I have always kept up regular online conversations with one of my long-distance friends, Sue, who lives in Georgia at the moment. In fact, though I have known her for years, we see each other very rarely, having met at a convention a few years back. Most of our conversations and interactions have been based on a set of shared common ground: a love for games (the same ones, often times), and a love for art. Coincidentally, we are in the same artist circle.
Our conversations tend to start with a link, or an inane comment such as the following, which occurred last night:
Sue: omg I just watched episode 11 of baccano
This kind of conversation opener occurs very frequently at the beginning of our exchanges, and is often also the same sort of statement that 'revives' a conversation after a lull of inactivity. Basically, we rely on our common ground to talk in everyday circumstances. Our most common form of communication takes the same pattern - we draw on things we know the other person will be familiar with, such as the 'episode 11 of baccano', which was a show I had recommended to her at the beginning of the month. Once conversation starts, we refer to the same characters, the same shows, the same episodes. In fact, we purposely refrain from mentioning things from shows the other person has not seen, as not to "spoil" them. In other words, our exchanges draw heavily and almost entirely on common ground, though we do some grounding within the conversation as we go, in terms of shared reactions. An example:
Sue: it was so sad though when he died! i loved him
Me: YEAH I KNOW
Sue and I share many things in common, so the lack of a high-bandwidth medium poses no problem to us. Clearly, we're not in the same place, and the conversation is only through text, so copresence, visibility, and audibility is not as important. However, the cotemporality and simultaneity, as well as the lack of sequentiality, does help with the way we converse. When speaking about things like 'just watched' shows, we tend to both get excited about the object, as shown in Sue's opening line. With the ability to send without waiting for the other person to speak, we can say anything we want to say without worrying about being rude or interruptions. I think this has definitely helped our IM conversations.
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Many of my conversations with people that I have a lot of common ground with start with something like, "Did you watch last night??" One of my friends in particular knows that whenever I say that to her I am talking about Lost and we can immediately talk about it. Often, one of us will switch topics to another tv show, perhaps referring to certain characters, and based on our knowledge of what shows each of us watch, we can carry on the conversation without interruptions.
ReplyDeleteRecently, since I know she hasn't been able to watch, and she knows that I have been watching, she tells me before I can ask that she wants to know what happened. Grounding must occur in this case to catch her to up what has been happening. Acknowledgments/continuers play a big role in these conversations.
This is a good example of grounding not always being necessary for a productive conversation to take place. Having a friend that is familiar with what you like and watch and so on is helpful especially in an IM setting. The media richness theory might be able to explain why a higher-bandwith medium is not necessary here to discuss things of somewhat triviality like tv shows and so on that both people watch. I also have seen baccano so understand the common ground shared there. A shared understanding of not spoiling shows that the other person has not seen without even establishing grounding to catch up on what you both have seen is impressive.
ReplyDeleteI've seen the first episode of Baccano. I should probably watch some more of it. It seems interesting.
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