The digital interaction order
The digital interaction order is a concept launched by Ico Maly (2024, 2025) to make sense of, and analyze digital interaction. The concept is based on Goffman's seminal interaction order. In his lecture for the American Sociological Association in 1982, Goffman argued in favor of studying face-to-face interaction as a substantive domain in its own right. The reason being, that face-to-face communication is 'ordered', and thus not random. The social situation will for instance have an profound effect on how that communication is ordered. If you visit church, or you meet with your friend at the bar or if you are in a job interview: it is clear that these different social situations will have an effect on how we communicate. They come with moral scripts, and thus also with all kinds of expectations on how to interact.
This digital interaction order, argues Maly (2025) shares a lot of characteristics with the face-to-face interaction order. But there are also differences. The main difference is that the interactional rules and expectations online are not just informed by the social occasion, or the socio-cultural context but also by the socio-technical context.
- The first, and maybe the most direct and obvious impact of digital media on interaction is found in the affordances of the platforms. Posting a written post on Facebook is different than a live reel on Instagram or a YouTube live stream with a live chat.
- Digital technologies format interaction in distinctive ways. They for example steer users to mainly communicate through images (Instagram), discourage to post links (Instagram) and favore short text (X, former Twitter), or afford to make duet video’s on TikTok. They contribute to the emergence of specific technological enabled orders of interaction.
- Digital media potentially limit and/or expand the scale of communication, potentially limit or expand the range of symbolic cues but also potentially limit/or expand what can be said, how it can be said, and who will interact with this message and who won’t.
- Even more, it is obvious that also the SpaceTime configuration of digital interaction is vastly different than non-mediated communication.
References
Maly I. Digital face-work, politics, and small scandals. Language in Society. Published online 2025:1-21. doi:10.1017/S0047404524001076
