown how the interrogative gaze is variously appropriate and consequentially invoked not just in terms of what is done in a video call or making such calls accountable, but in helping articulate different orders of connection between persons, and how these orders have implications for sensible and appropriate behaviour in video calling and hence, for the type of persons who are involved. This, in turn, explains how a decision to avoid using video communication is made an accountably reasonable thing to do. The relevance of these findings for the sociology of everyday life and the philosophy of action are explored.
Research brief
By Richard Harper, Sean Rintel, Rod Watson, and Kenton O'Hara.
Takeaway: Video calling carries an 'interrogative gaze' (a right to look purposefully that relationships grant), which is why a mother can ask to see your new room. Because that gaze can confine talk to what is visible, avoiding video becomes a reasonable choice people can account for.
Why this matters
What was known
Sociological studies of video-mediated communication have tended to explain its use by broad social needs, such as migrant families needing to stay connected, rather than by how people themselves reason about it. the tenor of sociological inquiry into video-mediated communication generally focuses on explanations that point towards how that use satisfies some generalisable characteristic of society(§2, p. 4)
What this paper adds
Rather than explaining video calling by broad social needs, we take ordinary callers' own reasons, as given in interview talk, as the evidence, and analyse how those reasons are placed, phrased and tied to relationships. we take ordinary people and their reasoning - in this case, ordinary 'Skypers' and their reasons - as our evidential starting point(§2, p. 5)
Who it matters to
Researchers in pragmatics and sociology, and philosophers of action interested in what reasons are and how they work in everyday life. (§2, p. 6)
Research questions
How is talk about video communication ('Skype') organised interactionally, and what implied order of behaviour does it invoke as typical and accountably representative of video calling?
How do people use 'Skype' as a categorising device in their talk, so that reasons for video calling, and for avoiding it, are made accountable and understood?
Method and data
Design
Qualitative analysis of interview talk, drawing on ethnomethodology, conversation analysis and membership categorization analysis.
Setting
Two sets of audio-taped interviews with families and friends who used video applications like Skype. One set, in 2014, was about everyday video calling. The other, in 2014/2015, was part of a study of a new form of video connection.
Participants / data
Interviewees in both sets of interviews. The paper does not state their number.
Analysis
Close analysis of transcript segments, attending to where reasons are placed in the interview, how economically they are expressed, and which categories of persons and actions they invoke.
Findings
Ordinary reasons, offered first. Asked at the start of interviews 'Do you Skype and if so why?', people who video call family and friends gave brief, platitudinous answers, such as a mother wanting to see a new room. The brevity and placement did interactional work, letting the interview move on to particulars. #
“These reasons are offered as normal reasons for normal people.”
Seeing, tied to relationships. Interviewees presented seeing as the main reason to video call, and tied it to who they were calling, such as a mother, a niece or a partner. #
“One doesn't Skype a stranger - or one could, but in these accounts that's not the normal pattern”
Rights to look. What a caller may ask to see depends on the relationship. We call this purposeful, relationship-dependent way of looking the interrogative gaze (a set of rights not available to everyone). #
“those socially-categorized as 'mothers' may be allocated rights to see things about the offspring's life that, say, those categorized as 'acquaintances' may not”
Reasons to call outline reasons not to. The shape of ordinary reasons to video call also outlines accountable reasons not to. One interviewee said her partner's mother refused because she disliked how she looked on camera, and we suggest topics such as emotional life may not be helped by showing things. #
“love, lust, desire, yearning may not be best articulated with showings”
Some things lie beyond sight. Some interviewees said being seen limits what can be talked about. One daughter found serious conversations with her mother easier when they were not looking at each other, as when driving, because looking at each other could leave them not knowing what to say. #
“Skype is a technology that is described as somehow inhibiting access to this field; the mental landscape is beyond the interrogative gaze.”
Reasons are acts, not causes. Across the interviews, reasons for and against video calling worked as situated accomplishments of talk, shaped by when and how they were offered, rather than as fixed causes or lists of motives. #
“Reasons are of the world just as much as they describe the world.”
Questions this paper answers
Why do people say they video call their family and friends?
Mostly to see each other, for example a mother asking to see a new room. Interviewees gave short, ordinary reasons tied to the relationship, presenting them as what anyone would say, which let the interview move on to more particular matters. (See §4, p. 12; §4.1, p. 15.)
Why do some people avoid video calls with people close to them?
Reasons to video call also outline reasons to avoid it. Some are said to avoid it because they dislike how they look on camera, and we argue topics such as emotional life may not be helped by showing. One daughter found serious talk with her mother easier without eye contact. (See §4.4, p. 20; §4.6, p. 24.)
Does who you are calling change what you can look at?
Yes. In how people talk about video calls, the relationship sets rights to look purposefully (what we call the interrogative gaze). A mother may ask to see things about her child's life that an acquaintance may not, and looking at the wrong things can need explaining. (See §4.1, p. 15; §4.2, p. 16.)
Should people's stated reasons for using a technology be taken at face value?
They should be taken seriously, but as actions rather than causes. Short, ordinary reasons do work in conversation. They show the speaker is ordinary, invite agreement and prepare the ground for more particular reasons. What a reason means depends on when and how it is given. (See §4, p. 12; §4.3, p. 18.)
Contributions and implications
For the philosophy of action, everyday talk about video calling is evidence that reasons are plural, not only causes. Here we find proof that plurality of reason is part of the stuff of everyday life(§4.5, p. 21)
How people account for using or avoiding video calls matters to their relationships. Getting this performativity wrong will result in weakened ties, in friends drifting away, in hurt families(§5, pp. 29–30)
Limitations
Length constraints limited the number of examples presented. (§4, pp. 11–12)
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Concepts
Interrogative gaze
Our name for the implied order of looking in video calls, whose rights depend on the relationship between the parties: a way of looking that embodies rights to look purposefully, with intention; we might say interrogatively, to put it strongly(§4.2, p. 16)
'Skype' as a gloss
Interviewees' word for video calling, which also carries a shared stock of knowledge about what doing it involves: the deployment of a word like 'Skype' is a gloss for all types of video connection(§1, p. 3)
Doing being ordinary
Harvey Sacks's phrase, which we gloss as a technique of showing, in one's conversational utterances, that one knows and is alert to what the conversation at hand is about and where it is likely to go(§4, p. 11)
Membership categorisation
Categories of persons (mother, daughter, friend) that people invoke to make the use of video calling accountable. It is through a structured and situated combination of mutually-related, mutually-elaborating categorisations of persons - 'membership categorisations', in ethnomethodological or conversation analytic parlance(§4.2, p. 17)
How to cite
Richard Harper, Sean Rintel, Rod Watson, and Kenton O'Hara. 2017. The 'interrogative gaze': Making video calling and messaging 'accountable'. Pragmatics 27 (3), 319-350. https://doi.org/10.1075/prag.27.3.02har
This brief was prepared with AI assistance and published by Sean Rintel. It is not the authors' published text. Page numbers refer to this PDF.
BibTeX
@article{harper2017the,
author = {Harper, Richard and Rintel, Sean and Watson, Rod and O'Hara, Kenton},
title = {The 'interrogative gaze': Making video calling and messaging 'accountable'},
year = {2017},
month = {October},
url = {https://doi.org/10.1075/prag.27.3.02har},
pages = {319-350},
journal = {Pragmatics},
volume = {27},
number = {3},
doi = {10.1075/prag.27.3.02har},
}
BibTeX (2019 reprint)
@inbook{harper2019the,
author = {Harper, Richard and Rintel, Sean and Watson, Rod and O'Hara, Kenton},
title = {The ‘interrogative gaze’: Making video calling and messaging ‘accountable’},
booktitle = {Skyping the Family: Interpersonal video communication and domestic life},
year = {2019},
month = {October},
publisher = {John Benjamins},
pages = {19-50},
isbn = {9789027203496},
}