Workplace interaction in mobile social network. Using modes as mitigation strategies

Abstract

Most informal interactions that take place in the workplace are transmitted by smartphones, especially through social networks such as WhatsApp. Inevitably, this continuous and dynamic contact may lead to a “flexibilization” of distance, which normally characterizes relationships in institutional settings. However, this does not mean that the established asymmetry of roles and functions disappears and, therefore, these exchanges constitute real “risk zones” for interpersonal relationships. Following a multimodal perspective (Kress 2010), this article presents some discourse strategies that combine resources provided by different modes, aiming at mitigating (Briz Gómez 2010, Lavandera 1986, Martin & White 2005) conflicts and misunderstandings and thus managing informal conversation. It is important to consider that these exchanges take place in institutional settings (Drew & Sorjonen 2000), defined by asymmetric relationships. The results presented in this article arise from the analysis of a larger corpus on interaction in mobile social networks, which includes mobile networks as WhatsApp. To this purpose, we will contrast examples of five cases of group conversations in institutional settings with cases of informal uses in family settings or among friends. The theoretical and methodological framework of this article is discourse analysis (Lavandera 1985) from an interactional and a multimodal perspective (Goodwin 1995, Kress 2003, 2010).