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Abstract

This case study investigates how people ‘listen’ and act as ‘listeners’ in instant messages. Little research has been done on listenership and listeners in text-based digital discourse; to address this gap, I analyze a group instant message conversation among five Korean young women via KakaoTalk, a free instant messaging application. Demonstrating previous studies on listenership and listeners in spoken discourse and defining ‘listenership’ as the act of giving feedback on prior messages, I identify and explicate four ways of showing listenership in instant message interaction: (1) minimal responses, (2) machine gun listenership, (3) laughing and (4) sticker reaction. My analysis illuminates how verbal and non-verbal forms of listenership are adapted to typed-based online contexts as well as how listenership contributes to the construction of talk in typed-based digital environments.

Keywords

Instant messages KakaoTalk Korean discourse laughing listeners listenership machine gun questions minimal responses multimodal cues online discourse repetition sticker

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Type your listenership: An exploration of listenership in instant messages

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