ABSTRACT
The use of the word ‘live’ can be associated with the development of technology that allowed us to capture and replay social interaction. We could watch and listen to people engaging with each other without being present at the original situation. Cinema meant that ‘live’ was no longer a redundant descriptor in the phrase ‘live theatre’, just as the telephone, and then video links, alerted us to the difference that the absence of first visual and then physical/sensory clues makes to our communication. We had to introduce the term ‘face to face’ to signal what would previously have been taken for granted. So at first the metaphor of ‘live’ emphasizes that people are literally present to one another, whether as ‘actors’ or ‘spectators’.
