Under the Influence of Time: Reading the Interactional Text

Abstract

This article examines the phenomenon of first-time throughness, which speaks to how social events are experienced in real, interactional time. Multiple readings of the made-for-television film Under the Influence (Green 1986), are presented. These readings are used as evidence to support the conclusion that the lived orderlines of everyday life rests on the sense of history that first-time throughness gives to problematic and taken-for-granted interactional experiences. It is argued that contemporary social psychological theory ignores the temporal features of social life.