Bringing the backstage frontstage: how police emergency call-handlers integrate written incident logs into spoken interaction

Abstract

Abstract Emergency call-handling requires managing two simultaneously unfolding activity streams: the caller-facing spoken interaction and the backstage work of populating and responding to the written computer-aided dispatch (CAD) log. Using a dual-modal dataset of forty-eight time-aligned call audio and incident logs from UK police emergency calls, this study analyses how written, multi-authored CAD activity becomes interactionally consequential in real time. Two recurrent practices are identified. Interfacing sequences are turns where call-handlers surface their concurrent documentation work, managing the tension between maintaining conversational progressivity and performing urgent institutional tasks. Ventriloquized sequences occur when call-handlers animate prompts authored by supervisors, dispatchers, or the CAD system itself. While these practices can enable smooth coordination between talk and text, they may also falter when backstage demands collide with moments of interactional volatility. The analysis advances research on multi-activity in institutional interaction by demonstrating that written CAD entries function as sequentially consequential actions within the unfolding call. Practically, the findings have implications for call-handler training, particularly in designing interfacing turns in caller-intelligible terms and integrating institutional prompts into the unfolding talk.