Mobile phones in action: The ethnomethodology and conversation analysis perspective

This chapter discusses the research-oriented toward mobile communication and done within the perspective of ethnomethodology and/or conversation analysis (EM/CA). The first line of investigation focuses on the way specific affordances of mobile devices may enable or constrain certain actions and features of the sequential organization of talk. The second one is concerned with understanding how mobile phones and the kind of on-screen resources and events they make available on the move may constitute relevant resources in the organization of activities involving co-present participants. Eventually, to take into account the multiplication of communicative functionalities and social media apps currently available on smartphones and dealing in depth with the example of video-mediated communication, the author sketches the kind of research agenda that could make mutually relevant mobile communication research and EM/CA in the context of the current development of mobile technologies and resources.