What means space and how does that affect us?
Have you ever thought about the environment during a meeting? Maybe only if you are bored or if the environment is disturbing or distracting the participants. But what if the space plays a bigger role in the sense of the ‘human’ aspect in web meetings? Geographical distance is usually the main reason for holding a web meeting. This includes that there is no physical meeting space at all. How does this influence the meeting? When we meet in presence, we immediately have the sense of coming together as a team or at least as a group.
In the last blog entry I wrote about proxemics and environments and how this subconsciously influences our communication. I found out, that in web meetings:
- relational space does not matter
- personal hierarchy is not visible
- side conversations are not possible (only via private chat messages)
- environment do not seem to matter even though they can influence the meeting situation and communication
- front view of all participants is not natural (unless you are a lecturer) and differs from presence meetings
In comparison to the other mentioned points in my last entry, space and environment make out one of the biggest differences between presence and digital meetings in my opinion. I think they could be a crucial part of making a web meeting experience more human. But how? Let’s have a closer look at the meaning of ‘room’ and ‘space’ or the german words ‘Raum’ and ‘Platz’. Definitions or translations of these words look really diverse to me. In my research I focused on the german research on ‘Raum’ as it describes best what I mean. I will use the english word ‘space’ to make the text easier to read. The Duden has seven different meanings of space which range from physical to mathematical to hypothetical meanings. Space is a much discussed controversy in philosophy and physics. Especially the philosophical and sociological aspects seem to be important in regard to my topic of meetings and communication.
There used to be two main concepts about the meaning of space: The absolutistic and the relativistic. The absolutistic room can be seen like a container which is either empty or filled with humans, things, spheres or characteristics. The division between space and matter results in the assumption that spaces exist independently from actions. In contrast to that the relativistic space concept sees space only as a result of relations between bodies. That means that the space only exists through actions what exclude the influence of physical spaces.
Following the hypotheses of M. Löw, the two previous named concepts have to be seen in combination. Löw’s concept of space is called the ‘relational’ spatial model and represents the ‘duality of space’. The concept follows the assumption of a space as a result of actions but simultaneously as a legal, social, cultural and spatial structure of actions. This means, a space needs actions to exist but also consists of its own structures that enable or limit those actions. A space can be seen as a structure and not as a certain dimension or unit.
In this point of view we can notice that a space is not necessarily dependent from a physical space and results from our own actions and relations. With this in mind we could also say that space is something completely imagined – if we want to. Furthermore the concept mentions that the structure of a space itself has an influence on our actions and relations. Sticking to the idea of an imagined space: Do we naturally give the space a structure even if it is not a real place? Or do we try to adapt it to the structure of a comparable, real or at least visual space?
When we imagine the look, the smell and the taste of a lemon and then imagine biting into that lemon, we usually feel our body reaction to that without physically experiencing the situation. It also works with spaces: Imaging a really nasty autobahn toilet, we automatically start shaking in disgust. These examples only work because of our previous experiences. If we never tried biting into a lemon, we do not know our reaction to it. In our imagination it could taste sweet or even salty which results in another physical reaction.
In this point of view, we could assume that the imagination of a certain place is related to our previous experiences with that kind of space or related structures. We also can assume that the imagination of the room can lead to something like an imagined reaction. But what does that mean for (online) meeting environments? Everyone of us met someone somewhere before. We know how to greet each other or keep the right personal distance to our meeting partner. We usually know how to use the objects in the meeting environment: Chairs for sitting and a table to share food or to look at the same piece of paper. We are used to the background music in restaurants, the ambient noise of the park or the silence in business meeting rooms. But what about online meeting environments? No matter which meeting we are in, we usually stay at the same place (or we at least search for a quiet place). Does this affect the meeting? And if yes, how?
Thank you for reading! If you have any thought, idea or comment on that topic (or just for chatting), feel free to contact me – I would be happy to get in touch 🙂
Keywords
space, room, environment, online meeting, web meeting, web conferencing, telecommunication, online communication, connectivity, remote communication media
Sources
Martina Löw: The Sociology of Space: Materiality, Social Structures, and Action (2016)
Gabriela B. Christmann: Zur kommunikativen Konstruktion von Räumen (2016)
Johannes Moskaliuk: Zoom-Fatigue – Drei Erklärungsansätze, warum Videokonferenzen so anstrengend sind
https://wissensdialoge.de/zoom-fatigue-drei-erklaerungsansaetze-warum-videokonferenzen-so-anstrengend-sind/; last review 17.01.2021
