Opening and Pre-opening of Videophone Meetings

This article presents a systematic analysis of the opening of videoconference interactions. Based on a video corpus recorded in a French hospital, the article studies the configuring effects that technology has on the organization of interaction and, in particular, on the opening of meetings. It also examines the activities that precede and follow these openings, and describes a specific sequential organization in which the participants tend towards “pre-openings” and “beginnings” as distinct from “openings” per se. This analysis integrates the constraints related to participants’ connectedness, and distinguishes states of co-presence, connection and co-participation, as well as the way in which they are established and maintained. The notion of “opening” of interaction is thus revisited.