Conversation and Technology – From the Telephone to the Internet

Citation

Thommesen, J. (2002), "Conversation and Technology – From the Telephone to the Internet", Information Technology & People, Vol. 15 No. 4, pp. 362-363. https://doi.org/10.1108/itp.2002.15.4.362.1

Communication technologies affect the way we talk. Human conversation is structured according to rules and conventions, which are affected when we talk through, or with, technological artefacts. Based on the method of Conversation Analysis, Hutchby argues that we modify the rules in order to adapt to the particular affordances of communication technologies.

This concept borrowed from J.J. Gibson is the key in Hutchby’s critique of the various theories emphasizing the social construction of technology. Artefacts, like other materials, allow some forms of use while excluding others. Hutchby defines this approach as relationist rather than realist, because the affordances of an object depend on the “species” in question, i.e. we do not enjoy the “walk‐on‐ability” of water utilized by some insects.

The fact that a telephone conversation always starts with an opening phase aimed at identifying caller and called and moving on to the issue of the phone call, reflects a media characteristic: people cannot identify each other by view, and there are no accidental encounters over the phone. There is always a purpose to a telephone conversation, which is furthermore characterised by “caller hegemony”: the caller will introduce the issue, i.e. burdening the called with the obligation to answer a question. “We place ourselves at the mercy of whomsoever might be calling. This puts callers in a powerful position.”

Hutchby’s approach differs from the “media richness theory’s emphasis on the variety of cues” offered by a medium, according to which a telephone conversation suffers from the lack of visual cues. He argues that this perspective is not very relevant in this context: the expected breakdowns, i.e. in turntaking do not occur, because people adapt to the affordances of this medium by replacing visual cues – characteristic of face‐to‐face conversation – by other means.

Paradoxically, cues seem more significant in video‐mediated interaction. These technologies brought promises of rich communication, and a potential for “unmotivated” interaction. Yet Hutchby demonstrates how users fail to catch the attention of a person “at the other end”. Visual cues are “muffled” in electronic media, i.e. due to complexities of camera angles: “the interactional force possessed by certain types of small gesture in physical co‐presence is significantly weakened, or even eliminated, in this form of video‐mediated co‐presence”. He thus offers one explanation of why this technology has seen such a slow takeoff, at least in private use.

Hutchby also analyses expert systems as a technology for conversation, focusing on the “interactional affordances” rather than dwell on AI‐issues. And as a promising alternative to the classical “computational model” he emphasizes systems based on the “interactional model”, of which Weizenbaum’s ELIZA is a prototype – “communicating” by asking standard questions based on keywords (i.e. “father”) in the user’s input. Instead of wondering why people would confide in a computer that clearly “understood” nothing of the ongoing conversation, Hutchby focuses on the system’s ability to “keep the conversation going”, and how people adapt to its behaviour – and how the structure of this type of conversation differs from others.

He finds that (simulations of) similar expert systems, designed to answer questions about air traffic, are unable to handle overlapping sentences, which are indispensable as a means for ongoing “repair” in human conversation. Human users generally adapt to this characteristic of their non‐human counterpart, but the designers’ attempt to simulate human behaviour, thus promising more than the system can offer, invite the users to forget that they are dealing with a computer, which increases the risk of breakdown.

Internet Relay Chat (IRC) is another new technology. It is text‐based, synchronous and involves multiple participants. It offers anonymity and escape from traditional paradigms of social interaction. Characteristic of this type of conversation are the difficulties in properly addressing a partner, and in establishing a sequential order, i.e. because an answer may be separated from the original question by several lines.

Conversation and Technology offers a particular perspective on communication technologies and provides some interesting observations. Yet, while Conversation Analysis is demonstrated to be a useful analytical tool, it often seems difficult to move beyond micro‐level technicalities about conversational rules and offer conclusions of relevance to readers outside the research community. Furthermore, the weighting of material may be disappointing to readers with a primary interest in new (computer) media, which are almost overshadowed by a strong focus on the telephone.