NCSU Department of Communication

COM547::Mobile Technologies and Social Practices
Instructor: Dr. Adriana de Souza e Silva

 

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There will be weekly readings. This is a reading-intensive course in which you will be asked to deal with material that is often quite challenging in its language and theoretical positions. You should expect to read about 60-80 pages a week, and write a brief summary/comment on each text you read. You are excused from writing your comment if you are presenting to the class. You are responsible for not only reading all the material assigned to you, but engaging with it before class in a way that prepares you to participate in class discussion. In order to do this, you will need to take careful reading notes and review your notes before each class. The readings shall be used not only for class discussion, but also to support your arguments on the class discussions, presentations, and final paper.

All texts are available online as PDF documents, through this Web site and the NCSU library online reserves. A few new ones may will be also available on the Web.

Note: All students must regurlary check e-mails, as well as the class Website, for messages and readings from this course.

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Textbook:

Required:
MCS: Castells, M., Fernandez-Ardevol, M., Qiu, J. L., & Sey, A. (2007). The mobile communication society: A global perspective. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press (USD 19.77). Also available online at http://arnic.info/WirelessWorkshop/MCS.pdf (this is the pre-publication version of the book). Retrieved June 06, 2009.

Recomended:
DC: de Souza e Silva, A., & Sutko, D. M. (Eds.) (2009). Digital Cityscapes: Merging digital and urban playspaces. New York: Peter Lang (USD 24.93).

Required Readings:

Abrahamson, E. (2003). Hear me now: Competition, regulation and innovation in mobile telephony in the United States: 1945-1983. Von Gremp Workshop in Economic and Entrepreneurial History. University of California, Los Angeles.

Agar, J. (2004). Different countries, different paths to mobility. In Constant touch: A global history of the mobile phone (pp. 29-101). Duxford, Cambridge, UK: Icon Books. [chapter 3] [chapter 5]

Andrejevic, M. (2007). Surveillance in the digital enclosure. The Communication Review, 10, 295-317.

Bell, G. (2005). The age of the thumb: A cultural reading of mobile technologies from Asia. In P. Glotz, S. Bertschi, & C. Locke (Eds.), Thumb culture: The meaning of mobile phones for society (pp. 67-87). New Brunswick, London: Transaction Publishers.

Benedeck, A. (2006). New vistas of learning in the mobile age. In K. Nyíri (Ed.), Mobile understanding: The epistemology of ubiquitous communication (pp. 121-132). Vienna: Passagen Verlag.

Bimber, B., Flanagin, A., & Stohl, C. (2005). Reconceptualizing collective action in the contemporary media environment. Communication Theory, 15 (4), 365-388.

Brewer, J., & Dourish, P. (2008). Storied spaces: Cultural accounts of mobility, technology, and environmental knowing. International Journal of Human Computer Studies, doi:10.1016/j.ijhcs.2008.03.003.

Cohen, A. A., & Lemish, D. (2005). When the bombs go off the mobiles ring: The aftermath of terrorist attacks. In K. Nyíri (Ed.), A sense of place: The global and the local in mobile communication (pp. 117-128). Vienna: Passagen Verlag.

Dányi, E. (2005). WLCM 2 UROP: Interconnected public spheres in the age of mobile communication. In K. Nyíri (Ed.), A sense of place: The global and the local in mobile communication (pp. 329-338). Vienna: Passagen Verlag.

de Souza e Silva, A. (2009). Hybrid reality and location-based gaming: Redefining mobility and game spaces in urban environments. Simulation & Gaming, 40 (3), 404-424. Online through NCSU databases at: http://sag.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/40/3/404

de Souza e Silva, A. (2006). From Cyber to hybrid: Mobile Technologies as Interfaces of Hybrid Spaces. Space and Culture, 9 (3), 261-278.

de Souza e Silva, A, & Frith, J. Locative mobile social networks: Merging communication, location, and urban spaces.

de Souza e Silva, A., Sutko, D. M., Salis, F., & de Souza e Silva, C. (submitted). Cell phone appropriation and social mobile use in the favelas of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

Delacruz, G., Chung, G. K. W. K., & Baker, E. (2009). Findind a place: Developments of location-based mobile gaming in learning and assessment environments. In A. de Souza e Silva, & D. M. Sutko (Eds.), Digital Cityscapes: Merging digital and urban playspaces (pp. 251-268). New York: Peter Lang.

Donner, J. (2008). Research approaches to mobile use in the developing world: A review of the literature. The Information Society, 24 (3), 140-159.

Donner, J. (2005). The social and economic implications of mobile telephony in Rwanda: An ownership/access typology. In P. Glotz, S. Bertschi, & C. Locke (Eds.), Thumb culture: The meaning of mobile phones for society (pp. 37-51). New Brunswick, London: Transaction Publishers.

Dourish, P., & Bell, G. (2007). The infrastructure of experience and the experience of infrastructure: meaning and structure in everyday encounters with space. Environment & Planning B: Planning & Design, 34 (3), 414-430.

Farley, T. (2005). Mobile telephone history. Telektronikk, 3 (4), 22-34.

Fortunati, L., & Cianchi, A. (2006). Fashion and technology in the presentation of self. In J. Höflich, & M. Hartmann (Eds.), Mobile communication in everyday life: Ethnographic views, observations and reflections (pp. 203-226). Berlin: Frank & Timme.

Goggin, G. (2007). Mobile panic: Health, manners, and our youth. In Cell phone culture: Mobile technology in everyday life (pp. 107-125). London, New York: Routledge.

Golding, P. (2005). The future of mobile in the 3G era. In P. Glotz, S. Bertschi, & C. Locke (Eds.), Thumb culture: The meaning of mobile phones for society (pp. 235-249). New Brunswick, London: Transaction Publishers.

Gordon, E. (2009). Redefining the local: The distinction between located information and local knowledge in location-based games. In A. de Souza e Silva, & D. M. Sutko (Eds.), Digital Cityscapes: Merging digital and urban playspaces (pp. 21-36). New York: Peter Lang.

Gordon, J. (2007). The mobile phone and the public sphere: Mobile phone usage in three critical situations. Convergence: The International Journal of Research into New Media Technologies, 13 (3), 307-319.

Greenfield, A. (2006). Section I: What is everyware? [part 1] [part2] in Everyware: The dawning age of ubiquitous computing (pp. 9-34). Berkeley, CA: New Riders.

Greenfield, A. (2006). Section II: How is everyware different from what we're used to? in Everyware: The dawning age of ubiquitous computing (pp. 35-88). Berkeley, CA: New Riders.

Harper, R. (2005). From teenage life to Victorian morals and back: Technological change and teenage life. In P. Glotz, S. Bertschi, & C. Locke (Eds.), Thumb culture: The meaning of mobile phones for society (pp. 101-113). New Brunswick, London: Transaction Publishers.

Hemment, D. (2005). The mobile effect. Convergence: The international journal of research into new media technologies, 11 (32), 32-39.

Hjorth, L. (2009). The politics of being mobile: A case study of a different model for conceptualizing mobility, gaming, and play. In A. de Souza e Silva, & D. M. Sutko (Eds.), Digital Cityscapes: Merging digital and urban playspaces (pp. 83-99). New York: Peter Lang.

Horst, H, & Miller, D. (2006). Welfare. In The cell phone: An anthropology of communication (pp. 137-158). New York: Berg Publishers.

James, J, & Verteeg, M. (2007). Mobile phones in Africa: How much do we really know? Social Indicators Research, 84 (1), 117-126.

Javaid, U., Rasheed, T., Meddour, D. E., Ahmed, T., & Prasad, N. R. (2008). A novel dimension of cooperation in 4G. IEEE Technology and Society Magazine, 27 (1), 29-40.

Jensen, O. (2009). Flows of meaning, cultures of movement: Urban mobility as meaningful everyday life practice. Mobilities, 4 (1), 139-158.

Katz, J. (2006). The telephone and social transformation. In Magic in the air: Mobile communication and the transformation of social life (pp. 115-131). New Brunswick, London: Transaction Publishers.

Katz, J. (2006). Mobile phones in educational settings. In Magic in the air: Mobile communication and the transformation of social life (pp. 87-101). New Brunswick, London: Transaction Publishers.

Keferi, M., & Kilian, S. (2009). Mobile creation: The Japanese way. Vodafone Receiver, 22. Retrieved June 06, 2009, from http://www.receiver.vodafone.com/mobile-creation-–-the-japanese-way

Keyani, P. & Farnham, S. (2005) Swarm: Text messaging designed to enhance social
coordination
. In R. Harper, L. Palen & A. Taylor (Eds.), The Inside Text: Social, Cultural
and Design Perspectives on SMS
(287-304). Dordrecht, Norwell, MA: Springer.

Kyern, P, & LeMaire, P. (2006). Transforming recent gains in the digital divide into digital opportunities: Africa and the boom in mobile phone subscription. The Electronic Journal on Information Systems in Developing Countries, 28 (5), 1-16.

Ling, R. (2008). Goffman on ritual interaction in everyday life. In New Tech, New Ties: How mobile communication is reshaping social cohesion (pp. 57-72). Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press.

McLelland, M. (2008). Socio-cultural aspects of mobile communciation technologies in Asia and the Pacific: A discussion of the recent literature. In G. Goggin (Ed.), Mobile phone cultures (pp. 124-134). London, New York: Routledge.

Meyrowitz, J. (2005). The rise of glocality: New senses of place and identity in the global village. In K. Nyíri (Ed.), A sense of place: The global and the local in mobile communication (pp. 21-30). Vienna: Passagen Verlag. Also available online at: Proceedings of the Conference on the Global and the Local in Mobile Communication: Places, Images, People, Connections, 1-12. Budapest, June 10-12. Retrieved June 06, 2009, from http://www.fil.hu/mobil/2004/meyrowitz_webversion.doc

Perusco, L., & Michael, K. (2007). Control, trust, privacy, and security: Evaluating location-based services. IEEE Technology and Society Magazine, 26 (1), 4-16.

Rafael, V. (2003). The cell phone and the crowd: Messianic politics in the contemporary philippines. Public Culture, 15 (3), 399-425.

Saveri, A, Rheingold, H., & Vian, K. (2008). Technologies of cooperation: A socio-technical framework for robust 4G. IEEE Technology and Society Magazine, 27 (2), 11-23.

Srivastava, L. (2006). Dissemination and acquisition of knowledge in the mobile age. In K. Nyíri (Ed.), Mobile understanding: The epistemology of ubiquitous communication (pp. 159-168). Vienna: Passagen Verlag.

Tuters, M., & Varnelis, K. (2006). Beyond locative media: Giving shape to the Internet of things. Leonardo, 39 (4), 357-363.

Ureta, S. (2008). Mobilising poverty?: Mobile phone use and everyday spatial mobility among low-income families in Santiago, Chile. The Information Society, 24 (2), 83-92.

Wellman, B. (2002). Little boxes, glocalization, and networked individualism. In M. Tanabe, P. van der Besselaar, & T. Ishida (Eds.), Digital Cities II: Computational and sociological approaches. Berlin: Springer.

Wilson, J. (2006). 3G to Web 2.0? Can mobile telephony become an architecture of participation? Convergence: The International Journal of Research into New Media Technologies, 12 (2), 229–242.

Movies:
Denise Calls Up (1995), directed by Hal Salwen (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0112844/)