Backchannel

Backchannel is the practice of using networked computers to maintain a real-time online conversation alongside the primary group activity or live spoken remarks. The term was coined in the field of linguistics to describe listeners' behaviours during verbal communication.

The term "backchannel" generally refers to online conversation about the conference topic or speaker. Occasionally backchannel provides audience members a chance to fact-check the presentation.

First growing in popularity at technology conferences, backchannel is increasingly a factor in education where WiFi connections and laptop computers allow participants to use ordinary chat like IRC or AIM to actively communicate during presentation. More recent research include works where the backchannel is brought publicly visible, such as the ClassCommons, backchan.nl and Fragmented Social Mirror.

Twitter is also widely used today by audiences to create backchannels during broadcasting of content or at conferences. For example, television drama, other forms of entertainment and magazine programs. This practice is often also called live tweeting. Many conferences nowadays also have a hashtag that can be used by the participants to share notes and experiences; furthermore such hashtags can be user generated.

Victor Yngve first used the phrase "back channel" in 1970 in a linguistic meaning, in the following passage: "In fact, both the person who has the turn and his partner are simultaneously engaged in both speaking and listening. This is because of the existence of what I call the back channel, over which the person who has the turn receives short messages such as 'yes' and 'uh-huh' without relinquishing the turn."

Such systems were widely imagined and tested in late 1990s and early 2000s. These cases include researcher's installations on conferences and classroom settings. The first famous instance of backchannel communications influencing a talk occurred on March 26, 2002, at the PC Forum conference, when Qwest CEO Joe Nacchio famously lamented the difficulties of raising capital. Journalists Dan Gillmor and Doc Searls posted accounts, from the audience, in real-time, to their weblogs. Buzz Bruggeman, a reader of Gillmor's, emailed information about a recent sizable transaction that had made Nacchio very wealthy; both Gillmor and Searls updated their weblogs with that information.

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