Synthetic Involvement: Digital Co-Presence in the Flesh
Abstract
The article introduces the concept of synthetic involvement to explore how participants in digital interactions navigate virtual and physical situations simultaneously. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork on videoconferencing training courses and extending Goffman’s theory of performance, it conceptualises this simultaneity as a major performative challenge and source of uncertainty for participants. The training courses frame the juxtaposition of a virtual and physical situation as something to be actively managed by participants as they learn to see and use videoconferencing tools, their bodies and spaces in new and interconnected ways. The concept of synthetic involvement extends the phenomenological focus on the experienced and felt dimensions of digital co-presence, offering an understanding of digital co-presence as socio-technical performances. In doing so, it also opens up new perspectives on issues such as the planning of a ‘stage setting’ or privacy concerns in (work-related) videoconferencing.
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Record history
| When | Event | Field | Old | New |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2026-06-18 19:37:53.011249+00:00 | identifier_assigned | DSEID | DSEID-001-4303870 |