the presence paradox - lite communication tools

Lite communications tools such as Twitter & Instant Messaging & SMS txting offer the promise of ambient intimacy or the less confronting option of ambient presence. Little slivers of meaning 'n' grooming flick(er)ing between people.

Leisa Reichelt's ambient intimacy post positions these lite tools as mostly "phatic". I am not convinced that we are very good at correctly recognising "phatic" vs. "semantic" acts of speech. Most of our corporate communications (emails from the CEO, townhall meetings, intranet pages) position themselves as meaningful but are frequently meaningless. Instead they convey another set of messages around status, order & control. They are, in fact, almost purely phatic.

The further you move away from the tools supposedly concerned with meaning into the tools associated with grooming, the more actual meaning you will find. The corporate communications department rarely thinks of IM as a comms channel (thankfully). Let's hope they don't find out.

depth perception

When I was doing The Phoric with Rob & Johnnie, it struck me that things are not always as they seem with human behaviour. The example in the podcast was was about meetings. Many meetings I have been in have had an agenda. Then at the end of the agenda there is AOB - "Any Other Business". Now we tell each other that the real content of the meeting is in the body of the agenda. That is the semantic, meaningful part of the event. Then in the AOB section, there is general chit-chat and socialising and what-not, pretty much all phatic stuff.

This is fine in theory but in practice it works out differently. The agenda consists of worthy but dull topics - Why is the fridge out of yoghurt? Who will take the minutes of the next meeting? Then in the AOB section, all the really important stuff gets asked - What is the new CFO like? What will be the outcome of the restructure? The agenda items are not unimportant (i.e. not completely phatic) but they serve a crucial non-semantic, social function. With unfamiliar people, we observe how they respond and behave during the structured items - Are they responsive, aggressive, loud, knowledgeable, ignorant? Then when we get to the AOB, we have some insight that allows us to manage our interactions with them.

In short, the stuff that often appears to be concrete is actually social and the stuff that often appears to be social is actually concrete.