Transcribing Video

With increasing availability and use of video recording in contemporary empirical research in the social sciences, questions around how footage is to be transcribed have become urgent. What are the various ways in which this can be done? What issues arise? What are the benefits and limitations of different approaches? This paper investigates how video materials can be remade on the page or page-like screen; how the different modes of embodied communication (e.g. speech, gaze, gesture and posture) can be re-presented as writing or image. Through examining published transcripts, it suggests some of the features that are sustained, lost and added when embodied expression and interaction are reconfigured as graphic transcripts. Overarching aims include to suggest factors for critical reflection in transcribing video materials and to open up issues for debate.