Open Access(Re-)Opening an encounter in the virtual world of Second Life
Author(s) -
Laura Kohonen-Aho,
Anna Vatanen
Publication year - 2021
Publication title -
journal für medienlinguistik
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
ISSN - 2569-6491
DOI - 10.21248/jfml.2021.30
Subject(s) - embodied cognition , avatar , face (sociological concept) , context (archaeology) , action (physics) , psychology , face to face , nonverbal communication , virtual world , social psychology , computer science , cognitive psychology , human–computer interaction , communication , sociology , history , artificial intelligence , epistemology , social science , philosophy , physics , archaeology , quantum mechanics
This study explores how ‘gatherings’ turn into ‘encounters’ in a virtual world (VW) context. Most communication technologies enable only focused encounters between distributed participants, but in VWs both gatherings and encounters can occur. We present close sequential analysis of moments when after a silent gathering, interaction among participants in a VW is gradually resumed, and also investigate the social actions in the verbal (re-)opening turns. Our findings show that like in face-to-face situations, also in VWs participants often use different types of embodied resources to achieve the transition, rather than rely on verbal means only. However, the transition process in VWs has distinctive characteristics compared to the one in face-to-face situations. We discuss how participants in a VW use virtually embodied pre-beginnings to display what we call encounter-readiness, instead of displaying lack of presence by avatar stillness. The data comprise 40 episodes of video-recorded team interactions in a VW.