Alternating between online and offline : tags and frame switches as interactional resources

• The present data are based on an ethnographic study of computer use in everyday interactions in a seventh grade class (of 13-14 year-olds). The data were analysed in terms of activity frames and participation frameworks (Goffman 1981), exploring how students deployed online and offline activity frames in their identity performance. It is shown how MSN (online) identities are invoked in subsequent and intermittent face-to-face interaction; a dialogue can start on MSN and continue in faceto-face interaction, and vice versa. This means that frame switches are important features of the students’ identity work. Similarly, the students employed nicknames or tags, that is, textual-visual displays of ‘speaker’ identities, located in the boundary zone between online and offline activities. In terms of participation frameworks, it is also documented ways in which students engaged in crossplay (Goffman 1981), where a ratified participant communicated with a non-ratified participant. Yet, one problem in analysing participation frameworks and particularly byplay and sideplay (Goffman 1981) is that these concepts require that the analyst can identify one dominant activity. This was not possible in the present data. Instead, the data are primarily analysed in terms of borderwork, that here entails frame switchings, crossplay and a strategic use of tags.

Ämnesord

SAMHÄLLSVETENSKAP  -- Annan samhällsvetenskap -- Övrig annan samhällsvetenskap (hsv//swe)

SOCIAL SCIENCES  -- Other Social Sciences -- Other Social Sciences not elsewhere specified (hsv//eng)

Nyckelord

participation framework

activity frames

online activities

offline activities

identities

borderwork.

Children

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