Collapse of context - Michael Wesch

When we are interacting with another person, or people, face to face we are constantly evaluating the situation consciously, and subconsciously for what people might say or do, and what the best action would be to suit the situation. we are constantly, as humans, taking note of the physical surroundings, often performing herculean social calculations almost unconsciously in the micro-second gaps of conversation or even occasionally in a more conscious and deliberate manner even as the conversation continues to buzz along. As people we are exceptionally good at sizing up situations such as social interactions, and even evaluation our own appearance, actions and the way we present ourselves and engage in the conversation. it is how we understand if the other person is happy, sad or angry at what we say, and how we present ourselves into these moods. Though some peoples context may be harder to read than others, understanding these contexts is vital to maintaining the conversation and not taking something the wrong way. Erving Goffman presented his own theorys on social context in 1959, in where he describes the "line" he must create in order to present himself to others. he also describes a process he calls "face work", which is the idea that, in a social interaction, his facial expressions are constantly being examined and negotiated. All in all every single facial expression can be taken in differently by the other person, and are all important to the way one presents himself. And the way someone presents themselves depends a great deal on context.

Michael Wesch's theory is that when a person is presented with a webcam for the first time, many of them are unsure of what to say, and these first time vloggers are presented, not with a lack of context, but with a total context collapse. when they look into that little glass eye they are totally unable to see the faces of any of the millions of people who may see them when they say what they want to say. this is what is meant by context collapse, as the people who see them could take it in any context, so they are unable to present their "line", as Goffman would put it, and present themselves in any certain way, as there is no social situation to evaluate. This can be very confusing, and make it very hard to know what to say into a webcam. He must address anybody, everybody, and maybe even nobody all at once.