Social Interaction

1. Introduction

In video-mediated interactions, the coordination of joint actions is sometimes perceived as being difficult (see e.g., Balaman & Pekarek Doehler, 2022; Salomaa et al., 2024), perhaps more so than in traditional, face-to-face interactions. One of the possible underlying causes of this perceived difficulty may be - as what this article will propose and address - the challenge in managing hybridized activities. The coining of this term was inspired by Relieu's (2005) observation of how injunctions in phone conversations were hybridized with the ongoing activities in the participants' living spaces. In this article, hybridized activities are conceptualized as activities taking place in the interlocutors' 'local space' and other 'adjoining spaces' which are also brought to be part of the 'overall meeting space' (see Oittinen, 2020, p. 23) on the videoconferencing platform Zoom. Analyzing the role of hybridized activities could enable a broader understanding of "the complex" and "fractured" 'digital-social ecology' of video-mediated interactions (Luff et al., 2003; 2013; Balaman & Pekarek Doehler, 2022, p. 55), which could ultimately pave way for the discovery of tailored interactional skills adapted to the particularities of the surrounding technologized environment.

To further elaborate what a hybridized activity is and why this phenomenon is interactionally significant, it pays to see an example of it in the data of the present study. As shown in excerpt 1, the students Ruut, Lina, Dina, Eeva, Sofi, and Vera are in a breakout room together, trying to hold a meeting in English.

Extract 1. [just a minute; 00:01:36]

As the excerpt indicates, Ruut tries to start the meeting, but her questions regarding who should act as the chair are not answered immediately (as indicated by the long lapses in lines 3 and 27). In fact, it is only until after she addresses Dina directly in line 28 ('could it be Dina-D(h)ina again?') that she is able to elicit a response from Dina ('uuh the chair,' line 30). At first glance, this data extract seems curious, as unanswered questions go against the norm of reciprocity in conversations. However, when looking at the same segment from Dina's perspective, her screen recording reveals her engagement in various other screen-based activities as indicated in the excerpt (playing a game, logging into the Moodle platform, opening the WhatsappWeb application), which explains her silence as driven by her attention being elsewhere and not on the task at hand. With the suspension 'just a minute' in line 45 (see Keisanen et al., 2014), Dina attempts to "buy time" needed for finding the right documents (see Balaman & Pekarek Doehler, 2022).

This example thus shows how hybridized activities can hinder the progressivity and coordination of joint focus in interactions. Furthermore, the example shows how hybridized activities may not always be visible to one's co-interlocutors nor are they always accounted for. This creates an evident asymmetry, which further adds onto the difficulty of joint attention and action coordination.

Using video recordings gathered from an English language course organized over Zoom and targeted at university students, this conversation analytic study seeks to explicate the role of hybridized activities in shaping video-mediated educational interactions. Of key significance in this research are the accounts that the students produce concerning their hybridized activities. This research considers hybridized activities that are separate from the group work and can be either screen-based (e.g., playing games) or happening in the students' own living spaces (e.g., making a sandwich). Whilst acknowledging that there are several different ways of producing accounts and that accounts can take on less overt forms (Robinson, 2016, p. 17), this research focuses solely on the students' overt verbalizations of their activities (e.g., 'I was putting my headphones on').

This research thus delves into the phenomenon of accounts being an interactional practice associated with hybridized activities in video-mediated interactional contexts. In relation to these accounts, this research analyzes how the students respond to them, which accounts are held under scrutiny, and how the accounts make visible varying levels of moral entitlement. Finally, this research draws implications on 'asymmetrical access' (see Heath & Luff, 2000, p. 86) in video-mediated interactions, including issues of monitorability and what seems to be an increased tolerance toward multitasking in video-mediated interactions. The research questions are:

1. At which sequential positions are the accounts produced?


2. How do the productions of the accounts make visible varying levels of moral entitlement?


3. How do the recipients respond to the accounts?

2. Hybridized activities, Accountability, and Moral Entitlement

While hybridized activities are a prevalent phenomenon in video-mediated interactions, very little is known about their role in shaping interactions. The goal of the present study is thus both to address this gap and link the concept of hybridized activities to the already-existing constellation of research on video-mediated interactions. Previous research on video-mediated interactions has for instance shed light on the difficulties in turn-taking practices and interpreting gaze behaviors (Seuren et al., 2021). Furthermore, the standard 'talking heads' frame (Licoppe & Morel, 2012) limits access to the embodied conduct of co-interlocutors (see Heath & Luff, 1991, p. 101-102; Luff et al., 2013, p. 6:4). Overall, interlocutors in video-mediated interactions often have 'asymmetrical access' (Heath & Luff, 2000, p. 86) to each other's activities and embodied conduct.

2.1. Accounting for conduct in interactions

In interactions, interlocutors have an "omnirelevant" moral responsibility to follow the underlying relevance rules (Robinson, 2016, p. 33). Relevance rules are concerned with the normative patterns and structures of reasoning, as well as normative conduct, which affect both interlocutors' understanding of "what happened" and their "immediately subsequent conduct" (Robinson, 2016, p. 33; see Schegloff & Sacks, 1973). As noted by Garfinkel (1963), interlocutors trust each other to understand and follow relevance rules, and this trust is fundamentally important. When breaching relevance rules, interlocutors become accountable (Robinson, 2016, p. 29). Nevertheless, the point at which an interlocutor's conduct (even when deviant) is made accountable is opaque (Robinson, 2016, p. 15). This is what can be considered as "the analytic rub": what exactly are the "fuzzy" thresholds that interlocutors cross when their conduct becomes accountable? (ibid).

The underlying norms thus necessitate interlocutors to produce accounts when relevance rules are breached. Accounts "explain unanticipated or untoward behavior" (Scott & Lyman, 1968, p. 46; see also e.g., Vatanen & Haddington, 2023) and are produced "in order to forestall the negative conclusions which might otherwise be drawn" (Heritage, 1988, p. 140). Accounts are, by virtue, "other attentive" (Heritage, 1988, p. 138). This other attentiveness becomes salient, for example, when an interlocutor refers to their inability in the produced account, as inability does not pose a threat to the faces of their co-interlocutors (Heritage, 1988, p. 136). If an interlocutor does not provide an account, they subject themselves to the risk of being deemed "self-attentive, as one who would not, or could not, be bothered to provide an account" (Heritage, 1988, p. 140). However, even when producing an account, there are relevance rules that are concerned with "the fit between some action and some reason for it" (Sacks, 1992b, p. 453). In other words, there are relevance rules that dictate the appropriateness of that account or the motives of the interlocutor concerning their conduct (Robinson, 2016, p. 26; see Sacks, 1972). In this way, accounts can become accountable (Sacks, 1992a, p. 32; Robinson, 2016, p. 26).

According to Robinson (2016), one of the relevance rules prompting the production of accounts is to account for accountable behavior. This relevance rule is very prominent, as interlocutors produce accounts even when their co-interlocutors display a lack of orientation toward them and even after receiving their co-interlocutors' acceptance (Robinson, 2016, p. 27). Couper-Kuhlen (2012) notes that interlocutors may deliver their accounts in complex multi-unit turns that combine the accounts with the "accountables" or dispreferred actions (p. 295). In such instances, an interlocuter construes their action as one warranting an account from the outset (Couper-Kuhlen, 2012, p. 293). By contrast, if an interlocuter delivers an account as a "stand-alone," the accountable action is not treated as one necessarily requiring an account (ibid). In fact, when the production of an account is delayed in that the account is added later, it "comes off as being produced on demand" (ibid). Overall, interlocutors avoid producing accounts unnecessarily (Couper-Kuhlen, 2012, p. 295).

Furthermore, there is generally a preference for self-accounting (Robinson, 2016, p. 28). Previous research has shown that when a person becomes accountable but fails to produce an account, their co-interlocutors engage in "inexplicit" and "off-record" practices to solicit the missing account (Robinson, 2016, p. 28; see page 28 also for a review of the studies). These practices can include, for example, initiating repair or waiting for the person to produce the missing account, as evident in Robinson's (2009) study on the practices that interlocutors employ in managing withholding counterinformings.

2.2. Entitlement

Within conversation analytic research, entitlement is understood as an interactional practice (see Asmuß & Oshima, 2012). Entitlement is something that interlocutors orient to (Lindström, 2005; Asmuß & Oshima, 2012) and negotiate using diverse means, which can include multimodal resources (Asmuß & Oshima, 2012). As proposed by Fox (2001), evidential marking - a practice by which an interlocutor communicates how they have come to know something - indexes authority, responsibility, and entitlement. The statement 'It looks like rain,' for example, contains an evidential marker because with this utterance, the interlocutor refers to their visual knowledge and with that to their rights to claim that information (Fox, 2001, p. 168; 171). Furthermore, statements with zero-evidential marking (i.e., statements such as 'the soup is good', which make claims but lack overt evidential markers) display an even greater sense of entitlement (Fox, 2001, p. 170; 172).

Besides evidential marking, several studies have examined how different linguistic means in proposals and requests communicate varying levels of entitlement and thereby make the speakers' understandings of the contingencies of their talk visible (Asmuß & Oshima, 2012; Heinemann, 2006; Curl & Drew, 2008; Lindström, 2005). These studies have focused on requests and proposals, and have shown, for example, that when entitlement is high, interlocutors are more likely to use the modal form (Curl & Drew, 2008; Lindström, 2005, p. 217), imperatives (Lindström, 2005, p. 219) or negative interrogatives (Heinemann, 2006; Asmuß, 2007; Asmuß & Oshima, 2012). Studies have shown that lower levels of entitlement, on the other hand, are marked by positive interrogatives (Heinemann, 2006; Asmuß & Oshima, 2012) and requests formulated as pure statements, which invite entitlement to be negotiated in interactions (Asmuß, 2007).

Craven and Potter's (2010) study on parent-child interactions showed that high levels of entitlement were displayed in the use of directives, such as 'hold it with two hands' (p. 425). According to Craven and Potter (2010), such statements "tell instead of ask" (p. 419), and therefore show high levels of entitlement because acceptance is not rendered as the next relevant action (p. 438). This study also shows how the caregivers treated contingencies as being under their control, which further communicated higher levels of entitlement as in this way they were able to manage and impose the children's behavior (p. 437). Vatanen and Haddington (2023) make similar observations about contingencies in the accounts that parents produced when not attending to children's requests in multiactivity situations. As shown in their study, the parents used their accounts to socialize the children into recognizing different action trajectories and to communicate "exclusive order" in terms of the prioritization of some activities over others.

3. Data and Method

The data for this study comes from an English language course organized over Zoom, the goal of which was to develop the students' interactional competence in navigating business encounters in real life. To practice their skills, the students were spread into study groups, and each group chose a company to represent. The students would work in these groups, holding meetings and business negotiations, composing letters and proposals, completing quizzes, among other things. Each study group was also paired with another study group, and toward the end of the course, each study group pair would take part in a verbal exam. When working in breakout rooms, the students were advised to communicate primarily in English, but the data excerpts featured in this article show that the students often used English and Finnish.

A video-recording software tool was used to record all the Zoom sessions, which typically included a short lecture, or instructions given by the teacher before the students would be assigned into breakout rooms to work in their study groups. Data were collected from two separate courses and some of the students also recorded their screens. All students signed an informed consent form, and their identities were carefully protected throughout the research process.

Conversation analysis was chosen as the method for the present study due to its ability to shed light on the realities of remote learning interactions and hybridized activities. Through an inductive review of the recordings, hybridized activities were quickly identified as a recurrent phenomenon rising from the data. Thereafter, all the extracts that showed hybridized activities were carefully transcribed using the conventions of multimodal conversation analysis (Mondada, 2018; 2022). The excerpts in this article thus show qualities of both verbal and non-verbal conduct. Whenever necessary, English translations were added.

Initial observations in terms of hybridized activities and accountability were then made of the 25 cases selected to be included in the sample. Thorough cross-case comparisons were made to find recurrent patterns related to the hybridized activities. As per the method of conversation analysis, the analysis was guided by the following question, "why that, now" (see Schegloff & Sacks, 1973, p. 299; Sidnell, 2013, p. 83). This question encapsulates the essential goal of conversation analysis in seeking out a detailed understanding of naturally occurring, situated language use: how interlocutors carry out social actions and activities in interactions (see Stivers & Sidnell, 2013, p. 1-8).

4. Results

A closer examination of the account turns shows that they are produced either before the activity starts (pre-activity-account), while the activity is ongoing (during-the-activity-account), or after the activity has ended (post-activity account). The following subsections analyze these accounts in terms of the levels of entitlement shown in them and how the recipients respond to them.

4.1. Entitlement in the accounts

This first section focuses on the account turns and how turn design makes visible varying levels of moral entitlement. Although all the excerpts together show a continuum in terms of the level of entitlement displayed, for the sake of clarity, the excerpts are divided into two categories based on whether the account turns show higher or lower levels of entitlement to carry out the hybridized activity in question.

This first subsection deals with the accounts that make a lower level of entitlement evident. In excerpt 2, Ruut produces a pre-activity-account when she is about to be absent for a while, caused by her hybridized activity of getting food from the kitchen. Excerpt 2 shows the unfolding of the interaction between Ruut and Lina when they have just entered the breakout room together with their cameras off. Ruut produces her account right after Lina's greeting.

Extract 2. [food from the kitchen quickly; 00:00:07]

Ruut prefaces her request to do the hybridized activity with an account in a multi-unit turn. This design of a multi-unit turn combines the accountable with the account, and Ruut delivers the account before the accountable, thereby constructing her forthcoming action as one needing an account (Couper-Kuhlen, 2012, p. 293). The fact that Ruut asks Lina for permission to carry out the activity (lines 4-5) and formulates her request as a positive interrogative communicates a low level of entitlement. To elaborate, Ruut's request shows that she does not take Lina's acceptance for granted. Ruut's statements in lines 1-2 and 4, uttered with suppressed laughter, 'Minoon täällä ihan räjähtäneenä' and 'mää pääsin viis minsaa sitte kotia' ('I am here looking like a wreck' and 'I got home five minutes ago') further work to make her hybridized activity justifiable to Lina, while also marking Ruut's stance toward her upcoming hybridized activity as being funny and therefore not appropriate.

In excerpt 3, the students Luka, Onni, Jani, and Milo are in the breakout room together. Onni is sharing his screen, and the students are about to begin preparing for an upcoming negotiation with another group. Luka is using a dog avatar feature, and his embodied conduct is therefore difficult to decipher. The following excerpt shows a during-the-activity-account that Luka produces when being called out by Onni for the strange behavior of his avatar (see excerpt 3 in which Onni mimics the 'floating' of Luka's dog avatar).

Extract 3. [a million emails; 00:00:17]

Luka produces an account to explain the odd behavior of his avatar, which was caused by his hybridized activity of answering work emails. Luka does not apologize for his disengagement. However, Luka's account is designed as a multi-unit turn: with his lengthy explanation, Luka attempts to make his actions more justifiable to his group members. Luka's use of emphatic and figurative expressions, such as 'milijoonaa sähköpostia' ('a million emails'), the constant flow of message due to 'whatsappi' and 'tiimmssi laulaa' ('whatsapp and teams singing out'), 'hirveetä spämmiä' (a 'terrible amount of spam') coming to his email inboxes (lines 2-7) and his work being 'saatananmoinen työmaa' ('a workload from hell') (line 8) communicate his emotional stance and are thus an attempt at making his behavior more justifiable to his group members.

The last example of a low entitlement account shows a pre-activity-account, which Kiia produces when she is about to leave the breakout room. Prior to excerpt 4, Iina, Kiia, Tiia, and Leea have entered the breakout room together to work on an assignment. When they start working on the assigned task - and over the course of about 10 minutes - Kiia does not participate but instead moves around in her apartment with her phone (which she used to join the breakout room), while simultaneously carrying out several hybridized activities (e.g., brushing her teeth) while the others are talking. It is only when Kiia is about to leave the breakout room that she produces an account that explains her previous actions: she has been getting ready to leave her apartment to catch a bus. Excerpt 4 shows the turn-by-turn unfolding of her pre-activity-account that she produces when there is a lapse in the groupwork talk.

Extract 4. [sorry that I am not participating; 00:00:39]

Similar to excerpt 2, Kiia's multi-unit turn in excerpt 4 also combines the account with the accountable, thus showing that she treats her hybridized activity as one needing an account (Couper-Kuhlen, 2012, p. 293). In line 1, Kiia begins her turn with 'haittaako teit-' ('Do you mind'). There is a cut-off, and Kiia continues with a repair, 'tai siis' ('I mean'), 'sori että mää en niinku nyt osallistu tähän' ('sorry that I'm not like now participating in this') (lines 1-2). Kiia accompanies her request with an account 'mulla lähtee bussi' 'nii mää lähen' ('my bus is about to leave' 'so I'll leave') (lines 1-3) to make her actions more justifiable to her group members. Overall, Kiia's justification, the truncated utterance 'haittaako teit-' ('do you mind'), formulated as a positive interrogative, and her apology communicate low entitlement.

The following parts of Kiia's talk underscore how her low entitlement is contested. After a short pause, Kiia continues the production of her turn in lines 4-5 by adding, 'voitteko te vaikka laittaa mulle osan että te voitte päättää et minkä osan mää teen' ('could you like for example send me a part so that you can decide which part I'll do'). While talking, Kiia puts a jacket on, which signals high entitlement: through this embodied action, Kiia communicates that she is about to leave, despite not yet having received her group members' approval to do so. Kiia's proposal, on the other hand, works as a compromise: she grants her group members the authority to decide what she needs to do to make up for her forthcoming absence from the groupwork.

Kiia ends her turn by saying, 'jos te ette siis' ('if you won't like') (lines 5-6). After that, there is a short pause, and when not receiving a response, she continues 'vai onks täs nyt että te teette sen kokonaan nytte vai' ('or is it so that you'll do it all now or') (lines 6-7). At the end of Kiia's question, Leea lifts her gaze (line 7). After a gap of 0.5 seconds, Leea responds to Kiia with 'ei me varmaa' ('probably we won't'), and Leea's comment is reciprocated by Tiia also (lines 9-10). Kiia then produces another turn in line 12, starting with 'joo no' ('yeah well'), and with breathy laughter, she rephrases her previous request 'sanokaa mulle mikä mun osa on niin mää teen sen sitte' ('tell me what my part is and I'll do it then') (lines 12-13). Tiia replies to her with 'joo' ('yeah'), and Kiia continues in line 15, 'niinku myöhemmi… mutta haittaako teitä jos mää lähen tästä nytte ('...like later... But do you mind if I leave from here now'). Kiia repeats her question in noticeably shaky voice quality. Once she receives acceptance from all her group members, Kiia says, with breathy laughter, 'okei moikka' ('okay bye') and adds once again, 'laittakaa sitten että mitä mun pittää tehä nii mää teen' ('send me what I should do and I'll do it') (lines 21-26).

Although Kiia's low entitlement appears to be negotiated and contested, several elements in Kiia's multi-unit turn suggest an overall low level of entitlement. First, Kiia uses the formulation 'haittaako' ('do you mind') two times, in lines 1 and 15-16. With this grammatical design, Kiia signals that she does not treat her actions as being something that she is entitled to do, even though she communicates that she will do them anyway. Secondly, the other qualities of her talk, including the shakiness of voice, cut-offs, reassurance-seeking through repetition, apologizing, and breathy laughter make an emotional stance salient: these qualities signal Kiia's hesitance about her hybridized activity, marking it as something that she is not entitled to.

As mentioned earlier, Kiia does not produce her account earlier while she is still engaged in the series of hybridized activities preceding her leaving the breakout room. This behavior of hers is not challenged by her group members at any point either. While Kiia is technically present in the groupwork, she is still disengaged due to her engagement being targeted at the hybridized activities and not at the task at hand. Kiia's choice of not producing an account for these activities highlights that hybridized activities are often not treated as actions requiring accounts. This suggests that there is an increased tolerance for multitasking in video-mediated interactions.

An example of a high entitlement account (excerpt 5) shows two groups of students in a breakout room together, trying to hold a practice negotiation. Prior to the excerpt, Rita has momentarily turned her camera off, and she turns it on again about five seconds before Alma begins to talk in Finnish, asking if the others know how the negotiation is to unfold. Jami, Alma, Saga and Nina exchange a few turns, trying to work out what is to happen in the negotiation. They do not reach a consensus, and a 10-second lapse ensues. During this lapse, the teacher enters the breakout room with their camera off. Excerpt 5 shows Rita reacting to the teacher's presence by producing a delayed post-activity-account for putting headphones on.

Extract 5. [I was putting my headphones on; 00:00:34]

As the excerpt shows, Rita gradually starts breaking the silence by quietly uttering 'mm,' and after two seconds, 'ye,' with a slightly rising intonation, which suggests that the turn will continue (line 1). After the following lapse of 3.6 seconds, Rita produces a turn in English, first asking, 'so who was the chair' (line 1). Instead of waiting for a reply, Rita continues, 'I think one of you this (time)' (line 2). Rita then asks, 'did we already chose the chair' (line 3), before producing her account: 'I wasn't... lis[t]ening because I was putting my headphones on' (lines 4-5). After a lapse of 2 seconds, Alma replies in English, saying that they did not choose a chair (line 7). Rita then takes a turn, asking if anyone from the VR company would like to be the chair, to which Jami replies to in Finnish, after a lapse of 3 seconds, 'joo ihan sama mä voin olla' ('yeah whatever I can be it') (line 8-12).

Rita's minimal utterances ('mm' and 'ye') in line 1 work as both a tactful caveat to her peers of the teacher's presence and a token produced for the teacher, showing that the students are, in fact, oriented to the assigned task even though no one seems to be speaking. Her post-activity-account is produced to account for the evident gap in understanding inflicted by the previously ongoing hybridized activity - she claims that she does not know whether or not they had appointed someone as the chair because she had been putting her headphones on. The production of Rita's account is delayed, and the timing of her account as well as the language switch suggest that she produces the account for the teacher to show them that the students are oriented to the task at hand. The fact that Rita does not produce the account earlier, on the other hand, suggests that she does not treat her action of putting headphones on as one warranting an account. By merely explaining that she had been putting her headphones on without apologizing, Rita also marks her entitlement as high.

With her turn combining questions with the account, Rita successfully steers the collective focus back on track. Her calls for action ('did we already chose the chair' in line 3 and 'okay so does anyone from VR company wants to be the chair' in lines 8-9) leave the group's previous unclarities (which prompted the long lapses in the first place) unanswered. Rita is thus taking charge of the progressivity of the groupwork, which seems to be prompted by the teacher's arrival in the breakout room. The teacher's presence prompting such a response holds implications to the broader issue of the lack of monitorability in video-mediated educational interactions.

4.2. Responses to the accounts produced

The second analytic section focuses on the responses that follow the account turns. The responses are divided into two categories, based on whether they "align or affiliate" or "disalign or disaffiliate" (see e.g., Steensig, 2019) with the accounts produced. Stivers et al. (2011) use the term "alignment" to describe "structural level of cooperation" (p. 20) in interactions. Moreover, aligning responses "cooperate by facilitating the proposed activity or sequence; accepting the presuppositions and terms of the proposed action or activity; and matching the formal design preference of the turn" (Stivers et al., 2011, p. 20-21). Affiliating responses differ from aligning responses in that they are "maximally pro-social": they "match the prior speaker's evaluative stance, display empathy, and/or cooperate with the preference of the prior action" (Stivers et al., 2011, p. 21). Overall, while alignment and affiliation depict "cooperative responses," disalignment and disaffiliation describe "uncooperative responses" (Steensig, 2019).

In the forthcoming analysis it is noted that in order for interlocutors to be able to produce affiliative responses to the accounts, there needs to be something to affiliate with. According to Steensig (2019), affiliation is "relevant only after utterances that take a stance or have specific action preferences" (p. 2). By contrast, aligning responses can be produced after all kinds of utterances and interactional contributions (Steensig, 2019, p. 2).

Excerpt 6 shows aligning responses to a low entitlement post-activity-account that Suvi produces upon entering Zoom. Prior to the excerpt, Lili, Otso, and Meri have been trying to come up with ideas for a new product for their brand. Before Suvi's entrance to the breakout room, Lili proposes that she sends Suvi a message asking where she is and if she happens to have any ideas for the product.

Extract 6. [a work call; 00:00:12]

After producing the greeting, Suvi immediately provides her account as part of a multi-unit turn, 'öö so(ri) tuota mulla tuli työpuhelu niin piti hetkeksi poistua linjoilta' ('uhm so(rry) I got a work call so had to get off the line for a moment') (lines 3-6). Suvi thus treats her entrance as an accountable action (see Couper-Kuhlen, 2012, p. 293).

Lili and Otso display alignment to Suvi's account. As noted by Sorjonen (2001), the Finnish response tokens 'joo' and 'niin' (which both mean 'yes') differ in that nii affiliates while joo "registers the prior utterance as understood but does not affiliate with it" (p. 154). Lili thus only aligns with Suvi's account by uttering 'joo' ('yes') twice: first in line 5, but as her utterance overlaps with Suvi's turn, she produces it again in line 8. While Lili's smiling in line 3 could be understood as a token of affiliation, her smiling could also be interpreted as her reaction to the comical timing of Suvi's entrance just when she was about to send her the message. Otso also produces an aligning response in line 7 by nodding and saying, 'joo' ('yes') later in line 10 in response to Suvi's account. Overall, by uttering 'joo' ('yes'), Lili and Otso align with Suvi's account by accepting the presuppositions and terms of Suvi's account.

To highlight the difference between aligning and affiliating responses, see excerpt 2 in section 4.1.1. as a form of contrast to excerpt 6. In excerpt 2 in line 7, Lina's response 'joo tottakai ehh' ('yes of course ehh'), uttered in high pitch, not only aligns but also affiliates with Ruut's account. Lina displays empathy, and her laughter matches with the stance that Ruut displays in the account. To elaborate, Ruut utters the account with suppressed laughter, thereby designing her turn in a way that Lina is able to affiliate with it. Compared to Ruut, the tone of Suvi's account in excerpt 6 is much more neutral.

Excerpt 7 presents a slightly more complex case of alignment and affiliation. Similar to excerpt 4 in the previous section, excerpt 7 below also shows a post-activity-account that Noel produces to account for his hybridized activity of putting headphones on. In this example, two groups of students are in the breakout room holding a practice negotiation together. Each student has their own role in the negotiation: for example, Noel acts as the CFO (chief financial officer) of their company, and Toni is Noel's assistant. As shown in the excerpt, Toni asks for Noel's opinion in the middle of the negotiation. Before Toni utters the question addressed to Noel, Noel is seen turning his body, putting his earbuds on, and opening tabs as indicated by the change of lighting on his face (see excerpt 7).

Extract 7. [mr. cfo; 00:00:45]

Noel's lack of response elicits laughter from the others, and their laughter is followed by Atte's verbalization of the evident trouble: 'Noel might have some…uuh (1.0) problems there maybe he is lagging a little bit' (lines 21-23). At the end of Atte's turn, Noel starts smiling, which suggests that he has now regained access to the audio (line 23). More laughter follows from Alex, Atte, and Toni, and after that, Noel produces his account. The others appear to be smiling throughout the production of Noel's account, as indicated in the excerpt.

By not answering the question addressed to him, Noel becomes accountable (Robinson, 2016, p. 29). He begins by saying 'what did (ent-) someone say (eh) something to me,' perhaps reacting to Atte's verbalization of the trouble (lines 28-29). Noel does not wait for a reply, but instead goes onto provide his post-activity-account, explaining that he had been putting his headphones on, and so he had not heard what the others had been saying (lines 33-35). Noel's account shows high entitlement, as he does not problematize his behavior and instead treats it as something that he is entitled to do (just as Rita does in excerpt 4). The initial part of Noel's account - the question 'did someone say something to me' - makes relevant a response as the next action. Since Noel attempts to justify his behavior, acceptance is also rendered as the next relevant action. However, Noel appears to be broadly smiling (and nearly laughing), which suggests that his account goes for more than merely the previously mentioned responses: with his account, he is seeking affiliation.

Toni's response to Noel's account in line 37 ('yeah, mr. CFO') is a friendly tease, as Toni pokes fun at the fact that Noel has failed to act according to his role and keep up with what had been discussed. Drew (1987) conceptualizes tease as a "playful" and "humorous jibe" (p. 219), which "may be considered a mild and indirect form of reproof" (p. 250). Although Toni in this way expresses his skepticism toward Noel, his response is still affiliating in that Toni matches the humorous stance that is evident in Noel's account. Toni continues his turn by answering Noel's question ('did (ent-) someone say (eh) something to me') by giving Noel a recap of what was discussed during his absence, thereby allowing Noel to catch up with the others. This latter part of Toni's turn (lines 37-39) both aligns and affiliates with Noel's account, as Toni "cooperates with the action preference," while also assuming the proposed interactional role of having to provide a recap to Noel about what was discussed (see Steensig, 2019, p. 2).

Excerpt 8 shows the students Noel, Atte, Vili, and Toni in a breakout room. Prior to the excerpt, Noel has come in late to the lesson while the other group members have been holding a meeting together. When the meeting is finished, the students realize there is still plenty of time left before they need to go back to the main room, and there is plenty of time left for them to even hold another meeting. Atte suggests that Noel should act as the chair of the meeting, and the excerpt below shows Noel's account that he produces to deny the request.

Extract 8. [breakfast during lunch time; 00:00:41]

Noel produces a during-the-activity-account, verbalizing his hybridized activity of eating breakfast to refer to his inability to do the requested action (see Heritage, 1988, p. 136). Although his reference to inability is an attempt to save face (ibid), Noel still violates relevance rules by not complying with the others' requests and not taking part equally in the group work. Besides this, other elements mark Noel's high entitlement. Namely, even when challenged by Atte and Toni in lines 5-13, Noel continues his turn with an epistemically unmitigated counterinforming, 'I think that's impossible (.) right now.' (Robinson, 2009, p. 571). With this statement (containing a zero-evidential marker) in line 16, Noel thus displays high entitlement to refuse the request on the grounds of the ongoing hybridized activity (see Robison, 2009; Fox, 2001, p. 172).

Noel's account is challenged and therefore disaffiliated and disaligned by both Atte and Toni, which supports what Sacks (1992a) has observed about accounts becoming accountable. By uttering an indirect question 'you eating breakfast during lunch time' (lines 5-7) Atte disaligns and disaffiliates with Noel's account by marking Noel's actions as inappropriate. Toni's following statement in lines 12-13, 'I don't think that's a good enough reason' directly disaligns and disaffiliates by evaluating the appropriateness of Noel's account in terms of the underlying relevance rules. A similar kind of disaligning and disaffiliating response is prompted in excerpt 9 below in which Onni explains that he cannot share the screen because he is busy making a sandwich. Milo marks the inappropriateness of Onni's account with explosive laughter and a sarcastic comment to describe Onni's hybridized activity as 'maailman hektisin voileivän teko' ('the world's most hectic sandwich-making') in line 6.

Extract 9. [the world's most hectic sandwich-making; 00:00:09]

In excerpt 10, the students Luka, Onni, Milo, and Jani are in a breakout room. Onni is sharing his screen, and the students are trying to decide if they should accept an offer written to them by another group. Prior to the excerpt, Milo has been trying to elicit answers from his group members, all of whom appear to be disengaged. Onni is, for example, gazing down, perhaps looking at his phone. When asking questions, Milo appears to be rotating his gaze between his two screens, thus searching for embodied cues from his group members that would somehow signal that his turn was heard and registered by them. The excerpt below shows the unfolding of the interaction after a long lapse when Onni breaks the silence.

Extract 10. [focus on; 00:00:09]

Onni produces an account by which he implies that he did not hear Milo due to his attention being diverted and him being obligated to answer his work emails. For 'puhuppa uuestaan sori piti vastata' ('Speak again sorry I had to answer') Onni's gaze remains fixed, but once uttering 'sähköpostiviestiin' ('an email'), Onni returns to gazing supposedly at his phone (lines 1-3). Onni's turn is a directive paired with a mild apology, and the directive signals high entitlement (Craven & Potter, 2010). Even though Onni mildly apologizes for his disengagement, his entitlement is enhanced by his forthcoming actions. While Onni's account suggests that his hybridized activity has hereby ended, he does carry on with another hybridized activity (as him leaning to the side, smiling, and moving his mouth suggest) until the end of the excerpt. However, by saying 'noni…nyt keskitytään' ('alright... we'll focus now'), lines 9 and 12 in response to Milo's emphatic response (lines 5-7), Onni is signaling to Milo that he is now oriented to the task at hand as well, even though not fully, as his embodied actions imply.

Milo's disaffiliating and disaligning reaction to Onni's account in lines 6-7, 'saatana nyt (.) äijät (0.2) keskittyminen tähän suuntaan' ('damn it (.) guys (0.2) attention this way') is thus effective in eliciting responses from not only Onni, but Luka as well. By uttering 'focus on' in line 16, Luka also affirms his attention now being drawn to the task at hand. In this way, Milo's pressing remark causes the others to reorient their focus and also to verbalize their orientations. Milo's comment thus turns out to be a valuable tool in tackling the difficult task of their joint attention-coordination in the breakout room.

5. Conclusion

This article has identified a novel phenomenon of hybridized activities and accounts associated with them in the context of video-mediated educational interactions. It has first shown that accounts happen at various sequential positions, either before the activity (pre-activity account), during the activity (during-the-activity-account), or after the activity has ended (post-activity-account). Second, it has examined the levels of entitlement shown in the students' accounts for their hybridized activities. Third, it has investigated how students respond to the turns that account for hybridized activities by aligning and affiliating, as well as disaligning and disaffiliating with them.

The data show that hybridized activities were often not accounted for voluntarily, and thus they were often not treated as accountable actions. More specifically, the excerpts indicate that accounts for hybridized activities were produced voluntarily (in a multi-unit turn combining the account with the "accountable;" see Couper-Kuhlen, 2012) only when entering or exiting the breakout room (either momentarily or once and for all) (see excerpts 2, 4, and 6). In the rest of the excerpts not concerned with entering or exiting, the productions of the accounts were delayed in relation to the start of the hybridized activity. Thus, hybridized activities were only accounted for in situations in which interruptions were caused and consequently, when the students carrying out the hybridized activities were made accountable for their actions. For example, in excerpt 9, Onni produces an account for his hybridized activity of making a sandwich so as to explain his inability to share the screen: the hybridized activity thus interferes with the groupwork, causing an interruption in the form of Onni not being able to do what is required from him.

Supported by these observations, including the observation that interlocutors are likely to avoid producing accounts unnecessarily (Couper-Kuhlen, 2012, p. 295) and the fact that hybridized activities were often not accounted for, there seems to be a considerable amount of tolerance toward multitasking in video-mediated interactions. In excerpt 4 for example, Kiia does not treat her series of hybridized activities preceding her leaving Zoom as accountable actions, even though these activities cause her to be disengaged from the groupwork. As this excerpt indicates, the presumable increased tolerance toward multitasking is also linked to the possible shifting notions in how engagement - and for that matter, co-presence - are understood in video-mediated interactions. However, whilst there is a lot of tolerance for multitasking, the analysis still suggests that the students oriented to issues of accountability and various levels of entitlement when producing their accounts in relation to their hybridized activities. Altogether, the presumable growing tolerance toward multitasking could be a fruitful avenue for future research, especially when taking into consideration that digitalization of education is becoming increasingly more popular, and multitasking affects groupwork and learning.

Though crudely divided into categories of high and low entitlement, the analysis showed that entitlement is rather a continuum and negotiable in interactions (see excerpt 4). In line with previous research (e.g., Asmuß & Oshima, 2012; Heinemann, 2006; Curl & Drew, 2008; Lindström, 2005), the analysis showed that the levels of entitlement were visible as to whether the students treated their actions as something they are entitled to do. To elaborate, the accounts with lower levels of entitlement were marked by the students orienting to the hybridized activities as something that they are not inherently entitled to do. To elaborate, accounts with lower levels of entitlement were marked by the participants' orienting to the hybridized activities as something that they are not inherently entitled to do. In contrast, high entitlement accounts made visible the students' orientations to the hybridized activities as something that they are entitled to do. In the accounts, low entitlement was further communicated via linguistic means such as displays of affective stance (e.g., laughter and apologizing), questions such as 'do you mind,' and in general showing an orientation to the task at hand. High entitlement, on the other hand, was communicated using directives (Craven & Potter, 2010), and by merely stating that one is or was engaged in a hybridized activity. Furthermore, statements with zero-evidential marking, such as 'that's impossible' (see Robinson, 2009; Fox, 2001, p. 172) were used to communicate high entitlement. Finally, it is also worth noting that embodied practices were also used to communicate high entitlement (see excerpts 4 and 10).

In terms of the recipient responses, there is evidence to suggest that the nature of the hybridized activity affected as to whether aligning and affiliating or disaligning and disaffiliating responses were produced, and thus, which accounts were scrutinized. In this way, the analysis supports the claim that there are underlying relevance rules that guide the fittingness of accounts, making the accounts that breach relevance rules subject to accountability (see Sacks, 1992a, p. 32; Robinson, 2016, p. 26). For example, the comparison of excerpts 7 and 8 shows a clear contrast in the responses that putting headphones on versus eating breakfast prompt. To elaborate, Noel's high entitlement account for putting his headphones on in excerpt 7 elicits an aligning and affiliating response from Toni; on the other hand, Toni does not deem Noel's account for eating breakfast in excerpt 8 to be a reason good enough for refusing to act as the chair of the meeting. Overall, this comparison highlights that hybridized activities which are less separate from the task at hand - such as putting on headphones so that one can hear or getting food from the kitchen so that one can stay focused and energized - may prompt responses that are more aligning and affiliating, vis-à-vis activities that are more detached from the groupwork (e.g., answering work emails).

The students' cooperative aligning and affiliating, and uncooperative disaligning and disaffiliating responses were marked by different linguistic means. First, by accepting the presuppositions and terms of the accounts produced and assuming the proposed interactional roles (see Steensig, 2019, p. 2), students displayed alignment. Secondly, affiliative responses were marked by displays of empathy (e.g., smiling), and cooperating with the action preference (see Steensig, 2019, p. 2). Thirdly, students produced disaffiliating responses by challenging the account produced, and disaligning responses were produced by not structurally aligning with the accounts. The accounts were challenged by, for instance, questions and evaluative statements (e.g., 'that's not a good enough reason'), emphatic statements, and with laughter to mark the inappropriateness of the account.

Overall, the excerpts featured indicate a tendency of aligning (and sometimes, affiliating) responses being followed from low entitlement accounts, and vice versa, disaligning and disaffiliating responses being prompted by high entitlement accounts. This may be connected to the observation that Asmuß and Oshima (2012) make about an interlocutor's relevance to demonstrate their orientation to (and therefore their understanding of) the level of entitlement in the previous turn (p. 82). However, as excerpt 7 shows, the production of the response is contingent on the situation at hand. In excerpt 7, Toni produces an aligning response to Noel's high entitlement account, and with this response, he demonstrates an orientation to the progressivity of their groupwork as he does not pause the ongoing negotiation to challenge Noel for his behavior.

The term "hybridized activities" was coined and adapted in this article to describe how the surrounding video-mediated environment affects the coordination and organization of joint actions. Although the focus of this article has mostly revolved around the concepts of accountability and entitlement, this article has made the case that accountability and entitlement are concepts that students orient to in relation to hybridized activities in video-mediated interactions. As far as making implications about video-mediated interactions, the analysis also suggests that hybridized activities are not always visible to the co-interlocutors, and therefore the students have 'asymmetrical access' (see Heath & Luff, 2000, p. 86) to each other's embodied conduct and to their activities. For example, in excerpt 1, Dina's screen activity is not visible to her group members, and in excerpt 3, Luka's dog avatar appears to be 'floating in the air' while Luka is answering his work emails, making it difficult for his group members to discern his behavior. In excerpt 5, Rita produces her account when the teacher enters the breakout room. These examples suggest that more attention should be devoted to the evident issue of the lack of monitorability in video-mediated educational environments, as students' access to the mutual interactional space is hindered by the occasional invisibility of hybridized activities, along with the fact that hybridized activities are often not deemed to be accountable actions. Teaching students to recognize hybridized activities and accounts associated with them could help them to increase their interactional awareness and thus enable a better coordination of joint focus and actions in the joint interactional space. Overall, learning to recognize hybridized activities could be regarded as a possibly valuable tool in helping students to navigate the complex and dispersed environment of video-mediated educational interactions.

Acknowledgements

To ensure the participants' anonymity, an illustrator was hired to draw the images shown in this article. I would like to thank Mirka Raasakka for her outstanding work in drawing the images. I am grateful to the anonymous reviewers for their detailed feedback, which was crucial for the development of this article. I would also like to extend my thanks to my supervisors and to the COACT research community at the University of Oulu for supporting me throughout the process of writing this article. I am also grateful to the brilliant teacher and the students who allowed me to collect data from their course, thus making this research possible.

Funding

This research was carried out as part of the AIDA (Action and Intersubjectivity in the Digital Age) research project (grant number: 356964), funded by the Research Council of Finland.

Appendix: Transcription conventions

For reference, see Mondada (2018; 2022).

%+&Δ*αβ∞€µ×Ω∑π# symbols used to mark the participants' embodied conduct, one symbol per participant and type of action

(e.g., din) participant doing the embodied action

(e.g., **) embodied actions take place between two matching symbols

(e.g., *--->) the action continues beyond the line, until the ending (e.g., --->*) is reached

… action preparation

,,, action is retracted

>> action begins before the excerpt starts

--->> action continues beyond the end of the excerpt

# the position of the figure showing the precise moment at which the screen shot was taken. Please note that in the excerpts, this hash sign is also used to mark creaky voice quality as per Jeffersonian transcription conventions.

For the verbal conduct shown in the excerpts, Jeffersonian transcription conventions were applied. For detailed descriptions of the conventions, see Hepburn, A. & Bolden, G. The Conversation Analytic Approach to Transcription. In J. Sidnell & T. Stivers (Eds.), The handbook of conversation analysis (pp. 57-76). Wiley-Blackwell.