Browsing by Author "Cain, Sarah Seewoester"

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    When Laughter Fades: Individual Participation During Open-Mic Comedy Performances
    (2018-06-20) Cain, Sarah Seewoester; Englebretson, Robert
    Audiences have traditionally been defined and characterized by the collective responses they produce – behaviors such as clapping, laughing, booing, and the like. But during the course of speaker-audience interactions, individual contributions are also observed. And in the context of open-mic comedy audiences specifically, they quite regularly occur. Individual contributions during speaker-audience interactions are typically treated as “noise” in the interactional system, treated as problematic in some way, are seen as being un-audience-like, or may be dismissed from consideration entirely. In this dissertation, I analyze several types of individual audience member contributions, I ground this work in Conversation Analysis, which operates under the assumption that all social interaction is orderly at a minute level of detail, and I explore ways in which audience members organize themselves and their actions meaningfully. I look at five types of individual contributions – echoing (i.e. partial repetition of a previous utterance), two types of clapping, and two types of ohing – and show that not only are they well-timed, but systematic in when they occur and what they do. I consider what types of actions they pursue relative to the response in progress, what stances they display, and whether the individuals orient to their potential as autonomous individuals or collective group members through their individual participation. Finally, I suggest that collectivity is not fundamental to being an audience but rather is part of what must be managed (alongside autonomy) when participating as an audience.