Doing Modernity: Studies in Critical Interactionism

The Interactional Accomplishment of Shared Perception A Multimodal EMCA Research Proposal Wayne Martin Mellinger, Ph.D. Final Draft Abstract How do two people establish that they are looking at, listening to, or otherwise apprehending a common feature of the world? This apparently simple question concerns one of the most basic achievements of social life. People point out approaching vehicles, locate birds in trees, inspect damaged objects, identify persons in crowds, compare images on screens, notice changes in another’s appearance, and direct one another toward events requiring immediate action. Yet perception does not become socially consequential merely because something enters an individual’s sensory field. It becomes consequential when participants make their perceptual access publicly available, organize another’s access to the phenomenon, and produce conduct that is treated as sufficient evidence of a common orientation. This project develops an ethnomethodological and conversa...