The Video-aperitif During Lockdown in France: (Re)Defining Situation and Context of Online Consumption

The aperitif is an alcoholic drink taken before a meal as an appetizer, but also a crucial part of the French culture and social life (Corbeau and Poulain 2002). The term apéro then refers less to the pre-meal beverage itself than to the moment, social and symbolic aspects of the consumption practice. The aperitif is a moment of food sociability, which can be broken down into four ideal-types: the spontaneous aperitif, the home invitation for only an aperitif, the aperitif invitation as prelude to a meal at home, and the aperitifdinner (Poulain 2005). From the very beginning of the first lockdown in France (implemented between March 17 and May 11, 2020), the press has widely reported on a massive phenomenon: online video-apéro, under the terms Skypéros, WhatsAppéros or even Coronapéros, either referring to the platforms or the virus. This research aims to understand this new consumption practice both online and at home (Epp, Schau, and Price 2014) as an opportunity to better distinguish the concepts of consumption situation and context. The concept of situation has been at the heart of social sciences since Goffman's seminal text (1964) and became central to marketing research (Belk 1974, 1975, Punj and Stewart 1983). The invitation to take better account of the context to avoid the pitfall of microsocial approaches is more recent (Askegaard and Linnet 2011). The situation is determined by the triptych: participants, spatial and material elements, temporal dimensions (Michaud-Trévinal and Stenger 2018). The situation is lived and experienced, subjective. It fundamentally depends on the context (or framework; Goffman 1974). The context corresponds to the way the situation is lived, to the interpretation structures, to the cognitive patterns, which each person uses to understand the events that occur (Girin 2016). Any experience can intertwine itself to several frameworks-either primary or transformed frameworks (Goffman 1974)-which are related to each other. Primary frameworks can be natural, involving the laws of nature, or social, involving human intentions. The framework is transformed when it resembles a primary framework but has a different meaning. If the transformation is visible and explicit to all participants, it refers to a keying process (e.g., band rehearsal). If the transformation is hidden and intended to distort the interpretation, it is a fabrication process (e.g., mystery shopper). Three qualitative studies were conducted. At first glance,