Uses of video in social research: a brief history

This article discusses the origins of video‐based approaches to social research and their continuation up to the present moment. It begins by considering early studies employing silent cinema film and audio recording, followed by the unification of audio and visual recording in sound cinema film. Special emphasis is placed on the perspectives and methods initiated by the ‘Natural History of an Interview’ research group; the first systematic study of verbal and nonverbal behavior together, as these occur in immediate social interaction in face‐to‐face encounters. The discussion then continues autobiographically as I recount my own early research experience of the development of video‐based research approaches. This is followed by an overview of current work to show the wide range of contemporary research that uses video. The article concludes with a few speculations concerning likely futures for video‐based approaches in social research.