Multiactivity and Multimodality in Remote Meetings

This article examines the sequential organization and frameworks of participation in remote business meetings, which articulate several semiotic regimes (both written and oral) and even varied communication tools (web-conferencing and external instant messaging). Web-conferencing is a form of audio conference enhanced by Web functionalities such as document sharing or chatting. Participants are able to interact, either orally or in writing, using an integrated chat service. The authors analyse the frameworks of participation produced by chatting and instant messaging (IM) in web-conferences, and these messages’ place in the sequential organization of the meeting.