Phygital highlighting: Achieving joint visual attention when physically co-editing a digital text

In this paper, we introduce the concept of phygital highlighting. Phygital actions, by their very nature, are intertwined, simultaneously produced both physically and digitally, and may be used for practices of highlighting. The aim of this paper is therefore to revisit Goodwin's (1994) concept of highlighting and expand it to include phygital actions. We show how phygital highlighting is a participant method for achieving joint attention while engaged in face-to-face, computer-supported cooperative activity. Phygital highlighting is shown to be an observable and socially recognisable practice, composed of multimodal resources, specifically related to pointing practices and indexical terms in combination with moving the mouse and cursor, all of which are used to achieve a shared reference to specific parts of the displayed content. The paper is based on video ethnography and multimodal conversation analysis of a single case from an open office environment, which is considered a perspicuous setting for research into phygital highlighting. •Ethnomethodological conversation analysis of video excerpt's is employed.•Phygital highlighting is introduced as a new concept.•Phygital is the combination of physical and digital actions.•Phygital highlighting is used by participants to achieve joint attention.•Phygital highlighting is accomplished as a seamless action.