Conversation Analysis and Electronic Interactions : Methodological , Analytic and Technical Considerations

This chapter proposes that, as a method which has engaged with interaction in other contexts, conversation analysis (CA) should be used to analyze electronic interactions. The adoption of CA leads to a number of methodological pointers and this chapter reviews some of these. The authors firstly overview previous research on electronic discourse, including work which has also applied CA to electronic interactions. The authors then describe the main elements of CA, and also briefly discuss the closely related approach of discursive psychology. Using a corpus of quasi-synchronous instant messaging chats, the authors show how data can be collected which captures how users actually conduct online interactions. The authors discuss the ethical issues inherent in collecting such data. Finally, using examples from the corpus, the authors demonstrate the importance of making timed transcripts and working with screen capture data. DOI: 10.4018/978-1-4666-4426-7.ch017