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(More customer reviews)This is a book of thirty two independent chapters written by some of the leaders in mobile communication studies by MIT Press, a leader in ethnographic titles devoted to technology.
The chapters span research in countries and regions including Ghana, China, Mexico, Northern Africa, the Arab Gulf States, New Zealand, Japan, Singapore, Israel, India, the Philippines, Indonesia and South Korea. The editor, James E. Katz, heads the Center for Mobile Communication Studies at Rutgers University.
The focus is not on mobile technology, but how it is used by people based on primary research.
The authors are largely university researchers or researchers in mobile carrier labs. Included are well known mobile ethnographers Jan Chipchase and early prognosticators on technology adoption such as Harold Rheingold and Sherry Turkle.
Much of this type of research is conducted within companies with mobile business interests, and is never published. The value of the book is as a guide to university mobile research centers, who is publishing publicly in the field, in which journals, and at which conferences.
Every essay is fascinating, readable, and extensively footnoted.
The first section is Digital Divides and Social Mobility: studies of feature phone use in developing countries. The second is Sociality and Copresence: studies of dimensions of the always connected individual and group. The third section, Politics and Social Change includes specific studies on democracy, civil society and social change driven by individual and group use of mobile technology. The last section is Culture and Imagination: including studies of mobile gaming, courtship and family dynamics in India, music, and even mobile applications to spiritual mysticism in the Philippines.
I look forward to more books in this format on the topic, published every 2-3 years. Mobile society is a critical worldchanging topic, and moves quickly.
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