Inter-activity: How new media can help us understand old media

language and New Media Linguistic, Cultural, and Technological Evolutions Edited by Charley Rowe and Eva L. Wyss With a foreword by Naomi S. Baron . . HAMPTON PRESS, INC. CRESSKILL, NJ 07626 II ..ｾＢＬ '"' Chapter 1 "Inter-Activity" How New Media Can Help Us Understand Old Media RODNEY H. JONES City University of Hong Kong Abstract One challenge to understanding the potential effects of new media on linguistic interaction lies in the way it facilitates what has been referred to as multitasking: the simultaneous management of multiple activities. In computer-mediated communication, just as important as the interaction between or among particular interlocutors is the interaction between or among different activities or interactions-what is called inter-activity. This chapter proposes a model for the analysis of new media communication that facilitates the tracing of moves and strategies across multiple simultaneous interactions. The phenomenon of inter-activity, however, is not restricted to media communication but is also an important but neglected issue "old media" communication. To illustrate this, the same model is also ､･ｳ ｵ｣ＵＧｩｾＬ in reference to face-to-face conversation, telephone interaction, reading in a public place. One of the most fortunate consequences of to the analysis of discourse brought on by new technologies, it is that they help to reveal gaps in the way we approach more ;aditional kinds of interaction. a 19-year-old student studying in a university in Hong Kong. Every "ng after dinner she switches on her IBM laptop, which is connected to . -speed wireless LAN in her residence hall, and works on her school ems. While she is working she intermittenrly answers e-mail and instant '(IMs) from her classmates as well as her friends and family members. 13 14 Jones Sometimes she chats with three or fouf people at a time using a chat and 1M software popular with her friends. She also has her mobile phone next to her computer just in case somebody wants to call her. Occasionally, it lights up with an SMS (short message service) from a classmate. She is an avid fan of all kinds of music from iodie to hip-hop, and she almost always listens to Mp3 files through her earphones when she's working on the computer and swaps songs with other fans using a "peer-to-peer" file-sharing application. Ming's roommate, Mei lin, sits on the other side of their small room, typing into her own laptop and watching her small ponable Sony television. Mei Lin likes to spend time browsing a bulletin board system (BBS) from China where young people express their ideas about culture and politics, and she likes to talk with Ming about some of the news and opinions she finds on it, and sometimes these comments develop into heated exchanges of opinion between the two roommates. These debatt::s, howevet, rarely significantly interrupt the ongoing tempo of tnessaging, chatting, e-mailing, surfing the Web, downloading music files, watching lV, and working on homework assignments. Ah Lam is a 26-year-old homosexual in Hong Kong. Like many single Hong Kong men under the age of 30, he lives with his parents. Three or four evenings a week after his parents have gone to sleep, he logs on to the chat room at gayhk.com and scrolls down the list of potential chat partners looking for user names and profiles that look interesting to him. Ah Lam usually likes ro start four or five chats at once to maximize his chances of finding someone who appeals ro him. While he juggles multiple chats, he sometimes surfs web pages containing erotic pictures or reads personal messages that people leave on a local gay BBS. If any of his chat partners seems interesting enough, he'll e-mail or 1M them his own picture. If their communication is successful, he might have a phone conversation with them or contact them via Web cam. Ah Lam used to go to bars and saunas to meet partners, but now he prefers using the Internet. He has a better chance of meeting and developing a relationship with someone online since he can chat with so many different men at once. Sometimes Ah Lam invites his friend to his parents' flat and they cruise the chat room together, sometimes playing at inventing false identities. They have even engaged online chat partners in "cam sexn together, one of them showing his body, and the other talking (Q the person on the ｴ･ｬ ｰｨｯｮ･ｾ｡ｮ､ the people never realize that they are having cyber sex with more than one person simultaneously! For the past 15 years, computer-mediated communication (CMC) has received considerable attention from linguists and communication scholars interested in how this "new way of communicating" differs from the old ways. Among the aspects they have focused on have been lexical and grammatical features of chat and e- mail (see, e.g., Collot & Belmote, 1996; Davis & Btewer, 1997), interacrional features of both synchronous and asynchronous CMC such as turn taking and interactional coherence {see, e.g., Garcia & Jacobs, 1999; Herring, 1999; Rintel & "Inter-Activity" 15 Pittam, 1997), ways participants present themselves and form impressions of others (see, e.g., Douglas & McGarry, 2001), sociolinguistic issues like the formation of online "speech communities" (see, e.g., Paolillo, 1999), and online intercultural communication (see, e.g., Ma, 1996). Perhaps not surprisingly, most studies of text-based CMC have chiefly concerned themselves with the analysis of texts of conversations downloaded from users' computers and isolated from the situations in which they occurred. The twO scenarios cited in the opening of this chapter are meam to illustrate that this practice of isolating interactions from their physical comexts may result in the analyst missing some of the most importam aspects of this kind of communication. What is dear from these examples is that the comext of CMC can be extremely rich, and extremely physical. It often involves more than just texts sem from one uset to another, but rather comp'lex interactions among different media and different modes of communication from text, to graphic, to auditory form. Similarly, CMC often involves a number of people arranged in various physical spaces in complex patterns of participation from imerlocurors to onlookers. Finally, and most importantly, CMC often involves multiple, simultaneous interactions interwoven into a dense fabric of overlapping activities. The face-to-face (FTF) conversations Ming has with her roommate Mei Lin arguably have an effect, sometimes subtle and sometimes significant, on the conduct of the computer-based conversations ·.she is having at the same time, and visa versa. Similarly, how Ah Lam responds to ＧＡＺｾｨｹｯｮ･ of his chat partners in the gay chat room inevitably depends on how the ｾＧＺ ＾［ ｦｒｮｶ･ｲｳ｡ｴｩｯ he is having with other chat partners (or with his best friend who , .- 'ght be sitting next to him) have developed. Both of these examples aptly point 'the truth of Hymes' (1974:54) warning that "the common didactic model of . er and hearer" which is still so central to much linguistic analysis "specifies ¢iimes too many, sometimes too few, and sometimes the wrong participants." apter argues that understanding the interaction that occurs between or participants using "new media" (and "old media" as well) requires underｾＮＧ the interaction between or among the different activities that users are in, activities that are carried our with multiple interlocutors interacting '::a wide variery of media, interlocutors who also include various kinds of '1'5; "lurkers," and future users who, in the case of archived imeraceions like ｳｧｮｩＺｦ ｾ and forums) might read and respond to imeractions that occurred e past. er-activity: Engaging in Multiple Mediated Activities of engaging in multiple activities using multiple modes has come ;to as multitasking. This term, however, can be misleading when creating the impression that the multiple "tasks" in question ＱＬｾ｜ｉＸＧｦｩＢ 16 Jones are clearly "separate" tasks and that they are being engaged in "at the same time/' two assumptions that that I call into question later. It also assumes an underlying instrumentality associated with what we do when we use computers-activities are "tasks" rather than processes, pastimes, or diversions. It is this assumption that lies behind recent studies and media stories warning that multitasking is "inefficient" and leads lO "wasted time" (see, e.g., 'Wasted time .. ." 2001). Rather than multitasking. I use the term inter-activity. which I believe better captures the ways multiple activities can flow together and affect one another. The difference between inter-activity and interactivity is that the latter conventionally focuses on the interaction between or among actors, two humans, or humans and things in their environments like computers, whereas the former focuses on the interaction among the various different activities in which these social actors are engaged. It is its capacity to facil.itate not just new patterns of imeraction, but also new patterns of inter-activity, I argue, that really makes new media communication different from old ways of communicating. At the same time, however, I also argue that the concept of inter-activity is equally important to older ways of interacting using face-to-face conversation, print media, and telephones. How communicative behavior (whether it involves sending an e-mail, talking with a friend on a cell phone, reading a newspaper on a train, or attending a university seminar) is ｾ｡ｧｲｯ nized in terms of continuously interacting multiple channels has thus far not been sufficiently dealt with in linguistic studies of interaction. As Goffman (1981:131) pointed out, "any cross-sectional perspective,' any instantaneous slice focusing on talking ... necessarily misses important features." The theoretical framework from which I approach this problem brings together a number of traditions in sociology, linguistics, and anthropology, including Goffman's (1959, 1963, 1972, 1981) miclOsociological approach to behavior in public places, as well as his development of "ftame analysis" (Goffman, 1974), early work done on proxemics, gesture, and "context analysis" in interaction (Kendon, 1978, 1990; Scheflen & Ashcraft, 1976), as well as more recent work in what h.s come co be known as mediated discourse analysis (Norris & Jones, 2005; Jones 2001b; Scollon, 2001., 2001b). The data on which I draw for this discussion come from a number of recent studies focusing on the use of computers by young people in Hong Kant Oones, 2001, 2003, 2005a, 2005b), and on rhe ways in which CMC is changing the social and sexual behavior of gay men in Hong Kong' Oones, 2005d, 2005" 2006) They include in-depth interviews. participant journals, and "screen movies" of participants using their computers in real time. The advantage of "screen movies" over chat logs is that they can better capture the complexity of the interaction, in particular how participants manage multiple interactions. What made collection of the data possible with the informed consent of all parties involved was the participatory model the studies followed: Primary informants were employed on the projects as "participant-researchers," responsible for helping' "Inter-Activity" :ime. " ,j rlying J ｾ ivities ｾ l that i <inefｾ ather :s the rence ｳｾ on gsm :tion 17 to set the research agenda and for explaining the research and securing consent from others in their communities. pardcularly their chat partners. ｪｾ 1also ;tion rgue 'dng ltive cell rgaleen ;. 31) on 'What u do now ar? Consider one of the conversadons recorded on Ming's computer: 1 A:hihi:) 2 B: dim a how are u? 3 A: good and u! 4 B: ai ... I have some problem ... so not good ..... 5 A: what's up? . 6 B: my stomach have some problem 7 A: Poor girl 8 B: ai ... more my uncle near to die .... ai ..... so unhappy 9 A: ur uncle? 10 B: yup .... ai .... 11 A: illness!!! 12 B: cancer ..... 13 A: *sigh* r u v close to him? 14 B: He quite take care for me ..... 15 A: ic I'm sorry to hear that 16 B: i am so sorry for telling u such thing ..... 17 A: not at all, u know life is like that, painful and frustrating 18 B: Ai ... forget it la ... 1 dunno why 1 am so unluck ..... 19 A: dun worry, hard time will come 20 B: ai ... dim a ... what u do now ar 21 A: downloading Mp3 ,22 B: do you have any song recommend to me? ,.A cursory analysis of this small sample of CMC might yield a number <';:,'ervations that would mark it as an 1M session. One might point out, for Ie,: the short turns, the lack of overlap (impossible with this application), ,,' standard spelling, and the use of invendve punctuation and emoticons to ［ＧｐｾＢ for the contextualization cues normally present in FTF conversation (see : ｾＬ this volume). One might also point out the ways this conversation eristic of a particular community of users (Le., young Chinese in Hong h as the use of a second language between interlocutors who share a other rongue (since English can be ryped more rapidly than Chinese) option of romanized versions of Cantonese expressions (dim a = how particles (ai. ar) to lend expressiveness and to modulate the social ually associated with rhe use of English. y. ways, however. this conversation does not seem very different ＧＺ ｾｲｳ｡ｴｩｯｮ that might occur between physically co-present participants ,>' c.' 18 Jones (or at least participants talking on the telephone) in terms of its opening. topic development, adjacency pairs, politeness strategies, and use of ritual exchanges. Where the conversation stares to diverge from expectations we might have about face-to-face encounters is when, in turn 20, B asks. "what u do now ar?" ("what are you doing now?). This question is perhaps one of the most common in my data of computer chat and 1M sessions among Chinese young people. What is so significant about it is B's untroubled assumption that during this conversation about her uncle's fatal illness and imminent death, A has been doing something other than giving her full attention to commiserating with her friend. In fact, A has been doing a lor more than that. Immediately after the greeting sequence (turns 1-3), A briefly moves her attention to continuing an exchange she is having in another 1M window with C, and then takes the opportunity to check OUt B's "user details" before B replies (turn 4). In between reading B's message that says she has a problem and replying to it, A types another reply to C, selects files to add to her media software play list and begins playing a song. Abour 40 seconds later she asks her friend what's wrong, bue, while waiting for her answer, which just takes a couple of seconds, she sends an Mp3 file to a fourth (more silent) interactant, another user of the "peer-to-peer" file-sharing software she has open. Mter her friend replies that her stomach is bothering her, A takes another look at her user details, perhaps _searching for clues as to how best to respond. After offering an expression of sympathy, her attention moves to a music web page linked with her file-sharing software. When her friend reveals her more serious problem-the illness of her uncle-A's attention apparently momentarily focuses on the import of what has been said, resulting in a more than 3D-second period with no screen action (although we do not know what might have been happening off the screen). During the subsequent discussion of the unde's cancer and his relationship to B (turns 11-19), however, A is also actively involved in searching for songs by Tori Amos and reading message board postings by other fans of this artist. She also receives a message from C reporting on the progress of their joint task. These other activities, however, do not seem to interfere with her ability to comfort B. Mter turn 20, when B asks A what she is doing, the two heretofore separate activities of chatting with B and downloading music files merge. The topic of the conversation with B -shifts to what kinds of music she likes, and the focus of Xs file search becomes B's request for A to recommend some songs she might like. Meanwhile, A is able to accept a file transfer from C, thank her for it and resume discussing the details of the homework assignment. When looked at this way, this interaction seems much less like a FTF ｣ｯｮｾ versation. In fact it is almost impossible to imagine a face-to-face encounter in which, while one person is describing the fatal illness of a beloved relative, the other listens to music on her iPod, chats with another friend on the phone, or browses through a CD rack in a music shop. Such behavior would be considered callous or "Inter-Activity" topic nges. bout ",hat my It is rion ung iog ,he :ck tge ::ts '0 er, te 15 ｾｲ I. e s ｾ J ｾｬ Ii' 19 rude. In the context of CMC, however, Xs behavior is considered perfectly normal, evidenced by B's question and subsequent reaction (see also Baron, 2008). An example from Ah Lam's screen recordings is even more dramatic, showing how he interacts with no fewer than five potential sexual parmers at one time, skillfully juggling conversations wbose topics range ftom physical appearance to sexual practices to tennis. One of the interactions even involves a Web cam session, but the video presence of this partner does not deter Ah Lam from continuing his text-based chats with other potential partners. What is particularly striking is how adept he is not just at moving easily from one conversation to another without mixing them up, but also at modulating his style and topic to fit the demands of his different audiences, projecting slightly different versions of himself to each interlocutor-professing to one, for example, his desire to find a loyal and sincere mate rather than quick sex, while arranging with another exactly the kind of "quick sex" he professes [() deplore. Taking just one conversational thread from the matrix of communication of either of these examples and attempting to analyze it would be grossly distorting. In order to understand completely what is happening in each separate conversation in these situations, one must attend to all of the different actemional tracks ;-and how what occurs in each affects what occurs in the others. Sometimes these ., .Cross-influences are quite dramatic. whereas at other times the user is able to aintain the impression that each track is occurring absolutely independently om any other activity, I stress, however, that this is an impression that the media ,dlitates, not a reality, for it is impossible for the activity in one track not to affect linguistic and interactional features of others, Some of these effects are more 9cle: changes in the timing and conversational mechanics of interactions. the Ｚｾｲｴ･ｮｩ ｧ of turns to accommodate the rapid pace of multiple interactions. and "ncreased use of formulaic exchanges or of hedging or other delaying tactics. r effects are more obvious, as when topics from one interaction find their nto others, when two communicative activities merge into one, when the 'on demanded by one interaction causes others to be somehow compromised andoned altogether, or when users accidentally mix tracks by sending to one pc.utor a reply intended for another, ';:'The power of computers to foster interactivity is something that has often .,ointed Out, Barnes (2003) claimed that electronic communication involves 'nds of inreractivity; interpersonal interactivity (the relationship between or enders and receivers), informational interactivity (the relationship between the different bits of information that are available through the screen), an-eomputer interaction (the relationship between the user and the ｟ｾＭｬｮｴ･ｲ ｡｣ ｩｶ ｹ shows how none of these kinds of interactivity can really be separately, that the relationships among information, users. and humans ines all Occur simultaneously and affect one another. "' r 20 Jones At the heart of the concept of inter-activity, then, is an attempt to understand how people in circumstances of multiple interaction balance and prioritize their interactions, and the linguistic and nonlinguistic strategies they use (0 do this. In examples like those analyzed here, however, it is often difficult to decide which of the various interactional threads are "dominant" and which are "subordinate"; indeed, the status of each thread vis-d-vis the others tends to change throughout the occasion. In fact. inter-activity, especially in situations where it is facilitated by new media technologies, challenges the whole concept of the "focused encounter" so central to most of our assumptions about language and communication Oones. 2003). Participants as Percipients In order to understand how participants in CMC, or any communicative situation. manage and strategize multiple interactions, it is first helpful to review what constitutes a "communicative situation." In 1951, Jilrgen Ruesch and Gregory Bateson attempted to lay down a basic "matrix" through which human communication is possible. In their view, the most basic component of communication is perception or, more accurately, "the perception of having been perceived" (15) Communicative situations are created by participants through the "mutual recognition of having entered each other's mutual perception" (23). All signals transmitted from one person to another carry the message of this mutual recognition. In this sense, all communication is about communication-specifically, about maintaining the channel. This view of communication has the dramatic effect of shifting our focus away from the message or the message producer to the relationship of mutual monitoring between or among participants. In fact, from this perspective, participants might be more accurately referred to as percipients (Kendon, 1978). perception being at the foundation of all participation. Goffman (1981) provided a similar perspective on the social situation, defining it as "the full physical area in which persons present are in sight and sound of one another" (136). Of course, in CMC, the notion of one person "being in sight or sound" of another needs to be altered to include the perception of electronic signals on a screen. The importance of physical perception, however, remains the same. At the heart of most of Goffman's work on interaction is the examination of how "mutual monitoring" alters behavior. In his classic The Presentation ofSelf in Everyday Life. for example, Goffman speaks of how we divide physical space into regions ("backstage," "frontstage"), characterized by the kinds of information we make available. Physical space allows for what Goffman called "audience segregation," the ability to present different "selves" to different people. Meyrowitz (1985) built on Goffman's ideas of how social situations are based on the possibilities for directing or obstructing the flow of information between participants. Social situations are best thought of, he said, as "information Illnter-Activity" deritize do ,ide ubnge : it the nd a- "y I- n 21 systems." "The patterns of information flow, whether direct or mediated, help to define the situation and the notions of appropriate style and action ... when we find ourselves in a given setring we often unconsciously ask, <Who can see me, who can hear me?' 'Who can I see, who can I hear?' The answers to the questions help us decide how to behave" (39). Meyrowitz claimed rhat media change the configuration of physical channels and barriers that govern patterns of mutual moniwcing, and thereby change what is regarded as socially acceptable behavior (Licoppe & Heurtin, 2001). Where Meycowicz, with his grounding in the McLuhanesque tradition, missed the mark in his evaluation of new media effects, however, is in his one-sided emphasis on how electronic media act to remove barriers to perception and thereby to "decrease the significance of physical presence" (Meyrowitz, 1985: vii). Meyrowitz claimed that electronic media ｡ｲｾ causing previously distinct social situations to merge and diminishing our ability to engage in "audience segregation." Taking up this stance, Dresner (2002) argued that Meyrowltz'S idea of social situations as .information structures helps us to go beyond Goffman's essentially spatial metaphor ·for communication, allowing us to account for new patterns of information flow ahatgo beyond the laws of physical space. This notion that electronic media render .i::l'hysical space less important can be traced back ro McLuhan (I964:3) himself, '0 claimed that media have been "abolishing both place and time as far as our ｾｮ･ｴ is concerned" causing us to lose our ability to fragment our roles. , Although in some ways this may be true, the two examples provided here t that in other ways the opposite is true. What allows these users to so 'vely manage inter-activity is not that the tools they are using break down phic barriers, bur that they leave them very much intact, giving users greater over the flow of information and creating more opportunities for audience tion, not less. us, what is often regarded as a constraint of text-based CMC-the absence and auditory modes-is, in regard to possibilities for inter-activity, actually 'cs most important affirdances, allowing users to distribute their attention ider range of encounters and more carefully calibrate the information ach one. This is why videoconferencing, no matter how convenient and 've it becomes, will likely not replace text-based CMC, and why more people are using their mobile telephones for text-based communication a,voice-based communication (on the latter, see Bergs, this volume). ieally, then, what makes CMC so attractive, especially for activities "'.:,.ers desire greater control over their information preserve, is nor just ·...connectedness" it fosters, bur also the sense of "disconnectedness." 'ens have a dual function-they allow us to project information onto . also allow us to hide information behind them. These "involve(Goffman, 1963) are extremely versatile, allowing us not only to ,tie, or exclude participants from situations, bur to partially inelude . 'pants by selecting which modes of communication we wish to 22 Jones make available. Baron (2008) used the metaphor of "volume control" to express this concept. New communication technologies, she noted, allow users co selectively modulate their availability to other users in the network, altering patterns of interpersonal communication as well as notions of communal propriety. Thus, what characterizes the mediational means used in newer media in general, and in CMC in particular, is a pattern of affocdances and constraints that make people simultaneously more available and less available to one another, and more or less available in different ways. As Cavanaugh (1999) said, "what emerges from the relocation of social interaction in the online environment is a curious tension between intensification of control over the territories of the self and its dissolution" (para. 5). Paying Attention One of the trendier theories to be inspired by the new media is the norion of "the attention economy" (Goldhaber, 1997): The idea that, in an age of information overload, what gives value to information is the amount of attention it can attract. The real currency of the information age is not information, but attention. Whether or not this theory holds true on the macro-economic level, it is and has always been an important principle in the micro-economics of situated t interaction. All interpersonal communication is fundamentally based on attention: getting attention and "paying attention." In order for successful communication to take place, we must not only pay attention to the content of our interlocutor's words, but we must also monitor the ways in which the interlocutor distributes attention throughout the situation. Thus, not only is attention organized around behavior, but behavior is organized around attention. According to Kendon (1978:306), in interaction, "participants attend to one' another's behavior differentially, and ... they act on this differential attention in a differentiated way." The way we distribute our attention and interpret how others distribute theirs, he said, is organized through "systems of action and systems of perceptual analysis which are mutually attuned to one another." Underlying this observation is the notion that when we speak of "attention" we are not really speaking of one thing, but rather of two separate but interrelated systems: one governing actions, and the other governing how actions are interpreted. The first of these is the cognitive attention system: the system individuals use to distribute their cognitive attention across the various activities they are invol in. The second is the social attention system: the system participants use to disp attention and to interpret displays of attention by others Oones, 2005a). What particularly interesting about the examples given so far in this chapter is that participants are able to pay attention to so many different interactions at on What is equally amazing, however, is that they are able to communicate to so m ＮｲＺｾＬＱ . .:.1 1; ｾ Ｑｾ "Inter-Activity" 23 ii 'I (press selec'ns of ! ia in aims Ither, what IS a self 'of' na- ' :an " en- , interlocutors at once that they are paying attention. Whereas the cognitive attention system is more of a psychological construct (although it is also affected by training and socialization), the social attention system is based on linguistic patterns and norms of communication that develop within speech communities. The role of the cognitive attention system in facilitating inter-activity lies in its ability to divide up experience into different "tracks"--different paths or routes along which consciousness can travel-and the existence of these multiple tracks is itself is a function of the differentiated character of consciousness. In other words, although it seems in situations of inter-activity that people are "paying attention" to more than one thing at a time, this is actually not the case. We are only able to pay conscious attention to one thing at any given moment (Baars, 1988; Raskin, 2000). What is actually taking place, then, is a choreography of attention, in which the focus ofconscious awareness moves rapidly from one track to another. Mantovani (1996: 10) compared this dance of ｡ｴ ･ｮ ｩｯｾ to opening and dosing windows, a metaphor that is particularly suited to the graphical user interfaces of personal computers. "Actors simplify situations," he wrote, "by opening variously sized windows through which can focus on what interests them and intervene on the aspects of the situation i"J:;learest to their goals.... In ... orienting attention, interests establish a reciprocal (of activities) and find an order, precarious though it may be." :,_ One thing that facilitates this process of distributing cognitive attention is 'e fact that all of the tasks that we perform do not demand the same kind of ntion. Tasks that have become familiar to us through repetition do not require attention and are regulated by the cognitive unconscious (Baars, 1988; ·n, 2000). Such tasks may include, for example. operating many aspects of the ucer's interface, eating, and, to varying degrees, participating in conversational Here, of course, is where training and competence playa large role. The ,activities can be regulated by the cognitive unconscious through practice, jon, and training, the more flexibility users have in directing the focus of , gnitive consciousness. other important aspect of consciousness is the existence of peripheral ness (Chafe, 1994): the ability of the mind to hold in awareness that in spatial or temporal proximity to its focus of attention. Thus, when teracting with multiple interlocutors in CMC, we are aware to varying f heing "in the state of talk" (Coffman, 1981) with those with whom ;,,9.£: immediately engaged in conversation. In many ways, the computer -augments these mental faculties to facilitate cognitive coherence. The :us way is by transforming Mamovani's (1996) metaphorical windows , Q.e5, which users can minimize, maximize, and arrange on the screen Itelp them to "keep track of" the various goings on. Many applicamethods of alerting users when particular events like an incoming 4 their attention. Finally, because computers can keep a record of ing actions that accumulate to form activities, users always have mey ｹｨ｣ｲ｡ ･ｩ ｻｾｙＧＬＢＺ 24 Jones the opportunity [0 review past moves and resume aCUVlties where they left off. Herring (1999) pointed out that the persistence of a textual record of computermediated conversations, often structured by topics and threads, and now by tags and links, is one of the main reasons users are able to maintain interactional coherence even after long interruptions or in situations where the normal flow of turn-taking is not maintained. The social attention system, the processes through which interlocutors convey to each other a joimness of attenrional focus, is much more culturally and situationally dependent (see Erickson, 1979). Central to these processes is feedback (or "backchannel"), the various signals we send which have as their main purpose providing a display of attention co our interlocutor (although they often also convey important information about our attitude toward what is being said and our relationship to the speaker). Also important is the appropriateness of our responses to what has ､･ｲｾｵ｣ｯ previously, which is related to conversational goals and plans and the functional organization of interaction (Mclaughlin, 1984). What counts, however, as the right kind or right amount of feedback or as the appropriate response to what was last said varies widely among people from different cultures and in different kinds of communicative contexts. Furthermore, the ways joint attentional foci are maintained are not constant throughout interactions, but change as encounters move through various stages (Kendon. 1978). Feedback in CMC, of course, is very different from that in face-to-face conversation, which depends heavily on visual and auditory cues: gaze, posture, gestures, nonverbal sounds, and minimal response (e.g., "I see ..."). It is a mistake, however, to think that such "backchannel" is nonexistent or less important in CMC. In fact, despite claims to the contrary (see, e.g., Black, Levin, Mehan, & Quinn, 1983), many utterances in synchronous and asynchronous CMC serve the function of backchannel. In my data, for example. many turns consist of single words or shaft phrases like "0," "ic," and "cool." Nevertheless, because visual and auditory modes are "muted" in most CMC, the function of other modes to convey listenership become "denser" (Norris, 2004) or more amplified. the most important being the temporal mode. The most common way users convey their attention is by responding within an appropriate time span Oanes, 2005c). The most important point for the understanding of how inter-activity works is the fact that these two systems-the cognitive attention system and the social attention system are reciprocal, that achieving coherence in one system depends on the achievement of coherence in the other. Being able to maintain interactional coherence by, for example, producing an appropriate response to the appropriate interlocutor within the appropriate span of time, is based on being able to either keep various activities running along separate tracks, or to merge them in logical ways. Similarly, being able to make decisions about how to distribute our cognitive attention depends on us being able to make sense of the feedback we receive from others (see Fig. 1.1). 25 "Inter-Activity" Goals rolf. Social attention urer- tags ional wof I .totS rally :5 is Coherence I Fig. 1.1. Relationship between cognitive and social attention systems. lain feen ,aid OUt lals hat toｾｭ IYS 'lit ce What drives this system are the goals of the communication as determined by our own interests and as negotiated with those with whom we are communicating. These negotiated goals are also part of the dynamic system and often change dramatically as interactions progress. As Mantovani (1996:11) wrote, "As our goals supply the criteria to select and interpret situational aspects, so the opportunities or threats identified in situations-together with the responses that the environment makes to our initiatives-supply feedback on our system of goals, encouraging some and discouraging others." So What's New? ｬ ｾ､ｩｦ Ｌ ･ Ｂｴ point I make here is not so much that computer-mediated interaction from other types of interaction, but rather the opposite-that the I described here are part and parcel of all interaction. Whenever people ,with specific interlocutors, they are always doing much more than ｰ｡ｲｴｩ｣ｰ｡ｾ ,:,,::that single interaction. Social situations commonly involve participants not ＬＭ ［ Ｎｾｩｮｧ from one encounter to another, but also merging different activities ｴｩｧｾ Ｍ ways. Thus, as Goffman (1981) reminded us, all interaction is marked egree by a certain "instability of participation." .;.activity is not an idea totally unfamiliar in sociolinguistics and linguistic There has been, for example, substantial work done on the ways fS in ｦ｡｣･ｾｴｯＭ interaction coordinate the different modes (voice, ges,and proxemics) available to them (see, e.g., Kendon, 1991), as well uential juxtaposition of differing activities and participant structures interactional occasion (Erickson, 1979; Scheflen, 1974). Perhaps . us is Goffman's (1974) desctiption of the way people divide Up ｾ ･ｺｩｬ｡ｴｮｾ their experiences, which he developed in Frame Analysis. All bserved, involve multiple "goings on," and so require participants to 1 w; 26 Jones manage various attemional "tracks" that define some activities as central or "focal" and others as secondary. Secondary tracks, however, may themselves become focal or conceal covert focal activities or collusion. Thus, every interaction takes place at the nexus of many overlapping, internesred, or "laminated" ftames. Elsewhere, Coffman (1981) pointed our how interactions are often characterized by various "subordinate forms of communication" such as byplay (exchanges between subgroups of ratified participants), cross-play (exchanges between ratified participants and bystanders), and side-pidy (exchanges berween bystanders), Perhaps the most obvious place to look for examples of inter-activity outside of CMC is in telephone communication. Like computers, telephones facilitate inter-activity by altering spatial boundaries, muting modes, and providing users with "involvement screens" that can shield certain activities from the perception of interlocutors. Although th,ete has been no lack of linguistic studies of telephone conversations, there have been very few that take this characteristic of the mediational means into account. One reason for this is that most studies of telephone interaction confine themselves to examining the words that are exchanged between those talking on the phone, ignoring the ways in which the introduction of a telephone into a physical place changes the social situation in that place, altering patterns of mutual monitoring. One study that begins to take account of these issues is Rae's (2001) analysis of participation frameworks in counseling sessions in which he looks at how counselots coordinate interacting with clients and making and receiving telephone calls. Central to his analysis is how participants use their voices and bodies to strategically signal attentional orientation. Accounts of such situations, he concluded need to be "rooted in participants' orientation to each other as a matter of their analysis of the attentional structure of the situation at hand and the accountability of theit conduct within it" (722). The written text is another medium which facilitates inter-activity. Because writing traditionally involves asynchronous communication, senders and receivers of messages may engage in all manner of activities while composing or decoding messages, some of which affect how messages are transmitted and participants positioned. Considerable attention has been paid to how writing transforms both the language and the person in communication (see, e.g., Oog, 1982), and how practices of reading and writing are embedded in multiple social practices (see, e.g., Heath, 1983). Relatively less attention has been given to how the act of read· ing alters the communicative architecture of situations. One attempt to do this is Scallon's (1998) study of reading in public in which he conceives of reading as a kind of social "watch" that confers on readers a certain status in the situation; in terms of how they are expected to distribute their social attention, and how. others present are expected to distribute theirs. A book, magazine, or. newspap . used in a public place can act as an involvement screen, protecting the read from unwanted approaches from strangers or, as in many an old detective fil allowing readers to direct their attention covertly towards others in the situatio :i 1 l d i I ocal" focal Jlace lere, 10US subants side tate sers IOn me [jame :en a I'lnter-Activity" 27 Writing can also serve similar purposes, as for example when students appear to be busily taking notes in a lecture when they are actually drawing cartoon figures or writing messages to their classmates. Despite the ways technological media like computers and phones, and books and newspapers facilitate inter-activity, FTF communication may in the end provide some of the richest and most interesting examples of it. Studies that contribute to how inter-activity might be approached in FTF communication are numerous, including Kendon's (1990) work on the coordination of verbal messages with gaze and gesture in conversation, Scheflen and Ashcraft's (1976) exploration of how social actors physically manage multiple simultaneous relations and orientations, and Norris' (2004) examination of how people mix multiple modes in the construction of social identity. One study that provides an apt contrast to the situation discussed in relation to Ah Lam is my own work on gay men searching for friends and sexual parmers "-partners in parks in China and the strategies AIDS educators use to conduct outreach :·iri such situations Oones, 2002). The activity of "cruising" (known in Chinese as 'prfishing") in public places is one that not only involves but requires inter-activity. Ｚ［ ｓ｣ｾ ｲｴｩ ｰ｡ｮ ｳ generally engage in one activity (such as taking a stroll in a park) as ｲ･ｶｾＯｬｩ ｻ｜ｖ for searching out and inviting others into relationships. These "laminated" es of activity result in a situation in which displays of attention are carefully rated to both reveal and conceal interest, and thus are able to communicate ＧＮＺｾｮｴ messages to the initiated and the uninitiated. Whereas in the example of '''fishing'' given previously, the visual mode is muted, in the FTF variety of tiviey, the verbal mode is often muted, participants initially communicatrough a "vocabulary" of the gaze Uones, 2001b; Kendon, 1990). In both :!i'owever, interactions seem to consist chiefly of attempts by participants to ｾ ･Ｚｳｨｩｦｴ in mode: online participants negotiating how and when to move ｹｬ･ｲｵＺｰｾ［Ｇ textual mode to the exchange of pictures, the use of a Web cam, c,:phone call, and FTF participants negotiating how and when to move ',,yrely visual mode to verbal communication Oones, 2005b). The study I wever, involves a third kind of participant, a young man who must to Ｌｾ･ conceal his AIDS education activities within the activity of "fishing," Ｌｾｬ to calibrate his displays of arremion in ways which neither alienate ,encourage his potemial cliems. Conclusion Ｌｾ ｨ｡ｴ methods of analysis that extract single streams of talk from \ Ｌｽｾｮｳ in which they occur can never truly accoum for all of the ""'linguistic production and reception. What is needed are methods ｟Ｌ ｾｨｯｬ･ range of behaviors within situations and the continuous 28 Jones dynamic relations these behaviors enter ima across ･ｬｰｾｴｵｭ modes and multiple frameworks of participation. N. I suggesred here, I believe rhe key ro rhis approach lies in understanding how participants organize various levels of joim attentional focus throughout and across situations. Here I have provided only a brief sketch of the issues that I believe to be important in the study of communicative situations involving multiple interactions. At the heart of these issues, I have suggested, are the ways perception and action function together in a mucually transformative fashion, and how this affects the ways users creare what Turkle (1995:13) called distributed presence. Much remains co be done in terms of developing cools for the fine-grained analysis of how interactivity affects linguistic and interactional behavior. At the same time, progress in this area will necessitate the use of more ethnographic approaches which gather data from a given ｮｯｩｴｾｭｳ from multiple perspectives and in multiple modes Oones, 200Ia). One area that deserves particular attention, especially in analyzing situations like those I presented here, is the affective aspect of inter-activity (see Beavis, 1998; Dane" Ruedenberg, & Rosenbaum-Tamari, 1997; Herring, 1999), that is, how the "challenge" of managing the cognitive and interactional compleXity of multiple interactions and the uncertainty involved can add to and/or detract from users' enjoymenc of or engagement in communication, and ultimately how this might subsequently affect their relationships with those with whom they interact. Another area needing smdy is the role of rhythmic organization and timing across timescales in inter-activity, particular in technologically mediated interaction Oones, 2005c). Work on these issues in FTF interacrion by Lemke (2000) Erickson (1992) and others provides a good theoretical foundation. Finally, future research should consider how new media affect how old media are used, and how all the mediational means available in a situation work together to constitute an individual's "communicative surround," or to use Coffman's (1972) term, umwelt Oones, 2003). A focus on inter-activity may eventually lead us away from studying CMC or FTF communication to studying how, increasingly, all communicative situations involve multiple media (boch new and old) and multiple modes that interact with and influence one another. Notes 1. All names of research participants used in rhis chapter are pseudonyms. 2. Computers and Youth Literacy in Hong Kong, a grant from the Research Grants Council of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, China (Project # GryV 1310/03H) (http;llpecsonal.cityu.edu.hk!-en-cyher/Cyberkids/Home.htm) 3. An Ethnographic Study of Computer Mediated Communication among Gay: Men in Hong Kong. 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