"Guess What?": On Hidden-Camera Pranks' Revelation Sequences

Authors

  • A. Javier Izquierdo-Martín Universidad Nacional de Educación a Distancia (UNED)

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.17169/fqs-5.2.608

Keywords:

hidden-camera pranks, ethnomethodological breaching experiments, naturally organized ordinary activities, in vivo dramatic art, vulgar psychotherapy, audio-videographic digital documents

Abstract

Conceived as public communication objects, hidden-camera pranks (HCPs) are a type of documentary on ordinary pranks. Defined versus classical Garfinkelian breaching experiments, HCPs also offer a natural form of ethnomethodological experimentation. Here I present some results of an analysis of a sample of forty-nine HCPs' revelation sequences (RSs). These little clips of five to fifty seconds long allow for the description of audio-visual details of the interactional work that actors, accomplices and victims of a HCP have to perform, in a finely coordinated manner in order "to put an end" to an artificially constructed social situation. My study focuses on a set of practical relevances of the work of revelation (offering) and awakening (acceptation/rejection) endogenously pointed at and topicalized by the agents enmeshed in the HCP situation. URN: urn:nbn:de:0114-fqs0402126

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Author Biography

A. Javier Izquierdo-Martín, Universidad Nacional de Educación a Distancia (UNED)

A. Javier IZQUIERDO es doctor en sociología por la Universidad Complutense de Madrid y profesor en el Departamento de Sociología I (Teoría, Metodología y Cambio Social), de la Facultad de Ciencias Políticas y Sociología de la Universidad Nacional de Educación a Distancia (UNED), también en Madrid. Es autor de una serie de artículos en la encrucijada de la sociología jurídico-económica, la sociología de la ciencia y la historia de las ciencias. En la actualidad trabaja sobre el estatus de los documentos audio-videográficos como datos primarios de la investigación social.

Published

2004-05-31

How to Cite

Izquierdo-Martín, A. J. (2004). "Guess What?": On Hidden-Camera Pranks’ Revelation Sequences. Forum Qualitative Sozialforschung Forum: Qualitative Social Research, 5(2). https://doi.org/10.17169/fqs-5.2.608