Mobile Messages Young People And A New Communication Culture

Since the late 1990s, new communication cultures have been emerging among Finnish teenagers. A team of young researchers at the University of Tampere began doing qualitative field research on the emergence of these new cultures just as the mobile phone penetration rate in Finland jumped to an entirely new level. Finnish teenagers in particular have been highly inventive in adapting the features of their mobile devices - such as the sending of short text messages - to their needs, and these innovations have in turn been utilized by Finnish telecommunications companies in further developing their products and services.

SMS or Text is one of the most popular forms of messaging. Yet, despite its immense popularity, SMS has remained unexamined by science. Not only that, but the commercial organisations, who have been forced to offer SMS by a demanding public, have had very little idea why it has been successful. Indeed, they have, until very recently, planned to replace SMS with other messaging services such as MMS. This book is the first to bring together scientific studies into the values that ‘texting’ provides, examining both cultural variation in countries as different as the Philippines and Germany, as well as the differences between SMS and other communications channels like Instant Messaging and the traditional letter. It presents usability and design research which explores how SMS will evolve and what is likely to be the pattern of person-to-person messaging in the future. In short, The Inside Text is a fundamental resource for anyone interested in mobile communications at the start of the 21st Century.

André Caron and Letizia Caronia look at teenagers' use of text messaging to chat, flirt, and gossip. They find that messaging among teens has little to do with sending shorthand information quickly. Instead, it is a verbal performance through which young people create culture. Moving Cultures argues that teenagers have domesticated and reinterpreted this technology.

There is a growing body of interesting research exploring the social shaping of mobile phones, covering a wide range of topics, from new forms of communication, to the changes in time organization, the uses of public places, the display of emotions and the formation and sustaining of communities. This book evaluates the launch and adoption of mobile phones, drawing out lessons for the future. In particular, it explores how social scientists can collaborate with designers and engineers in the development of new devices and uses. It will interest people from both industry and academia. Those working in the mobile communications industry in strategy, design and marketing will find this book of particular interest. In academia, undergraduate and postgraduate students, as well as researchers in a wide range of social science fields will find it a useful reference: sociologists, economists, psychologists in areas such as Science and Technology studies; Cultural studies and New Media studies.

This text surveys some of the broader issues associated with the adoption and use of mobile communication, including communication in public versus private space, cultural differences in mobile communication, and psychological perspectives on the adoption of mobile communication technology.

Providing the first comprehensive, accessible, and international introduction to cell phone culture and theory, this book is and clear and sophisticated overview of mobile telecommunications, putting the technology in historical and technical context. Interdisciplinary in its conceptual framework, Cell Phone Culture draws on a wide range of nationa

This innovative collection of studies by international youth researchers, critically addresses questions of ‘global’ youth, incorporating material from regions as diverse as Sydney, Tehran, Dakar and Manila, and advancing our knowledge about young people around the globe. Exploring specific local youth cultures whilst mediating global mass media and consumption trends, this book traces subaltern ‘youth landscapes’ and tells subaltern ‘youth stories’ previously invisible in predominantly western youth cultural studies and theorizing. The chapters here serve as a refutation of the colonialist discourse of cultural globalization. Showcasing previously unpublished youth research from outside the English-speaking world alongside the work of well-known researchers such as Huq and Holden, these accounts of youth cultural practices highlight much that is predictably different, but also a great deal of common ground. This book goes inside creative cultural formation of youth identities to critically examine the global in the local. Bringing together an internationally diverse group of researchers, who describe and analyze youth cultures throughout Europe, the Americas, Asia, Africa and Oceania, this volume presents the first comprehensive review of global youth cultures, practices and identities, and as such is a valuable read for students and researchers of youth studies, cultural studies and sociology.