On- and Off-Screen: Self-Presentation in Video Meetings

Video meetings have become a ubiquitous part of daily life since the COVID-19 pandemic, part of a broader turn to digital media that has profoundly altered the way friends, families, and colleagues communicate with one another. Video meetings are a new professional space, one to which individuals transfer their self-presentations and visual representations, but one in which the strategies for doing so remain fluid. This qualitative study aims to provide insight into video meetings as multi-dimensional social practice. The methodological approach of this study involves qualitative analysis, employing unobtrusive observation and semi-structured interviews to gather rich data on participants’ experiences. Eight participants were involved in this pilot research, providing valuable insights into their experiences around video meeting practice. Through this investigation, the study aims to contribute to our understanding of how individuals make sense of this newly adopted communication practice, shedding light on the evolving role of video meetings as a fundamental method of interpersonal interaction. By examining the interaction between users and objects within the video meeting environment, this research offers new perspectives on the meaning-making processes inherent in this contemporary mode of communication. Building on Goffman’s dramaturgical approach, which claims that people present their selves as a performance via stages surround themselves with, this study explores video-meeting participants’ self-presentation strategies and the intentions behind them at the intersection of two scenes, in the physical space they actually occupy and in the camera images reflected on screen—that is, their “backstage,'' where the webcam cannot reach, and the stage itself, the screen. Adopting these two concepts, the study also leads a discussion on potentials of dramaturgical approach as a way to understand the intricate nature of video meetings as an interaction network.