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SUMMARY:Trouble-makers: Audio-video distortions as a relational resource i
 n couples’ video calls - Sean Rintel\, University of Queensland
DTSTART:20140314T090000Z
DTEND:20140314T100000Z
UID:TALK51255@talks.cam.ac.uk
CONTACT:Microsoft Research Cambridge Talks Admins
DESCRIPTION:Consumer-level video calling has had one of the longest journe
 ys to mainstream use of any post Industrial Revolution communication techn
 ology. While the technology is approaching technological maturity\, the co
 mbined limitations of consumer-level systems and bandwidth mean that at so
 me point most users will have cope with audio and video distortions. In th
 is talk\, instead of measuring the threshold perception of distortions or 
 how distortions affect tasks\, I focus on how people treat distortions as 
 a conversational concern. Drawing on examples from couples’ experiences 
 from two-month field trials\, I show that coping requires practices for co
 nversational and expressive continuity that treat the technology as framin
 g but not determining their activity. That is\, couples can be trouble-mak
 ers\, but in the counter-intuitive manner of making actual or potential tr
 ouble a relevant part of ‘doing being a couple via video calling’. Cou
 ples can opportunistically use audio and video distortions as disambiguati
 ng or expressive resources rather than simply treating them as perturbing 
 talk or outside of relational talk. More broadly\, I argue that in the per
 sonal interaction technology space these kinds of creative responses to di
 stortions are an as-yet under-developed piece of the technology adoption p
 uzzle. Users are not necessarily interested in replicating face-to-face in
 teraction. They are looking to act in social ways. Technology is part of t
 hat action\, but it is as much a creative and moral resource used to accou
 nt for social actions as it is the ‘container’ or ‘conduit’.
LOCATION:Auditorium\, Microsoft Research Ltd\, 21 Station Road\, Cambridge
 \, CB1 2FB
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