Mobile events: Exploring mobile conversations in context as communicative events

This article puts forward the ‘mobile event’ – a communicative event mediated in part by mobile phone messaging – as a way of understanding how social actions are accomplished at the intersection of online and offline activity. It draws methodologically on an innovative approach to mobile mediated communication which analyses individuals' mobile conversations within the immediate physical spaces in which they unfold. Interactional analysis of selected mobile events carried out by a British couple points to the centrality of offline interaction within communicative events involving mobile conversations, as well as to the importance of ‘device attending’ as an organizing principle in the management of contemporary communicative practices at the online-offline nexus. • Contemporary communication can be understood through the concept of the ‘mobile event. • The study draws methodologically on an innovative approach to mobile mediated communication. • Local interactional norms and ‘device attending’ are key to managing communicative practices at the online-offline nexus.