Choreographing digital love: materiality, emotionality, and morality in video-mediated communication between Chinese migrant parents and their left-behind children. Issue 3 (20th April 2023)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Gan, Yumei
• Editors: Correa, Teresa
• Is Part Of: Journal of computer-mediated communication. Volume 28:Issue 3(2023)
• Publication Date: 2023-04-20
• Subjects: video-mediated communication -- migration -- left-behind children -- video-based ethnography -- video analysis -- conversation analysis; Telematics -- Periodicals; Computer networks -- Social aspects -- Periodicals; Communication -- Periodicals; 302.20285
• DOI: 10.1093/jcmc/zmad006
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 1083-6101

Abstract

Abstract: Video-mediated communication (VMC) has become particularly important for geographically dispersed families. Drawing on a 2-year video-based ethnographic study of under-resourced Chinese rural-to-urban migrant parents and their left-behind children, this article captures on-site distant parent–child VMC. Applying qualitative video analysis to study video calls, this article focuses on how people "choreograph" these video calls and investigates the improvised composition of actions and activities in mediated environment. The findings reveal that people coordinate the materiality, amplify the emotionality, and underpin the morality of love to sustain intimate relationships. Multigenerational parties, including parents, children, and grandparents, actively manage their connections through the moment-by-moment unfolding of choreographed actions in VMC. This study also highlights the bittersweet experiences, including the tension, contradictions, and asymmetries, among migrant parents, children, and the caregivers. Lay Summary: Years ago, video calling was a luxury that required expensive equipment and advanced technological expertise. But the use of video calls has become a widespread phenomenon in contemporary life. This article investigates how under-resourced Chinese migrant workers use video calls to keep in touch with their left-behind children. I went on a video-based ethnographic journey to those migrant families in rural Sichuan, China and videotaped video calls that occurred in these families. Using the methodology of qualitative video analysis, I pay careful attention to "how" people do video calls, including how the parents speak to their children on screen, how children react to their parents, and how the caregivers (the grandparents) participate in parent–child communication. My findings show that accomplishing a video call requires detailed work in the unfolding moment-by-moment interactions. I found that people coordinate material, emotional, and moral resources to make the mediated communication possible. I also highlight the role of the caregiver in collaborating and negotiating long distance family relationships.