Collaborative Music‐Making with Digital Audio Workstations: The “nth Member” as a Heuristic Device for Understanding the Role of Technologies in Audio Composition

This article examines amateur music‐making using a digital audio workstation, showing how audio and software are used as resources for creating compositions. The article has two aims. Firstly, to depict how digital music‐making is formed from routine interactional techniques. Secondly, to probe how researchers might account for such multi‐modal activity through a heuristic device: the “nth member.” Whereas sociology has typically been concerned with the cultural facets of how music is made and consumed, we explore the material practices of collaborative song creation utilizing conversation analytic techniques—“turn‐taking” and “next‐selection”—to capture two key interactional moments.     

Introduction: The Senses in Social Interaction

In this introduction, we provide the scholarly background that motivates the special issue and briefly discuss its content. We touch on contemporary debates in symbolic interactionism, ethnomethodology and conversation analysis, and anthropology that inform the research undertaken by the contributors. We conclude by deriving six interrelated themes—intersection, entwinement, multimodal, contextually embedded, structured, and serendipitous—from an examination of the articles.     

The gift in interaction: a study of 'picking-up the bill'

This paper analyses the phenomenon of 'picking up the bill', thereby contributing to a resurgence of sociological interest in gift exchange. Drawing on ethnomethodology, it describes and locates a distinctive theoretical approach. Utilizing video recordings, the analysis considers the interactional constitution of gifts and how gift exchange is locally invoked via the norm of reciprocity. Recurrent practices are described, through which gifts are brought into being, with reciprocity invoked, by benefactor and beneficiary alike, to manage social problems of acceptance, rather than to sanction insufficient contributions. The study describes the social character of what are perhaps the preeminent gifts exchanged in modern societies; where one person pays for another's consumption.     

Challenges of multimodality: Language and the body in social interaction

This article reflects on recent challenges emerging from the study of language and the body in social interaction. There is a general interest in language and the body across disciplines that has invited a reconceptualization of the broader issues relative to action, cognition, culture, knowledge, social relations and identities, spatiality and temporality. The study of social interaction focuses on how multimodal resources – including language and bodily movements – are holistically and situatedly used in building human action. This article discusses some consequences and challenges of putting the body at the center of attention: it repositions language as one among other modalities, and invites us to consider the involvement of entire bodies in social interaction, overcoming a logo‐centric vision of communication, as well as a visuo‐centric vision of embodiment. These issues are developed through a series of conversation analytic studies, firstly of classic topics in linguistics like deixis, then of more recent topics, such as mobility and sensoriality.     

The uses of stance in media production: A study in embodied sociolinguistics

While many conversation analysts and scholars in related fields have used video recordings to study interaction, this study is one of a small but growing number that investigates video recordings of the joint activities of media professionals working with, and on, video. It examines practices of media production that are, in their involvement with the visual and verbal qualities of video, both beyond talk and deeply shaped by talk. The article draws upon video recordings of the making of a feature‐length documentary. In particular, it analyses a complex course of action where an editing team are reviewing their interview of the subject of the documentary, their footage being intercut with existing reality TV footage of that same interviewee. The central contributions that the article makes are, firstly, to the sociolinguistics of mediatisation, through the identification of the workplace concerns of the members of the editing team; secondly, showing how editing is accomplished, moment by moment, through the use of particular forms of embodied action; and, finally, how the media themselves feature in the ordering of action. While this is professional work, it sheds light on the video‐mediated practices in contemporary culture, especially those found in social media where video makers carefully consider their editing of the perspective toward themselves and others.     

Identifying units in interaction: Reactive tokens in Korean and English conversations

Reactive tokens are conversational resources by which a listener co‐constructs a speaker's turn at talk. The resources that are available include the forms of the reactive tokens themselves, their duration, and their placement by the listener in the current speaker's turn. The present paper is a contrastive study of the use of these resources by Americans in English, and by Koreans in their native language and in English, and in it we show the ecological relationship between the resources that a language provides and their use in constructing active listenership. Although previous research on English has found listeners use reactive tokens to pass up the opportunity for a full turn at talk, we show that, in Korean, reactive tokens are often elicited by the current speaker and the listener is obligated to provide them. We present evidence that Korean bilinguals transfer some conversational resources from their native language when they take part in conversation in English.     

Sensing the Bike: Creating a Collaborative Understanding of a Multi‐Sensorial Experience in MotoGP Racing

This article concerns the analysis of work interaction of a motorcycle racing team during pre‐season tests, drawing on ethnomethodology, and conversation analysis to explicate the ways in which the manager and the driver collaborate, through everyday gestures and language, to create a shared understanding of the bike's mechanical issues and disambiguate the driver's accounts of the bike's performance. We report on a set of video‐recorded encounters between the manger and the driver, examining how the multi‐sensorial experience of the driver is recollected and understood by team members, while overcoming interactional constraints imposed by the unique professional setting.     

Differing conceptions of the causes of the economic crisis: Effects of culture,economic training,and personal impact

We report findings from a survey regarding the lay perception of the causes of the worldwide economic and financial crisis. Respondents (N = 2245) from a variety of countries were included: China (Hong Kong), Turkey, Russia, Israel, Germany, USA, and France. We have previously documented a range of factors that affects lay understanding of the crisis The present study expanded the database and focuses on the combination of factors that jointly predict whether the respondents view the crisis as a complex impersonal system that malfunctioned, or hold a moral/intentional view about its origins. We show that respondents from Western World countries, who were unaffected by the crisis and have economic training, interpret the crisis differently from all other respondents (i.e., those living in Turkey, Russia, or Hong Kong, and those who were personally affected by the crisis or without economic training). These differences have important implications on how policies are perceived and evaluated by the public, and should inform how they are presented to the public.     

Streetwise sales and the social order of city streets

This paper analyses how a Big Issue vendor approached passers-by and how they responded, how recognizable courses of social and economic activity were interactionally produced from initiation through to some conclusion. The paper recovers how the vendor's work was contextually embedded in the urban landscape, how it was constrained by, and actively shaped, the social order of the street. Drawing on video-audio recordings the paper contributes to a growing body of ethnographic and ethnomethodological research which has emphasized the embodied, contingent and interactional character of economic activity. By examining such materials, the paper is well positioned to describe how the vendor found his market on the street, social interventions that propelled passers-by into buying behaviour. The paper sheds light on now familiar encounters which occur millions of times each week in the UK and beyond.     

Playing the Interrogation Game: Rapport,Coercion, and Confessions in Police Interrogations

The United States is having an “interrogation moment,” where increasing attention is being paid to what happens when suspects are questioned by the police. The manner in which confessions are secured can go directly to a society's sense of justice and fairness, as nowhere are positions of power and vulnerability so pronounced as in the interrogation room. This paper contributes to our understanding of police interrogation through discussing what we refer to as playing the interrogation game. We explore how rapport‐building helps to create a sense of collaboration between suspect and police. However, once a suspect agrees to answer questions and waives Miranda rights, the game changes. The new game can be more adversarial, aiming for the suspect to give a confession usable toward prosecution. We discuss how police, by knowing and shaping the rules of the interrogation game, have an advantage in the game which makes it very difficult for the suspect to win. Finally, we propose a number of recommendations that could foster a better balance in playing the game. A video abstract is available at https://tinyurl.com/ycqvp94k     

“Basically it's the Usual Whole Teen Girl Thing”: Stage‐of‐Life Categories on a Children and Young People's Helpline

This article explores the practices of membership categorization in the interactions of clients and counselors on a national Australian helpline (Kids Helpline [KHL]) for children and young persons. Our focus is on membership categories drawn from three membership category devices (MCDs): stage‐of‐life (SOL), age, and family. Analysis draws on data across different contact modalities—email and web‐counseling sessions—to examine how category‐generated features are relevantly occasioned, attended to, and managed by the parties in the course of interaction. This shows clients' use of MCDs in presenting their trouble and building a relevant case for their grievance. By examining counselors' subsequent receipts of the clients' complaints, we are able to trace some of the cultural knowledge that the clients' categorizations make relevant to the counselors. Moreover, the analysis demonstrates how the inherent flexibility of MCDs allows counselors to exploit these same categorial resources and to re‐specify the clients' trouble in a more positive fashion to accomplish counseling work. In explicating how taken‐for‐granted notions of the lifespan as well as of family relations are mobilized by participants in KHL's sessions, the findings contribute to previous studies of social interaction in counseling, and to research on social identity and categorization more broadly.     

Distributed Perception: Co‐Operation between Sense‐Able,Actionable, and Accountable Semiotic Agents

Perception is not just a cognitive, private experience, but achieved in and through interactive and practical actions in co‐operation with other semiotic agents. This article contributes to work on multisensory perception that is distributed as an interactional phenomenon between agents. Based on video‐ethnographic research conducted among visually impaired people, and an ethnomethodological, conversation‐analytical framework, the article contributes findings about the most basic sensory characteristics of distributed perception: co‐operation between sense‐able, action‐able, accountable semiotic agents that can communicate multisensorial information in order to solve situated and emerging problems together.     

Deaf people and economic well-being: findings from the Life Opportunities Survey

The present study used propensity score analysis to compare the economic well-being of people with and without hearing impairment in the UK. Using nationally representative 2009/10 Life Opportunities Survey, our study found that economic well-being was significantly worse for people with hearing impairment than people without hearing impairment. Hearing impaired people (1) had lower household income, (2) experienced greater difficulties making ends meets, (3) were unable to pay for unexpected but necessary expenses of ?500, and (4) were less likely to work in paid jobs even after accounting for other demographic characteristics. The findings underscore the barriers and discrimination against people with hearing impairment in the UK. Policy measures to increase access and engagement of hearing impaired people should be considered, including increasing investment in better employment opportunities, sign interpretation, and disability benefits.     

Frame attunement and footing in the organisation of talk radio openings

Conversation analysts have argued that institutions do not define the kind of talk produced within them; rather participants' ways of designing their talk actually constructs the 'institutionality' of such settings. Previous research has focused mainly on sequential considerations. This article extends that research by drawing on Goffmanian ideas of frame attunement and footing. Focusing on opening sequences on a talk radio show, I trace the incremental process by which mutually ratified participation in an institutional encounter is accomplished as a temporally unfolding, conjoint activity. The first three seconds of each call see the participants embodying a series of footings as they come to establish their relevant institutional identities.     

Laughter in medical interaction: From quantification to analysis,and back

This study discusses the use of quantification in analysing interactional practices, especially in conversation analytical work. The paper concentrates on laughter in medical interaction and starts from a quantitative point of view. West (1984) found certain statistical patterns of laughter in medical interaction: the patients laugh more than the doctors and most laughter is not reciprocated, i.e. the interactants mostly laugh alone. This statistical pattern is also found in Finnish data but it is approached again from the micro‐analytical point of view and some features of it are problematised through analysing in more detail: (1) the ways in which laughter is made relevant; (2) how laughter is responded to; and (3) the interactional functions laughter can have. The paper shows that Schegloff’s (1993) critique of quantitative interactional work is indeed called for, but nevertheless also presents advantages of quantification: the distribution of laughter between the participants in medical interaction turned out to be an interesting issue, one which is revealing of their different interactional roles and footings.     

Megachurch involvement at the local level: Examining conditions for church action in economic development

The roles of small congregations and their social impacts are well known, but few theoretical studies investigate megachurch congregations. These mammoth organizations have the potential for advancing social good, but minimal research specifically focuses on the activities of these congregations in economic development (ED). This study addresses this dearth of information by answering the following research questions: (a) In what ways are megachurches involved in ED activities? (b) Who benefits from these programs and how are the programs offered? and (c) What factors influence megachurches to offer ED activities? We frame our investigation using both demand‐ and supply‐side arguments from Frumkin's (2002) model of nonprofit and voluntary action. Online survey data and follow‐up interviews with 42 megachurch leaders in the Dallas/Fort Worth and greater Houston areas show that megachurches are implementing ED activities in alignment with demand‐side explanations, especially when advancing opportunities for the unemployed and underemployed. However, supply‐side arguments provide more explanatory power, indicating that volunteer engagement with ED activities plays a significant role in the provision of ED services through megachurches. Our study offers a better understanding of why megachurches carry out ED activities with considerable attention devoted to how megachurches partner with other congregations, nonprofits, and government entities to encourage economic growth and improve the economic well‐being of community members.     

Issues and place: the hyperlink network of homeowner forums and implications for collective action

This paper explores the structure and the mechanisms involved in the formation of a hyperlink network of Guangzhou city's 118 homeowner forums in the context of a collective action by the homeowners. It develops a contextual analytical framework contending that the structure of the hyperlink network is influenced by utility values and utilization capability, as well as the media and social environments that shape these values, respectively. The results of the exponential random graph models support this framework. Specifically, hyperlinks are more likely to be created among neighborhood homeowner forums when the neighborhoods are located in the same administrative district, built by the same developers, and managed by the same property management companies. Unfavorable contexts that are prone to violent confrontation hamper the creation of cross-forum hyperlinks, but media visibility increases the odds of other forums hyperlinking to homeowner forums. In addition, high levels of online engagement are positively correlated with hyperlink formation. These findings suggest that although online platforms, such as homeowner forums, play a contributory role in collective action, they have limited power in fostering cross-neighborhood coalitions in urban China.