Effects of Transmission Delay on Client Participation in Video-Mediated Group Health Counseling

In face-to-face group counseling, active client participation contributes to the counseling agenda by a variety of social processes, but little is known about how video mediation shapes client participation. In this article, we use conversation analysis to investigate how transmission delay affects client participation in video-mediated group counseling through shaping the resolution of overlapping talk. Data are video recordings from three video-mediated group health counseling sessions recorded simultaneously in the two participating locations. The delay changes the timing of the overlapping turns and pauses at each end of the mediated counseling, making it difficult to interpret who should take the turn after the overlap. This may pose obstacles to client participation. While mediated counseling services can increase access to services and thus improve client participation at a macro level, transmission delay can pose threats to active client participation at the micro level of interaction.