ABSTRACT
With computer-based services (e.g. Skype, MSN, etc.) available on laptops and mobile video communication services on mobile phones and smart-phones, there has been what we could call a “mobility turn” in video communication. “Mobility” should be understood here as meaning two things: (1) the way people may themselves be mobile while engaged in a video communication and carrying their terminal with them and (2) the fact that they can independently move the camera and orient it towards various details of their environment. Earlier systems often involved heavy terminals that were very difficult to move. Therefore, most of the initial research done on videoconference-mediated interactions in the 1990s was undertaken mostly from a perspective in which the video communication device was fixed and the participants sitting or moving in front of it (Heath & Luff, 1992; De Fornel, 1994; Dourish, Adler, Bellotti, & Henderson, 1996).
