Action and Intersubjectivity in the Digital Age
AIDA
AIDA studies real-time interaction in digitally mediated and virtual environments. It shows how people interact with, around and inside them and provides knowledge about how and why social action may be difficult in digital and remote interactions. It produces findings that support the development of intuitive, trustworthy, and safe digital solutions.
Funders
Project information
Project duration
-
Funded by
Research Council of Finland - Academy Project
Project funder
Funding amount
712 384 EUR
Project coordinator
University of Oulu
Unit and faculty
Contact information
Project leader
- Professor
Other persons
- Postdoctoral researcher
- Elina Nuutinen
Researchers
Project description
Social interaction is vital in the digital age. Emerging digital technologies present new environments for real-time and multimodal interaction, such as videoconferencing systems and immersive virtual reality (VR). These environments feature dimensions that have a fundamental impact on how social actors build common ground in real-time digital interactions. We know that, for example, building common ground, organising turn-taking or building a joint focus on a referent is hard in digital interactions, but we do not know how and why.
AIDA asks the fundamental question: How is social action organized and common ground established in digital settings and interactions?
AIDA uses the analytic mentality of Conversation Analysis (CA), an influential research field in pragmatics. It will be used to study the sequential and temporal organisation of digital action and interactions in distributed digital settings. It will also explore how people change their interactional conduct in digital interactions, indicating learning or adaptation to use new digital communicative tools.
AIDA will initiate, underpin and provide a model for a digital turn in CA and pragmatics by building an extensive video corpus, creating ground-breaking video-based methods, and making a path-breaking theoretical and conceptual contribution to the research of intersubjective and digital social action. It will also have broader impact. By highlighting the overlooked social and interactionist features of meaning making in digital interactions, it can impact the existing individualistic and cognitivist theories and mindsets that currently underpin the development of digital technologies. AIDA will identify and describe problems that computer scientists are dealing with or cannot even imagine. Solving those problems will pave way for better digital communicative technologies (e.g., Social VR). Finally, AIDA will spearhead the digital transition in Europe by creating knowledge that can advance the building of more socially and ethically sustainable digital futures with stronger individuals and interactions.
Project actions
Related publications:
Boudouraki, A., Cameron, H. R., Reyes-Cruz, G., Martinez Avila, J. P., Orduna, M., Varela Castro, S., & Kohonen-Aho, L. (2025). Contesting Control with Automation in Technology-Mediated Interactions. Proceedings of the Extended Abstracts of the CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, 1–7. https://doi.org/10.1145/3706599.3719855
Eilittä, T., Haddington, P., Kamunen, A., Kohonen-Aho, L., Oittinen, T., Rautiainen, I. & Vatanen, A. (2023). Ethnomethodological Conversation Analysis in Motion: An introduction. In P. Haddington, T. Eilittä, A. Kamunen, L. Kohonen-Aho, T. Oittinen, I. Rautiainen & A. Vatanen (Eds.), Ethnomethodological Conversation Analysis in Motion: Emerging Methods and Technologies. (pp. 1–18). Routledge.
Eilittä, T., Haddington, P. Kamunen, A., Kohonen-Aho, L., Rautiainen, I., & Vatanen, A. (2023). On the complexities of interaction: An Introduction. In P. Haddington, T. Eilittä, A. Kamunen, L. Kohonen-Aho, I. Rautiainen & A. Vatanen (Eds.), Complexity of Interaction: Studies in Multimodal Conversation Analysis. (pp. 1–25). Palgrave-Macmillan.
Eilittä, T. Kohonen-Aho, L. Falcon, M., Wikström, V., Martikainen, S., & Saarikivi, K. (2025). The Emergence of Technology Adaptations During a Collaborative Problem-Solving Task in Immersive Virtual Reality. In Proceedings of the 2025 ACM on Human-Computer Interaction, 9(7), CSCW328, 1–38. https://doi.org/10.1145/3757509
Eilittä, T., Kohonen-Aho, L., Haddington, P., Nuutinen, E., & Spets, H. (2024). Video corpus of team meetings in immersive virtual reality. University of Oulu. http://urn.fi/urn:nbn:fi:att:afb2a1eb-15b9-4f61-bf3c-b9c5218f7876
Haddington, P., Eilittä, T., Kamunen, A., Kohonen-Aho, L., Oittinen, T. Rautiainen, I. & Vatanen, A. (Eds.), (2023). Ethnomethodological Conversation Analysis in Motion: Emerging Methods and Technologies. London: Routledge.
Haddington, P., Eilittä, T., Kamunen, A., Kohonen-Aho, L., Rautiainen, I. & Vatanen, A. (Eds.), (2023). Complexity of Interaction: Studies in Multimodal Conversation Analysis. Palgrave-Macmillan.
Haddington, P., Kohonen-Aho, L., Tuncer, S., and Spets, H. (2023). Openings of interactions in immersive virtual reality: Identifying and recognising prospective co-participants. In P. Haddington, T. Eilittä, A. Kamunen, L. Kohonen-Aho, I. Rautiainen & A Vatanen (Eds.), Complexity of Interaction: Studies in Multimodal Conversation Analysis. (pp. 423–456). Palgrave-Macmillan.
Haddington, P. & Oittinen, T. (2022) Interactional spaces in stationary, mobile, video-mediated and virtual encounters. In A.H. Jucker & Hausendorf, H (Eds.), Pragmatics of Space. Handbook of Pragmatics, Vol. 14. (pp. 317–361). Mouton de Gruyter.
Haddington, P., Siipo, A., Backman, W., Copher, M., Eilittä, T., Arios, S. F., Hentilä, J., Holmström, M., Kaisto, V., Lane, E., Leinonen, S., Nikkarinen, E., Pallari, H., Palosaari, S., Pelimanni, V., Puhakka, A., Romppainen, J., Rundgren, J., Sarjanoja, N., . . . Vaara, M. (2024). Video corpus of interaction in an immersive social virtual reality environment. University of Oulu. http://urn.fi/urn:nbn:fi:att:2b825f6c-9c46-4030-8fe6-1446873b8ca1
Kohonen-Aho, L. & Haddington, P. (2023). From distributed ecologies to distributed bodies in interaction: Capturing and analyzing ‘dual embodiment’ in virtual environments. In P. Haddington, T. Eilittä, A. Kamunen, L. Kohonen-Aho, T. Oittinen, I. Rautiainen & A. Vatanen (Eds.), Ethnomethodological Conversation Analysis in Motion: Emerging Methods and Technologies. (pp. 111–131). Routledge.
Kohonen-Aho, L. & Vatanen, A. (2025). Negotiating the sharedness of activities and stances in social virtual reality: alignment and affiliation in the activity of throwing darts at a co-participant. Human Studies. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10746-025-09795-0
Nuutinen, E. (2025). Accounting for Hybridized Activities in University Students’ Video-Mediated Breakout Room Interactions. Social Interaction. Video-Based Studies of Human Sociality, 8(2). https://doi.org/10.7146/si.v8i2.150623
Oittinen, T. & Haddington, P. (2025) From observation to entries into the conversation: Instructors’ practices for displaying engagement in learners’ small-group activities in a video-mediated crisis management course. Learning, Culture and Social Interaction, 54. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.lcsi.2025.100942
Oittinen, T., Rautiainen, I. & Haddington, P. (2024) Why is interaction key in online learning? Initial observations from the UNPOSMC blended learning course. FINCENT Publication Series 1/2024: Finnish Defence Forces International Centre. https://doria.fi/handle/10024/188711
Salomaa, E., Kohonen-Aho, L., & Martikainen, S. (2024). Navigating Between On-Screen Activities and Discussion: Multiactivity in Video-Mediated B2B Sales Interactions. Social Interaction. Video-Based Studies of Human Sociality, 7(4). https://doi.org/10.7146/si.v7i4.143519
Spets, H., Keisanen, T., & Kohonen-Aho, L. (accepted). The characteristics of recruitment and assistance among peers in social virtual reality gameplay. Accepted for publication in Social Interaction. Video-Based Studies of Human Sociality.