“Why did dinosaurs evolve from water?”: (in)coherent relatedness in YouTube video interaction

Abstract

Aiming to trace emerging conventions in video interaction, the paper adopts Kress's (2010) notions of prompt and response to examine how video responses relate to one of YouTube “Most Responded videos.” In the interactants' creative use of the video response option, which affords multimodal text production through copy and paste, any implicit or explicit element of the responded video can prompt a response. Exchanges can be (a) fully cohesive and attuned; (b) cohesive and variously coherent; (c) cohesive but incoherent; (d) marginally related; (e) non-cohesive and inferentially related; or (f) can present no clues of relatedness. Driven by the participants' diversified interests, videos are often linked as responses disregarding the meaning of the responded video, while the selection and recontextualization of previously made texts in new exchanges re-shapes and even scatters patterns of cohesion and coherence. Instead of hampering communication, these incoherent chains are accepted and acknowledged by interactants. Like other forms of contemporary communication produced through copy-and-paste techniques, video exchanges frequently prioritize an interested re-interpretation, transformation, assemblage, and recontextualization of signs/texts, often irrespectively of the authors' intended meaning. The analysis suggests the need for a reformulation of the criteria defining text and successful communication in contemporary forms of text production.