Analysing technological affordances of online interactions using conversation analysis

Abstract

The use of conversation analysis (CA) as a method for analysing the interactional practices of online communication has been growing in recent years (Giles et al., 2015). A key challenge for analysing online communication is the varied platforms through which interaction can occur. This paper demonstrates how using CA and the concept of affordances (Hutchby, 2001) can provide a lens through which to analyse not only the interaction, but also the technological context of that interaction. A corpus of instant messaging chats, captured from Facebook chat using screen-capture software, is used as a case study to demonstrate how the concept of affordances can be used alongside CA analysis to address the role of technology in the interaction. Two key interactional practices – turn adjacency and openings – are analysed to show the insights that CA can offer for providing an in-depth analysis of online interaction. By using affordances as a lens through which CA analysis can be refracted, scholars using ‘digital CA’ can better develop an understanding of patterns of interaction across different interactional platforms.