Abstract
Each new type of graphical icon (graphicon) in CMC has been more complex and multimodal than its predecessor. For this reason, and because of their novelty, Konrad, Herring, and Choi (2020) claim that new graphicon types are initially restricted to use in intimate relationships. We explore this proposition qualitatively by interviewing student users of Animoji – dynamic, large-scale emoji on the Apple iPhone – about who they send Animoji messages to and why. The results of a think-aloud card sort task in which participants (N = 33) matched seven Animoji with seven relationship categories at different social distances and sent a message to each one were triangulated with responses to open-ended questions before and after the task. Participants sent Animoji to close friends, significant others, and siblings, and to a lesser extent, parents and other family members. They rejected the idea of sending Animoji to more distant relationships such as a teaching assistant, a mentor, and new friends. Different Animoji were considered more or less suitable for each relationship, as well as for recipients of different genders. The reasons given by the interviewees for sending Animoji to each relationship category centered around themes of politeness, (in)formality, familiarity, and self-presentation.
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Notes
- 1.
We also asked participants to describe their experiences and perspectives on Animoji use for self-representation; those findings are reported in [21].
- 2.
Mentor was included as an alternative to Older Relative to provide options for people who did not have or who did not speak with older relatives.
- 3.
This classification follows the approach of semantic feature analysis in linguistics; see, e.g., [24]. A value of 1 indicates that a feature is present, −1 indicates it is absent, and 0 indicates that the feature is sometimes present and sometimes absent.
- 4.
- 5.
Three pairings were excluded from analysis because the participants declined to match an Animoji. The other matches made by those participants are included in the analysis, however, resulting in 228 observations out of 231 total possible pairs.
- 6.
Each Animoji was also sometimes chosen last in the card sort by process of elimination. This occurred roughly the same number of times for each Animoji.
- 7.
At least two female and two male interviewees were in same-sex relationships, however.
- 8.
Animoji may also have different associations in different cultures. Unfortunately, the small size of our sample and the diversity of backgrounds of the non-native English speakers made meaningful comparison of the native and non-native participants impossible.
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Herring, S.C., Dainas, A.R., Lopez Long, H., Tang, Y. (2020). “If I’m Close with Them, It Wouldn’t Be Weird”: Social Distance and Animoji Use. In: Stephanidis, C., et al. HCI International 2020 – Late Breaking Papers: Interaction, Knowledge and Social Media. HCII 2020. Lecture Notes in Computer Science(), vol 12427. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-60152-2_23
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