Yang2026
| Yang2026 | |
|---|---|
| BibType | ARTICLE |
| Key | Yang2026 |
| Author(s) | Bo Yang, Oskar Lindwall, Christian Licoppe |
| Title | Coherence through sedimentation: Temporal organization and emergent interaction in Danmaku |
| Editor(s) | |
| Tag(s) | EMCA, Danmaku, Coherence, Discourse, Computer-mediated-communication, Asynchronous interaction, pseudo-synchronous interaction |
| Publisher | |
| Year | 2026 |
| Language | English |
| City | |
| Month | |
| Journal | Discourse, Context & Media |
| Volume | 72 |
| Number | August 2026 |
| Pages | 101033 |
| URL | Link |
| DOI | 10.1016/j.dcm.2026.101033 |
| ISBN | |
| Organization | |
| Institution | |
| School | |
| Type | |
| Edition | |
| Series | |
| Howpublished | |
| Book title | |
| Chapter | |
Abstract
This paper examines how coherence and participation are accomplished in danmaku, a commentary system on Chinese and Japanese video platforms where user comments scroll across the screen and are time-stamped to specific points on the video timeline. Although comments are produced asynchronously, they appear synchronously during playback, creating what has been described as pseudo-synchronicity (Johnson, 2013; Liang, 2021). Building on research in computer-mediated communication (CMC), the paper investigates how interaction in danmaku is organized through multiple temporalities: the time of video playback, the time of message production, and the time of subsequent viewing. Drawing on a dataset of educational danmaku videos, we analyze how comments become sequentially and thematically linked through practices such as noticings, choral clustering, and indexical reference. The analysis demonstrates that coherence in danmaku emerges through stigmergic processes of sedimentation: participants leave visible traces that persist and accumulate, gradually transforming the comment stream into an interactional infrastructure that future viewers orient to. Much like graffiti layered across a public wall, danmaku commentary builds into an accumulated record of participation that becomes integral to the video itself. By foregrounding these temporal and stigmergic dimensions, the paper shows how danmaku reconfigures audience roles, blurs distinctions between live and asynchronous participation, and extends participation frameworks, contributing to a more comprehensive understanding of emerging digitally mediated interaction in asynchronous, distributed settings.
Notes
