Wk6 Blog: Mobility – Look! I can go anywhere!

Readings:

Ito, Mizuko. “Mobile Phones, Japanese Youth, and the Replacement of Social Contact.” In Ling, Rich and Pedersen, Per, Eds. Mobile Communications: Re-negotiation of the Social Sphere. London: Springer – Verlag, 2005, 131-148.

My Blog:

This week’s reading presents a powerful argument stating that the characteristics of mobile phones and mobile communications “are not inherent in the device, but are determined by social and cultural context and power relations”. In other words; the reason for the increasing role of mobile devices within Japanese youth society is not only due to its technological advancements or style, but also because of its cultural and social surroundings.

Ito explains that Japanese society is tightly regulated by an established set of cultural beliefs and tradition. The ideals of the parents is expected to be promptly obeyed by their children, and the transitional period of which the child is gaining independence from his/her parents lacks the adequate personal space to complete. Japanese people, especially its urban population, lives in a small amount of space, typically apartment buildings where family members would not have their own individual area. Teenagers, the group Ito’s study has focused upon, is the key user of mobile communication devices, and the reason for that is because the mobile phone has generated a new form of private space where only the teenager and their chosen few who can access it.

Before the mobile telephone has really domesticated itself within the family home, the child’s bedroom is an isolated place, there is no alternatives for the child to contact the outside world. With the mobility of the mobile devices it allows teenagers to bring the phone, along with its whole network of communication, into their bedrooms – which is their own private space where the influence of the parent is often minimal. Therefore the mobility of space has created a new private space that it fundamentally influenced not by the technological character of the mobile device but due to the cultural and social surroundings which drives the need for the use of the mobile phone. This ties in with the mediation of space, where space is digitalized from the physical universe and into the vast network of other mobile phone users. This mobile device as Ito describes; allow the teenager to engage with his/her personal life while inside a family environment (one that is controlled by parents), thus making it so popular.

Ito then goes on to discuss the use of mobile phones in other places, such as school and urban spaces. The use of the mobile phone in the public, especially the enclosed spaces of trains and buses, catches my attention. Popular press about “poor mobile phone manners and annoyance of having to listen to teenage chatter in public space” with most public transport infrastructures displaying the “no mobile phone use” signs are a clear reflection of the relationship developed between the mobile devices and the native culture of society. Over here in Australia, mobile phone use in public places are widely accepted: referring to the previous reading on Mediation of Space by Shaun Moores we saw mobile phone use also as a god given right to all: “Excuse me, this is a private conversation” in comparison to the Japanese idea of “not listening to teenage chatter”, the stark contrast, just makes me laugh.

In relation to my own opinion, as I have mentioned how different we would interpret the way people would sue a mobile device in public is completely based on our cultural judgment of “what is deemed to be acceptable”. But to talk about the trend of teenage mobile phone use, the pattern is essentially the same with those of Australia, but how can this be where us Australians are enjoying a far greater amount of space comparing to the Japanese? – even by our urban standards! We have much more personal space that is readily accessible by us, yet we too seek the comfort of the mobile phone in delivering us a new private space? To put it in my own words I would relate the cause to the distance between places which separates people, thus there is a sense of isolation as we are too far to reach one another. This is similar to the scene where the Japanese child is trapped within his/her bedroom, where the only way to establish a link with the outside world is through the phone. Instead of being bounded by the walls of our bedrooms, Australian are bounded by the vast distance separating people, and the role of the mobile device allows us to pull each other closer while still allowing our own movement. We are not tied to the telephone-wires in the walls, the mobility of the mobile phones allows the distance to continuously change between people – a dynamic of space in Australia is therefore present.

The rest however does not really stand out, it talked about texting as a mean to bypass the need to verbally communicate – a mean that evolved from the need to remain silent in certain places such as classrooms and public transports – where people are expected not to speak on their phones, again these notes are used to support Ito’s argument that culture plays a dominating role in influencing the use of the mobile communication, rather than the device itself.

Lastly this writing presents an actual research project conducted in the field of the media, it brings a detailed look into the culture of mobile phone use from a unique perspective, and really in my view is what all media researcher need to be successful. It is the interest that drives our need to continue our knowledge  -oh yea, and to buy those media text books.

Louie J M

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ARTS1090, S1, 2010