Scenography of a Video Interaction Opening

In this article the author seeks to further understanding of the complex concept of digital interaction space by seeing it as a “stage”, to pursue Goffman’s (1973) theatrical metaphor – interaction as representation – and to borrow Maingueneau’s (1998) scene of enunciation concept. Based on a corpus of sequences of video interaction openings, she looks at how the interactants arrange a common scenography that converges in a “mid-place”, that is, a point of contact between the multiple scenes of enunciation in the interaction. The enaction of the scenography seems to be subordinate to the affordances and to stem from the available resources : physical as well as digital elements of decor and voco-posturo-mimo-gestual signals. These resources are made accountable through technical, discursive and corporal multimodal activities. The interactional structure of the sequences (successive sub-sequences of entry into interaction) and exchanges (use of insert expansions to attest to the interactants’ involvement) reveals the collaboration between geographically distant individuals who manage to be present to each other.