Mobile media and communication: A new field, or just a new journal?

Foundations of Mobile Media Studies: Essential Texts on the Formation of a Field, 2016

A bibliography of some of the most influential scholarly writings about mobile media. Published in my edited volume, Foundations of Mobile Media Studies: Essential Texts on the Formation of a Field.

This chapter considers some of the many ways understanding mobile media contribute to broader debates around digital culture.

Emerging Perspectives on the Mobile Content Evolution, 2016

This chapter discusses the new social configurations society is undergoing on the basis of media emergence. Media are embedded in the arousal of communication and information transmission becoming the form, the infrastructure and the institution for the social and culture. This chapter focuses on mobile communication, having as central goal to debate on the processes of mediatization and mediation of society, as well as on the processes of belonging and social cohesion. Data from mobile internet adoption and use will be discussed in the light of the above mentioned theoretical approaches. An empirical case study will also be approached and results will provide contributions for the understanding of this type of technology adoption processes and the increasing importance of mobility in cultural and social practices, promoting an exciting discussion on the centrality of media nowadays and the current transformation processes society is undergoing.

Knowledge, Technology & Policy, 2006

The mobile phone is becoming an increasingly ubiquitous part of everyday life--not only in developed countries where penetration levels suggest there are more handsets than people in some countries, but also around the rest of the globe. Handset manufacturers are now turning their attention away from the saturated European markets to countries such as China, which boasts the largest mobile subscriber base in the world, and increasingly to developing countries, where cellular technology is often leapfrogging the roll-out of stable fixed-line telephone networks. With this ubiquity comes a change in the role of the mobile phone as a social artefact.

Mobile communication is a relatively new form of interaction. It has only been commonly available in developed countries for the past two decades and in developing countries for less than that. Perhaps because the rise of mobile communication is so recent, the juxtaposition of its use against traditional social practice illuminates issues in a new way. To be sure, mobile communication's explosive growth as an everyday life resource has given us a lens through which we can study both sociological and psychological developments. Despite being a relatively new addition to the media landscape, the assuredness with which we appropriate our mobile devices speaks to well routinized use. When we reach for our phone to fill in what Fortunati (2002, p. 518) calls the "smallest folds" of life, we manipulate them with ease. In addition, at the social level, we increasingly understand that it is expected of us to have a mobile phone. Our friends and family expect us to be available to them, to be socially "on call." Through mobile communication, we become more attached to one another, not to mention to the technology itself. Without the device, it is not uncommon for a user to feel utterly disconnected and psychologically distressed .

Chapter contribtuon to the book Living Inside Mobile Social Information, edited by James E. Katz, Boston University.

This dissertation examines the integration of the mobile phone into every day life as a communication device and as media. It focuses on the uses of the mobile phone as a pervasive multimedia tool and its relationship to other media in the changing media landscape. The main argument of the dissertation is that the mobile phone is a medium in itself and it should also be regarded as a medium among others. In media studies the mobile phone has often been perceived as a sub-media to traditional media. As a medium it has its own specific characteristics and social functions, allthough its uses may vary in different contexts and cultures. However, this argument does not mean that the mobile phone is a medium without user involvements. The role of user innovations has been important in constructing the mobile phone's role in the media field: for instance, text messaging has brought a new kind of social interaction and media form with it. Indeed, the mobile phone has influenced the ways in which we can interact with other media. The mobile phone is located between personal, social and mass media, and can serve personal, peer-to-peer and mass communication purposes in different communications situations. The mobile phone, along with the popularity of personal computers, has contributed to the increased consciousness and idea of personal media, and the emergence of new kinds of media behaviour. The mobile phone is not only a developing tool for citizenship journalism and participatory media making, but also a channel between traditional and new media, as it, in some cases enables the interactivity of television. Text messaging has been incorporated into television and, in some cases, also into newspapers. It seems that the mobile phone as a personal and ubiquitous technology may lower the threshold for participating in media making. The role of the mobile phone as a tool in digital storytelling has become more important as the number of reader's own photographs as news material in newspapers has increased. The newspaper offices and other media have to find a solution for how to act with the increasing content produced by their audience; for instance, how to find the important news 8 Foundation, the Finnish Cultural Foundation, the Pirkanmaa Regional Fund of the Finnish Cultural Foundation, and the Emil Aaltonen Foundation. I also want to thank my friends and family. My mother, Hilkka, has provided invaluable help with childcare and her excellent cooking has kept me well nourished during many writing periods. My husband Vesa and our son Matias have successfully reminded me everyday that there is also a life beyond the dissertation. Thank you!

Mobile Media & Communication , 2019

In this introduction, we argue for an expanded focus in mobile media and communication studies (MMCS) that accounts for the many types of mobile media that affect our lives. We begin by pointing out that mobile phone/smartphone research has dominated MMCS as a field. That focus makes sense, but it runs the risk of MMCS essentially turning into "smartphone studies," which we argue would limit our impact. To make that case, we identify a few examples of the types of oft-ignored technologies that could add to the depth and breadth of MMCS research (e.g., RFID [radio frequency identification] tags, the Walkman, barcodes). We then summarize the articles in this special issue to categorize the breadth of this research, which ranges from analyses of mobile fans to autonomous cars to mobile infrastructure. Keywords drones, infrastructure, media archaeology, media history, RFID For a relatively new field, mobile media and communication studies (MMCS) has a rich, interesting history. A major part of that history involves the creation of this journal in 2013, which helped solidify MMCS as a subfield distinct from other media and communication subfields. But MMCS developed in other ways as well, with Campbell (2018) tracing that trajectory through the analysis of a multidisciplinary set of publications along two primary axes: spatiality and sociality. While the sources Campbell analyzed were diverse in terms of authors, methodological approaches, and journals and book publishers, one thing stood out to us when reading his analysis: The vast majority of MMCS research focuses on the mobile phone. That focus makes sense. The mobile

2007

This research report offers an analytical overview of existing research on the social uses of wireless communication technology. It seeks to provide a solid empirical basis for an informed discussion of the social uses and social effects of wireless in Europe, the Asian Pacific and the United States. Major themes explored include the deep connection between wireless communication and the emergence of youth culture, the transformation of language by texting and multimodalty, the growing importance of wireless communication in socio-political mobilization, and changes in the practice of time and space resulting from wireless communication.