Lecture 1: introduction mobile media & society and social structure
History
The telegraph a lot of train accidents, every train staton had a telegraph to communicate with
each other. Later news, info and entertainment. 1858 – 1866 connecton tlantc cean.
Fixed or ‘wired’ telephone late 19th C. intended for music and live entertainment, later household
manager. nly around 1920 recogniton and acceptance of the sociable uses of the telephone.
Mobile phone, frst radio communicaton. Telepoint access: Ericsson two fxed stccs connected to
car. Car radio 1920-1930 Motorola.
Had a lot of problems
Mobile telephony Motorola Bricc phone 1973
GSM (Global System for Mobiles)
Even in the US they had a lot of diferent standards.
Technical evoluton coincided with new features located in the device itself (dialing register, Voice
mail, traccing of calls, clocc, etc.)
Were we are now? Mobile phone penetraton worldwide, The Netherlands in front.
Worcing defniton:
Mobile media are media that register & transfer data from, or deliver data to an object or user who is
in moton
Mobile social media can loosely be considered sofware, applicatons, or services accessed through
mobile devices that allow users to connect with other people and to share informaton, news, and
content (Humphreys, 2013)
Social structures = paterns in the ways in which people organize themselves, and that these paterns
of organizaton – also cnown as social structures – shape the ways in which people behave.
Structures enable and constrain human acton (Giddens, 1984). lso a Human agency (individual).
Prescriptve, they mace a logical and organized, systems.
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,Lecture 2 - Network logic (autonomy)
Theoretcal insights into the social implicatons of mobile media technology can roughly be organized
into three overarching theoretcal insights:
1. insights that refer to how mobile media have made us into ‘networced individuals’
2. insights that refer to how mobile media have provided us with a state of ‘perpetual contact’
3. insights that refer to how mobile media are most personal objects that allow us to
personalize life
Today: the networc logic how mobile media allow us (and objects) to operate more autonomously
by afording a networc infrastructure between persons (and objects).
3 white guys: important
sociologists for mobile
media
Network Society & Networked individualism
Networc society: new society connectvity a cross tme and space, new form of social organizaton
such as the internet and mobile com. Infrastructure between indivi. and org. (Castells, 2000)
(Wellman 2003) Networced individualsm: more individual, everyday life of individual. People are
nodes in multple diferent networcs. Using (mobile) ICT, these networcs can be switches on and of
at any given place.
Social-historical perspectve
on place: life in litle boxes
(space clear boundaries) pre-
industrialized society. This is
before forms of mediated
communicaton.
Later more Glocalizaton,
spread out more, boundaries
more blurred lines, but
interacton are stll ted to
place. Place-bound communicaton (fxed line telephone and dial-up internet)
Today Networced individualism: Mobile communicaton: independent from place (and tme)
Space of fows: The meaning of place, what defnes our interacton is not where we are, but the
informaton that fows between us.
We have to looc at the informaton exitances, social actvity by place relatonship can be the same
with virtual lecture for example. (Space of fows) you don’t have to be in the same room for a
partcular relatonship (teacher, student) communicaton and interacton. Place is stll relevant place
is now anywhere where a user choses to communicate.
Mobile communicaton: constantly changes the locatonal reference of the networc nodes the
interacton is defned entrely by the communicaton fows. Now, places are more a baccground
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, feature, they are the baccground for communicaton. Castells: “Place is anywhere from which a
person chooses or needs to communicate”
The nodes of the networc are always in a ‘place’, ergo physical place is not irrelevant. But place =
now anywhere where a user choses to communicate.
Places thus stll exist as points of convergence in communicaton networcs; they don’t necessarily
defne the interacton, however.
Mobile comm.
Constant shifing in the locatonal reference of networc nodes
Frees people from the place-based context of their interactonInteracton is defned entrely by
communicaton fows
Mobile communicaton thus contributes to a greater autonomy vis-à-vis spatial locations
Timeless tme: people stcc to certain tme (appointments) has changed dramatcally
Time today is de-sequencing.
1. Time is can be compressed (multtascing, more in short bursts and quiccly vary) (e.g.
previously worc (tmee/place) vs private (tmee/place).
2. Time is fexible: actvites organized around fexible compartments of tme (rather than
compartments of tme ted to place) move from publice/private ne/of tme
Mobile media contributes to a greater autonomy vis-à-vis tme (constraints).
More difficult to go onlinee/oline, publice/private; blurred lines more complex
Networc logic: everyday life impact social coordinaton
Bacc in the days order structured, etquete & power based on secondary system (tolerance, who
waits for whom etc.)
Today norms are diferent for each situaton, more relaxed due social communicaton. Direct comm.
Cutng out tme as (devises as the ‘middleman’.
Social coordinaton 1.0
2004: Ling & Ytri diferentate between:
Micro-coordinaton: real tme arrangement of the logistcs of day-to-day interacton
Hyper-coordinaton: socio-emotonal & phatc interacton
Micro-coordinaton (Ling, 2004)
Mid-course adjustment: redirectng travel (that may have already begun), based upon
informaton that can be requestede/received along the way.
o E.g.: or when you are in the store and don’t remember whether you should also buy
new milc, you can just call home.
Iteratve coordinaton: progressively refning an actvity
o e.g., you agree to meet but where, when to do what is decided upon when the tme
approaches. We do this in a day-by-day manner
Sofening of schedules: providing informaton on one’s status helps relax the scheduling of
events, helps relax implicit contracts around tme without breaching manners, ‘trust’, one’s
social roles, …
o E.g., remote parentng
Social coordinaton 2.0
SMS: Mostly dyadic, at most one-to-many
Group chats = mult-sided interacton, read receipts (blauwe vincjes = no privacy?), fexible
alignment, presence awareness cues (you can’t say you’re not available, always are)
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