Misplaced Mistrust: The Collaborative Construction of Doubt in 911 Emergency Calls

In this paper we analyze how the call-taker in a taped 911 call came to doubt a caller who was reporting a genuine emergency. Using conversation analysis, we show how the caller's actions in the unfolding context of the call did not successfully support his claims to be a caller with legitimate trouble to report. We show how the participants' experience of the call as it unfolded differed from the media's depictions of the call. The call-taker's doubt was not an intrapersonal phenomenon but was constructed by both participants throughout the call. One of the major factors in this construction was the unsuccessful claims-making techniques used by the caller.