‘Happy birthday Grandpa’
Using video-supported technologies in family communication
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.1558/rcsi.34849Keywords:
children, family, grandparents, conversation analysis, ethnomethodology, birthday celebrations, intergenerationalAbstract
Video-supported technology is employed by many families to support familial relationships between grandchildren and grandparents. Employing an ethnomethodological and conversation analytic approach, this paper investigates the interactions of one family during a Skype session. The Skype call examined has special significance as the family members (mother and grandson) are calling to celebrate Grandpa's birthday. Detailed examination of video-recorded intergenerational interactions shows how the interactions are managed. Analysis highlights the important role of the mother in managing the progression of the call and her child's interaction with the grandfather. The interactional resources employed by the grandfather to initiate and sustain interaction with his grandson are examined. Also explicated is the interactional competence of a very young child in deploying interactional resources that orient to the affordances of technology. The findings contribute to understandings about how intergenerational interactions occur.
References
Aguila, A. (2012). Time and space on Skype: Families experience togetherness while apart. Explorations in Media Ecology, 10(3–4), 303–312. https://doi.org/10.1386/eme.10.3-4.303_1
Baker, C. (1997). Enthnomethodological studies of talk in educational settings. In B. Davies & D. Corson (eds), Encyclopedia of language and education: Oral discourse and education (vol. 3, pp. 43–52). Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers.
Baxter, J. & Warren, D. (2016). Grandparents in their young grandchildren’s lives. In Australian Institute of Family Studies, The Longitudinal Study of Australian Children Annual Statistical Report 2015 (p. 13). Melbourne: AIFS.
Button, G., Crabtree, A., Rouncefield, M. & Tolmie, P. (2015). Deconstructing ethnography: Towards a social methodology for ubiquitous computing and interactive systems design. Berlin: Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-21954-7
Cekaite, A. (2010). Shepherding the child: Embodied directive sequences in parent– child interactions. Text and Talk, 30, 1–25. https://doi.org/10.1515/text.2010.001
Cromdal, J. (2009). Childhood and social interaction in everyday life: Introduction to the special issue. Journal of Pragmatics, 4, 1473–1476. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pragma.2007.03.008
Danby, S. (2009). Childhood and social interaction in everyday life: An epilogue. Journal of Pragmatics, 41(8), 1596–1599. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pragma.2008.06.015
Davidson, C. (2009). Transcription for qualitative research. International Journal of Qualitative Methods, 8(2), 36–52. https://doi.org/10.1177/160940690900800206
Ekberg, S., Danby, S., Theobald, M., Fisher, B. & Wyeth, P. (In press). Using physical objects with young children in ‘face-to-face’and telehealth speech and language therapy. Disability and Rehabilitation.
Follmer, S., Raffle, H., Go, J., Ballagas, R. & Ishii, H. (2010). Video play: Playful interactions in video conferencing for long-distance families with young children. Paper presented at the 9th International Conference on Interaction Design and Children, Barcelona, Spain, 9–12 June. https://doi.org/10.1145/1810543.1810550
Garfinkel, H. (1967). Studies in ethnomethodology. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall.
Geenen, J. (2017). Show and (sometimes) tell: Identity construction and the affordances of video-conferencing. Multimodal Communication, 6(1), 1–18. https://doi.org/10.1515/mc-2017-0002
Goffman, G. (1963). Behavior in public places: Notes on the social organization of gatherings. New York: Simon & Schuster.
Good, J. S. & Beach, W. A. (2005). Opening up gift-openings: Birthday parties as situated activity systems. Text, 25, 565–593. https://doi.org/10.1515/text.2005.25.5.565
Goodwin, C. (2000). Action and embodiment within situated human interaction. Journal of Pragmatics, 32, 1489–1522. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0378-2166(99)00096-X
Goodwin, M. H. & Cekaite, A. (2013). Calibration in directive/response sequences in family interaction. Journal of Pragmatics, 46, 122–138. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pragma.2012.07.008
Gray, M., Misson, S. & Hayes, A. (2005). Young children and their grandparents. Family Matters, 72, 10.
Heath, C. & Luff, P. (2013). Embodied action and organizational activity. In J. Sidnell & T. Stivers (eds), The handbook of conversation analysis (pp. 283–307). Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell.
Heritage, J. (1984). Garfinkel and ethnomethodology. Cambridge: Polity Press.
Hutchby, I. (2001). Technologies, texts and affordances Sociology, 35(2), 441–456. https://doi.org/10.1177/S0038038501000219
Hutchby, I., & Moran-Ellis, J. (1998). Situating children’s social competence. In I. Hutchby & J. Moran-Ellis (eds), Children and social competence: Arenas of action (pp. 8–28). London: Falmer Press.
Hutchby, I. & Moran-Ellis, J. (2001). Introduction: Relating children, technology and culture. In I. Hutchby & J. Moran-Ellis (eds), Children, technology, and culture: The impacts of technologies on children’s everyday lives (pp. 1–10). London: Routledge Falmer.
Hutchby, I. & Wooffitt, R. (1998). Conversation analysis: Principles, practices and applications. Cambridge: Polity Press.
Jefferson, G. (2004). Glossary of transcript symbols with an introduction In G. Lerner (ed.), Conversation analysis: Studies from the first generation (pp. 13–23). Philadelphia, PA: John Benjamins. https://doi.org/10.1075/pbns.125.02jef
Judge, T., Neustaedter, C., Harrison, S. & Blose, A. (2011). Family portals: Connecting families through a multifamily media space. Paper presented at the 11th Computer–Human Interaction Conference, Vancouver, BC. https://doi.org/10.1145/1978942.1979122
Kelly, C. (2015). ‘Let’s do some jumping together’: Intergenerational participation in the use of remote technology to co-construct social relations over distance. Journal of Early Childhood Research, 13, 29–46. https://doi.org/10.1177/1476718X12468121
Lee, J., Katras, M. & Bauer, J. W. (2009). Children’s birthday celebrations from the lived experience of low-income rural mothers. Journal of Family Issues, 30(4), 532–553. https://doi.org/10.1177/0192513X08327861
Lerner, G. H. (1993). Collectivities in action: establishing the relevance of conjoined participation in conversation. Text, 13(2), 213–245. https://doi.org/10.1515/text.1.1993.13.2.213
Lerner, G. H., Zimmerman, D. H. & Kidwell, M. (2010). Formal structures of practical tasks: A resource for action in the social life of very young children. In C. Goodwin, C. LeBaron & J. Streeck (eds), Embodied interaction: Language and body in the material world (pp. 44–58). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Licoppe, C. (2017). Showing objects in Skype video-mediated conversations: From showing gestures to showing sequences. Journal of Pragmatics, 110, 63–82. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pragma.2017.01.007
Licoppe, C. & Morel, J. (2012). Video-in-interaction: ‘Talking heads’ and the multimodal organization of mobile and Skype video calls. Research on Language and Social Interaction, 45(4), 399–429. https://doi.org/10.1080/08351813.2012.724996
Licoppe, C. & Morel, J. (2014). Mundane video directors in interaction: Showing one’s environment in Skype and mobile video calls. In M. Broth, E. Laurier, L. Mondada (eds), Studies of video practices: Video at work (pp. 135–160). Abingdon: Routledge.
Marsh, J. (2004). The techno-literacy practices of young children. Journal of Early Childhood Research, 2, 51–66. https://doi.org/10.1177/1476718X0421003
Marsh, J., Brooks, G., Hughes, J., Richie, L., Roberts, S. & Wright, K. (2005). Digital beginnings: Young children’s use of popular culture, media and new technologies. Sheffield: University of Sheffield.
Moffatt, K., David, J. & Baecker, R. M. (2013). Connecting Grandparents and grandchildren. In C. Neustaedter, S. Harrison & A. Sellen (eds), Connecting families: The impact of new communication technologies on domestic life (pp. 173–193). London: Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4471-4192-1_10
Ochiltree, G. (2006). Grandparents, grandchildren and the generation in between. Australian Family Relationships Clearinghouse, 2, 1–9.
Pleck, E. H. (2000). Celebrating the family: Ethnicity, consumer culture, and family rituals. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Plowman, L. & Stephen, C. (2007). Guided interaction in preschool settings. Journal of Computer Assisted Learning, 23, 14–26. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1365-2729.2007.00194.x
Pomerantz, A. (1988). Offering a candidate answer: An information seeking strategy. Communication Monographs, 55, 360–373. https://doi.org/10.1080/03637758809376177
Pomerantz, A. & Fehr, B. J. (1997). Conversation analysis: An approach to the study of social action as sense making practices. In T. A. Van-Dijk (ed.), Discourse as social interaction (pp. 64–91). London: Sage.
Psathas, G. (1992). The study of extended sequences: The case of the garden lesson. In G. Watson & R. Seiler (eds), Text in context: Contributions to ethnomethodology (pp. 99–122). Newbury Park, CA: Sage.
Rintel, S. (2013). Video calling in long-distance relationships: The opportunistic use of audio/video distortions as a relational resource. Electronic Journal of Communication, 23(1–2). Retrieved from www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/publication/video-calling-in-long-distance-relationships-the-opportunistic-use-of-audiovideo-distortions-as-a-relational-resource.
Rodríguez, I., Oteo, M., Gleisner, S. & Herskovic, V. (2015). SINCOM: Communicating grandparents and grandchildren living at a distance. In 19th International Conference on Computer Supported Cooperative Work in Design (CSCWD) (pp. 153–158). Piscataway, NJ: IEEE. https://doi.org/10.1109/CSCWD.2015.7230950
Sacks, H. (1995). Lectures on conversation, volumes 1 & 2. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing. https://doi.org/10.1002/9781444328301
Schegloff, E. A. (2007). Sequence organisation in interaction: A primer in conversation analysis, volume 1. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511791208
Stivers, T. & Rossano, F. (2010). Mobilizing response. Research on Language and Social Interaction, 43(1), 3–31. https://doi.org/10.1080/08351810903471258
Szymanski, M. H. (1998). Re-engaging and dis-engaging talk in activity. Language in Society, 28(1), 1–23.
Vutborg, R., Kjeldskov, J., Pedell, S. & Vetere, F. (2010). Family storytelling for grandparents and grandchildren living apart. Paper presented at the Extending Boundaries: 6th Nordic Conference on Human–Computer Interaction, Reykjavik, Iceland. https://doi.org/10.1145/1868914.1868974
Wootton, A. J. (1981). Children’s use of address terms. In P. French and M. MacLure (eds), Adult–child conversation (pp. 142–158). London: Croom Helm.
Young, S. & Gillen, J. (2007). Towards a revised understanding of young children’s musical activities: Reflections from the ‘Day in the Life’ project. Current Musicology, 84, 79–99.
Baker, C. (1997). Enthnomethodological studies of talk in educational settings. In B. Davies & D. Corson (eds), Encyclopedia of language and education: Oral discourse and education (vol. 3, pp. 43–52). Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers.
Baxter, J. & Warren, D. (2016). Grandparents in their young grandchildren’s lives. In Australian Institute of Family Studies, The Longitudinal Study of Australian Children Annual Statistical Report 2015 (p. 13). Melbourne: AIFS.
Button, G., Crabtree, A., Rouncefield, M. & Tolmie, P. (2015). Deconstructing ethnography: Towards a social methodology for ubiquitous computing and interactive systems design. Berlin: Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-21954-7
Cekaite, A. (2010). Shepherding the child: Embodied directive sequences in parent– child interactions. Text and Talk, 30, 1–25. https://doi.org/10.1515/text.2010.001
Cromdal, J. (2009). Childhood and social interaction in everyday life: Introduction to the special issue. Journal of Pragmatics, 4, 1473–1476. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pragma.2007.03.008
Danby, S. (2009). Childhood and social interaction in everyday life: An epilogue. Journal of Pragmatics, 41(8), 1596–1599. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pragma.2008.06.015
Davidson, C. (2009). Transcription for qualitative research. International Journal of Qualitative Methods, 8(2), 36–52. https://doi.org/10.1177/160940690900800206
Ekberg, S., Danby, S., Theobald, M., Fisher, B. & Wyeth, P. (In press). Using physical objects with young children in ‘face-to-face’and telehealth speech and language therapy. Disability and Rehabilitation.
Follmer, S., Raffle, H., Go, J., Ballagas, R. & Ishii, H. (2010). Video play: Playful interactions in video conferencing for long-distance families with young children. Paper presented at the 9th International Conference on Interaction Design and Children, Barcelona, Spain, 9–12 June. https://doi.org/10.1145/1810543.1810550
Garfinkel, H. (1967). Studies in ethnomethodology. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall.
Geenen, J. (2017). Show and (sometimes) tell: Identity construction and the affordances of video-conferencing. Multimodal Communication, 6(1), 1–18. https://doi.org/10.1515/mc-2017-0002
Goffman, G. (1963). Behavior in public places: Notes on the social organization of gatherings. New York: Simon & Schuster.
Good, J. S. & Beach, W. A. (2005). Opening up gift-openings: Birthday parties as situated activity systems. Text, 25, 565–593. https://doi.org/10.1515/text.2005.25.5.565
Goodwin, C. (2000). Action and embodiment within situated human interaction. Journal of Pragmatics, 32, 1489–1522. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0378-2166(99)00096-X
Goodwin, M. H. & Cekaite, A. (2013). Calibration in directive/response sequences in family interaction. Journal of Pragmatics, 46, 122–138. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pragma.2012.07.008
Gray, M., Misson, S. & Hayes, A. (2005). Young children and their grandparents. Family Matters, 72, 10.
Heath, C. & Luff, P. (2013). Embodied action and organizational activity. In J. Sidnell & T. Stivers (eds), The handbook of conversation analysis (pp. 283–307). Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell.
Heritage, J. (1984). Garfinkel and ethnomethodology. Cambridge: Polity Press.
Hutchby, I. (2001). Technologies, texts and affordances Sociology, 35(2), 441–456. https://doi.org/10.1177/S0038038501000219
Hutchby, I., & Moran-Ellis, J. (1998). Situating children’s social competence. In I. Hutchby & J. Moran-Ellis (eds), Children and social competence: Arenas of action (pp. 8–28). London: Falmer Press.
Hutchby, I. & Moran-Ellis, J. (2001). Introduction: Relating children, technology and culture. In I. Hutchby & J. Moran-Ellis (eds), Children, technology, and culture: The impacts of technologies on children’s everyday lives (pp. 1–10). London: Routledge Falmer.
Hutchby, I. & Wooffitt, R. (1998). Conversation analysis: Principles, practices and applications. Cambridge: Polity Press.
Jefferson, G. (2004). Glossary of transcript symbols with an introduction In G. Lerner (ed.), Conversation analysis: Studies from the first generation (pp. 13–23). Philadelphia, PA: John Benjamins. https://doi.org/10.1075/pbns.125.02jef
Judge, T., Neustaedter, C., Harrison, S. & Blose, A. (2011). Family portals: Connecting families through a multifamily media space. Paper presented at the 11th Computer–Human Interaction Conference, Vancouver, BC. https://doi.org/10.1145/1978942.1979122
Kelly, C. (2015). ‘Let’s do some jumping together’: Intergenerational participation in the use of remote technology to co-construct social relations over distance. Journal of Early Childhood Research, 13, 29–46. https://doi.org/10.1177/1476718X12468121
Lee, J., Katras, M. & Bauer, J. W. (2009). Children’s birthday celebrations from the lived experience of low-income rural mothers. Journal of Family Issues, 30(4), 532–553. https://doi.org/10.1177/0192513X08327861
Lerner, G. H. (1993). Collectivities in action: establishing the relevance of conjoined participation in conversation. Text, 13(2), 213–245. https://doi.org/10.1515/text.1.1993.13.2.213
Lerner, G. H., Zimmerman, D. H. & Kidwell, M. (2010). Formal structures of practical tasks: A resource for action in the social life of very young children. In C. Goodwin, C. LeBaron & J. Streeck (eds), Embodied interaction: Language and body in the material world (pp. 44–58). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Licoppe, C. (2017). Showing objects in Skype video-mediated conversations: From showing gestures to showing sequences. Journal of Pragmatics, 110, 63–82. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pragma.2017.01.007
Licoppe, C. & Morel, J. (2012). Video-in-interaction: ‘Talking heads’ and the multimodal organization of mobile and Skype video calls. Research on Language and Social Interaction, 45(4), 399–429. https://doi.org/10.1080/08351813.2012.724996
Licoppe, C. & Morel, J. (2014). Mundane video directors in interaction: Showing one’s environment in Skype and mobile video calls. In M. Broth, E. Laurier, L. Mondada (eds), Studies of video practices: Video at work (pp. 135–160). Abingdon: Routledge.
Marsh, J. (2004). The techno-literacy practices of young children. Journal of Early Childhood Research, 2, 51–66. https://doi.org/10.1177/1476718X0421003
Marsh, J., Brooks, G., Hughes, J., Richie, L., Roberts, S. & Wright, K. (2005). Digital beginnings: Young children’s use of popular culture, media and new technologies. Sheffield: University of Sheffield.
Moffatt, K., David, J. & Baecker, R. M. (2013). Connecting Grandparents and grandchildren. In C. Neustaedter, S. Harrison & A. Sellen (eds), Connecting families: The impact of new communication technologies on domestic life (pp. 173–193). London: Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4471-4192-1_10
Ochiltree, G. (2006). Grandparents, grandchildren and the generation in between. Australian Family Relationships Clearinghouse, 2, 1–9.
Pleck, E. H. (2000). Celebrating the family: Ethnicity, consumer culture, and family rituals. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Plowman, L. & Stephen, C. (2007). Guided interaction in preschool settings. Journal of Computer Assisted Learning, 23, 14–26. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1365-2729.2007.00194.x
Pomerantz, A. (1988). Offering a candidate answer: An information seeking strategy. Communication Monographs, 55, 360–373. https://doi.org/10.1080/03637758809376177
Pomerantz, A. & Fehr, B. J. (1997). Conversation analysis: An approach to the study of social action as sense making practices. In T. A. Van-Dijk (ed.), Discourse as social interaction (pp. 64–91). London: Sage.
Psathas, G. (1992). The study of extended sequences: The case of the garden lesson. In G. Watson & R. Seiler (eds), Text in context: Contributions to ethnomethodology (pp. 99–122). Newbury Park, CA: Sage.
Rintel, S. (2013). Video calling in long-distance relationships: The opportunistic use of audio/video distortions as a relational resource. Electronic Journal of Communication, 23(1–2). Retrieved from www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/publication/video-calling-in-long-distance-relationships-the-opportunistic-use-of-audiovideo-distortions-as-a-relational-resource.
Rodríguez, I., Oteo, M., Gleisner, S. & Herskovic, V. (2015). SINCOM: Communicating grandparents and grandchildren living at a distance. In 19th International Conference on Computer Supported Cooperative Work in Design (CSCWD) (pp. 153–158). Piscataway, NJ: IEEE. https://doi.org/10.1109/CSCWD.2015.7230950
Sacks, H. (1995). Lectures on conversation, volumes 1 & 2. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing. https://doi.org/10.1002/9781444328301
Schegloff, E. A. (2007). Sequence organisation in interaction: A primer in conversation analysis, volume 1. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511791208
Stivers, T. & Rossano, F. (2010). Mobilizing response. Research on Language and Social Interaction, 43(1), 3–31. https://doi.org/10.1080/08351810903471258
Szymanski, M. H. (1998). Re-engaging and dis-engaging talk in activity. Language in Society, 28(1), 1–23.
Vutborg, R., Kjeldskov, J., Pedell, S. & Vetere, F. (2010). Family storytelling for grandparents and grandchildren living apart. Paper presented at the Extending Boundaries: 6th Nordic Conference on Human–Computer Interaction, Reykjavik, Iceland. https://doi.org/10.1145/1868914.1868974
Wootton, A. J. (1981). Children’s use of address terms. In P. French and M. MacLure (eds), Adult–child conversation (pp. 142–158). London: Croom Helm.
Young, S. & Gillen, J. (2007). Towards a revised understanding of young children’s musical activities: Reflections from the ‘Day in the Life’ project. Current Musicology, 84, 79–99.
Published
2018-08-03
Issue
Section
Articles
How to Cite
Busch, G. R. (2018). ‘Happy birthday Grandpa’: Using video-supported technologies in family communication. Research on Children and Social Interaction, 2(1), 74-97. https://doi.org/10.1558/rcsi.34849
