This article explores the way users of an online gay chat room negotiate the exchange
of photographs and the conduct of video conferencing sessions and how this
negotiation changes the way participants manage their interactions and claim and
impute social identities. Different modes of communication provide users with
different resources for the control of information, affecting not just what users
are able to reveal, but also what they are able to conceal. Thus, the shift from a
purely textual mode for interacting to one involving visual images fundamentally
changes the kinds of identities and relationships available to users. At the same
time, the strategies users employ to negotiate these shifts of mode can alter the
resources available in different modes. The kinds of social actions made possible
through different modes, it is argued, are not just a matter of the modes themselves
but also of how modes are introduced into the ongoing flow of interaction.
Berry, C.
and
Martin, F.
(eds) (2003) Mobile Cultures: New Media in Queer Asia.
Durham, NC: Duke University Press
.
2.
Bull, S.S.
(2001)
‘HIV and Sexually Transmitted Infection Risk Behaviors among Men
Seeking Sex with Men On-Line’
, American Journal of Public Health91(6):
988-989
.
3.
Cavanaugh, A.
(1999)
‘Behaviour in Public: Ethics in On-line Ethnography’
, Cybersociology6 [http://www.cybersociology.com/], consulted 21 March 2004.
4.
Goffman, E.
(1959) The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life.
New York: Doubleday
.
5.
Goffman, E.
(1971) Relations in Public.
New York: Harper and Row
.
6.
Goffman, E.
(1983)
‘The Interaction Order’
, American Sociological Review48:
1-17
.
7.
Iedema, R.
(2001)
‘Resemiotization’
, Semiotica137(1/4):
23-39
.
8.
Iedema, R.
(2003)
‘Multimodality, Resemiotization: Extending the Analysis of
Discourse as Multi-semiotic Practice’
, Visual Communication2(1):
29-57
.
9.
Johnson, R.
(2004) ‘Gay Life: Safe Online Dating
Tips’
[http://gaylife.about.com/cs/onlinedating/qt/safedate4.htm], consulted 13
March 2003.
10.
Jones, R. (2001a) ‘Mediated Action and Sexual Risk: Discourses of
AIDS and Sexuality in the People’s Republic of China’,
unpublished PhD dissertation, Macquarie University, Australia.
11.
Jones, R.
(2001b)
‘Beyond the Screen: A Participatory Study of Computer-Mediated
Communication among Hong Kong Youth’
, paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the American
Anthropological Association, 28 November-2 December.
12.
Jones, R.
(2002)
‘Theories and Perspectives in Community Empowerment’
, Perspectives: Working Papers in English and Communication14(2):
142-147
.
13.
Jones, R.
(2003)
‘Inter-activity: How New Media Can Help Us Understand Old Media’
, paper presented at the International Conference of Historical
Linguistics, Copenhagen, 11-15 August.
14.
Jones, R.
(in press) ‘The Internet and Gay Men’,
in
J.T. Sears
(ed.) [Homo] Sexualities, Education and Youth: An Encyclopedia.
Westport, CT: Greenwood Press
.
15.
Jones, R.
,
Yu, K.K.
and
Candlin, C.N.
(2000) ‘A Preliminary Study of HIV Vulnerability
and Risk Behavior among MSM in Hong Kong’, Report to the Council
for the
AIDS Trust Fund, Hong Kong
.
16.
Kim, A.A.
,
Kent, C.
,
McFarland, W.
and
Klausner, J.D.
(2001)
‘Cruising the Internet Highway’
, Journal of Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome28(1):
89-93
.
17.
Kress, G.
(1985) Linguistic Processes in Sociocultural Practice.
Oxford:Oxford University Press
.
18.
Kress, G.
(2003) Literacy in the New Media Age.
London:Routledge
.
19.
Kress, G.
and
Van Leeuwen, T.
(1996) Reading Images: The Grammar of Visual Design.
London:Routledge
.
20.
Kress, G.
and
Van Leeuwen, T.
(2001) Multimodal Discourse: The Modes and Media of
Contemporary Communication.
London: Arnold
.
21.
Lave, J.
and
Wenger, E.
(1991) Situated Learning: Legitimate Peripheral
Participation.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
.
22.
Lea, M.
and
Spears, R.
(1995) ‘Love at First Byte? Building Personal
Relationships over Computer Networks’, in
J.T. Wood
and
S. Duck
(eds) Understudied Relationships: Off the Beaten Track, pp.
197-233.
Newbury Park, CA: Sage
.
23.
Lemke, J.
(1997) ‘Metamedia Literacy: Transforming
Meanings and Media’, in
D. Reinking
,
L. Labbo
,
M. McKenna
and
R. Kieffer
(eds) Literacy for the 21st Century: Technological Transformation in a
Post-typographic World.
New York: Erlbaum
.
24.
McFarlane, M.
,
Bull, S.S.
and
Rietmeijer, C.A.
(2000)
‘The Internet as a Newly Emerging Risk Enviroment for Sexually
Transmitted Diseases’
, Journal of the American Medical Association284:
443-446
.
25.
Norris, S.
(2004) ‘Multimodal Discourse Analysis: A
Conceptual Framework’, in
P. Levine
and
R. Scollon
(eds) Discourse and Technology: Multi-modal Discourse Analysis.
Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press
.
26.
Parks, M.R.
and
Floyd, K.
(1996)
‘Making Friends in Cyberspace’
, Journal of Communication46(1):
80-97
.
27.
Sacks, H.
(1995) Lectures on Conversation, Vols I & II,
ed.
G. Jefferson
.
London: Blackwell
.
28.
Schegloff, E.
(1972) ‘Sequencing in Conversational
Openings’, in
J. Gumperz
and
D. Hymes
(eds) Directions in Sociolinguistics, pp.
346-380.
New York:Holt, Rinehart & Winston
.
29.
Scollon, R.
(1998) Mediated Discourse as Social Interaction.
London: Longman
.
30.
Scollon, R.
(2001) Mediated Discourse: The Nexus of Practice.
London: Routledge
.
31.
Scollon, R.
and
Scollon, S.
(2003) Discourses in Place: Language in the Material
World.
London:Routledge
.
32.
Sproull, L.
and
Kiesler, S.
(1986)
‘Reducing Social Context Cues: Electronic Mail in Organizational Communication’
, Management Science32:
1492-1512
.
33.
Stone, A.R.
(1995) The War of Desire and Technology at the Close of the
Mechanical Age.
London: MIT Press
.
34.
Swales, J.
(1991) Genre Analysis.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
.
35.
Turkle, S.
(1995) Life on the Screen: Identity in the Age of the
Internet.
New York:Simon and Schuster
.
36.
Wakeford, N.
(2000) ‘Cyberqueer’, in
D. Bell
and
B.M. Kennedy
(eds) The Cybercultures Reader, pp. 403-415.
London: Routledge
.
37.
Walther, J.B.
(1996)
‘Computer-Mediated Communication: Impersonal, Interpersonal, and
Hyperpersonal Interaction’
, Communication Research23:
3-43
.
38.
Waskul, D.D.
(2003) Self-Games and Body-Play: Personhood in Online Chat
and Cybersex.
New York: Peter Lang
.
39.
Wertsch, J.V.
(1994)
‘The Primacy of Mediated Action in Sociocultural Studies’
, Mind, Culture and Activity1(4):
202-208
.
40.
Whitty, M.
and
Gavin, J.
(2001)
‘Age/Sex/Location: Uncovering the Social Cues in the Development
of Online Relationships’
, CyberPsychology and Behavior4(5):
623-630
.
41.
Woodland, R.
(2000) ‘Queer Spaces, Modem Boys and Pagan
Statues: Gay/Lesbian Identity and the Construction of
Cyberspace’, in
D. Bell
and
B.M. Kennedy
(eds) The Cybercultures Reader, pp. 416-431.
London: Routledge
.
