Closing live video streams: A sequential analysis

Abstract

Research has argued that “ordinary conversation” and its organization are foundational to “institutional” talk (Drew & Heritage, 1992), and that institutional forms can be characterized as constraints on such a sequential organization. Such an argument can be extended to technology-mediated interaction, in which participants may orient jointly to “standard” conversational sequences and the technology’s interactional “affordances” to achieve interactional ends. We discuss here how such an interactional goal (closing a technology-mediated encounter) may be achieved in live video streaming. We argue that while participants can be seen to do that in a way that orients to the organization of closings in ordinary conversation, they do so in a way that is sensitive to the affordances of live video streams. We find that: a) Most of the streams involve closing sequences, thus framing the live stream as a social encounter for which closing is relevant; b) A partial and relaxed orientation to talking heads configuration in live stream closings; c) A four-part closing sequence; d) Two different topic development in closing the live streams—a topic message comes from the audience and some “mentionable noticeables” initiated by the streamer.