Embodied action in remote online interaction

Abstract

In this paper I use a conversation analytic approach to investigate how participants in a meeting held remotely via Zoom use embodied action to solicit selection as next speaker. When hand raising is not immediately successful, participants use embodied actions to withdraw, modify, upgrade, downgrade or reissue gestures in pursuit of selection as next speaker. Due to the technological affordances and limitations of the remote meeting environment, participants’ gestures and hand positions differ from what would typically occur in face-to-face interaction, resulting in frequent gestures near the face that provide for both visibility to the Zoom audience and easy transition to a raised hand position when necessary. I discuss these results in terms of our understanding of how technologically mediated virtual interaction through the internet impacts the use of embodied action, and how participants coordinate their embodied action and responses to it with turn taking and sequence completion.