Digital apocalypses: visual or verbal decline?

Abstract

This paper addresses the question as to whether new digital forms of interaction instantiate a decline of verbal language or of visual communication. Many studies claim that web-based interactions are more based on verbal language, as they involve live, spoken interactions, which are by definition shaped by conversation, whereas others argue that image is dominant in the digital domain, as it deploys affordances typical of multimodal environments. It provides a theoretical introduction to the study of videochats, seen as dynamic texts that enact a new form of interaction. Interactional resources are arranged in such innovative ways in videochats that they produce a new field investigation for researchers in the field of linguistics, communication, media studies, visual ethnography and digital literacy. The paper singles out relevant aspects, such as the alternation of speech and writing, new patterns in proxemics and kinesics, impossibility of eye contact, which are so striking as to warrant special investigation. In particular, speech and writing are technologically integrated, allowing participants to modeswitch, i.e. alternate between spoken and written discourse. New arrangements of verbal and non verbal resources attempt to simulate faceto-face conversations. However, the illusion of a face-to-face conversation dissolves as soon as videochat-specific resources are unpacked. Despite the growing research into non verbal behavior, videochat data challenge visual analysts and researchers for a variety of reasons illustrated in this paper.