Constitutive effects of technological frames in everyday interaction

Abstract

This article deals with the question of the degree to which the material constraints of frames have a 'speculative independence', i. e. whether frame analysis theorists can meaningfully make conceptual pre-empirical claims based on material structures within particular frames. As a starting point, 'technological frames' will be conceptualized, i. e. frames that have definitive technological components (radio, TV, print). During the process of theoretical evaluation, four core Goffmanian concepts are linked: frame, focus, co-presence and channels. These terms are consequently used to argue that technological frames are special and symptomatic: they create a lack of whole body interactive autonomy, thereby causing the modern phenomenon of communicative transgressions such as adding emoticons in text-based conversations. The task of affirming a speculative independence to technological frame structure fails at universalizing its dynamics, but does have the potential as a research focus into media development.