World attending in interaction: Multitasking, spatializing, narrativizing with mobile devices and Tinder. (September 2015)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Cohen, Leor
• Is Part Of: Discourse, context & media. Volume 9(2015)
• Page Start: 46
• Page End: 54
• Publication Date: 2015-09
• Subjects: Conversational interaction -- New mobilities -- Mobile devices -- Social media -- Spatialization -- Multitasking; Discourse analysis -- Periodicals; Digital media -- Periodicals; Mass media and language -- Periodicals; Communication -- Periodicals; Communication; Digital media; Discourse analysis; Mass media and language; Periodicals; 401.4105
• DOI: 10.1016/j.dcm.2015.08.001
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 2211-6958

Abstract

Abstract: Studies of new mobilities have emphasized changes in spatialization processes affecting conditions for conversational interaction. Conversations from four Ethiopian-Israeli male teens walking in a northern, peripheral Israeli city to and from pickup games (soccer/football, basketball) at public parks are analyzed. The data selected below all involve talk whilst using a social networking application called Tinder. Analyses follow a narrative practices approach (De Fina and Georgakopoulou, 2008, 2011 ), particularly that of small stories (Georgakopoulou, 2007 ). These teens are found to be world attending (a subtype of breaking-news stories) in voicing their noticings of the perceptible surroundings amidst pursuit of individual local interactional projects, i.e. a one-upmanship often exploitive of narrative practices of projections, i.e., unrealized possibilities, the irrealis . The introduction of mobile devices into conversational interactional space provides an added/resource of potential items (referents) to be attended to and thus creates a continued state of incipient multitasking across offline and online spaces. Highlights: Mobile devices embedded in conversational interaction blur online–offline spaces. The blurring of spaces co-occurs with an incipient state of continued multitasking. Many activities in play at any one moment challenge participants. World attending, i.e., noticing, of online–offline spaces is a recurrent practice. World attendings, a type of breaking news story, co-occur with projections.