User:Wei-Ming Chiu

Kenny Chiu

Annotated Bibliography: Social Aspects of Wireless Telephony

Crabtree, J., Nathan, M., and Roberts, S.,Mobile UK - Mobile Phones and Everyday Life [Online]Available:http://www.theworkfoundation.com/pdf/184373009X.pdf [Accessed 9 Aug. 2004].

This research paper provides a precise examination of mobile phone use in the UK. It evaluates what makes the mobile phone such an essential device in a Briton’s everyday life; and the reason why being “mobile� is so important. Mobile phones have become an essential item in every citizen’s daily life. Nearly half of the British mobile phone users would like mobile phones to be banned from use in public places. “This suggests that personalisation is not always that personal and that mobile phones are often less individual than we assume.�(P36) This research compares the successful Japanese mobile phone service I-mode and British Mobile Phone, and finding out the differences between those two very different markets. Although this research is based on finding the future opportunities for mobile service providers; it has an explicit look into the roles of mobile communication in everyday life.

Wei-Ming Chiu 22:19, 10 Aug 2004 (EST)

Harkin, J. (2003), Mobilisation:The Growing Public Interest in Mobile Technology[Online] Available: http://www.demos.co.uk/MOBRft_pdf_media_public.aspx [Accessed 9 Aug. 2004]

This paper argues that ‘Location-awareness’ will be one of the most important functions of the next generation’s mobile phones. Location-awareness could be the most important ‘’Killer-app� for the future mobile phones. Pinpointed users are not only receiving information from local content providers, but also sending or receiving information about locations of themselves and other users. Taking that into account, the connections between devices in a particular area are always on. Again, the issue of privacy will emerge; however, this paper suggests that once people communicate with each other via mobile phone, it is possible to sacrifice some personal interests. As an example, Harkin uses I-mode service in Japan; people are requiring contracts to connect to strangers. He also argues that the government and the Local authorities should begin to prepare developing citizen-oriented mobile technology in long-term.

This report seeks to map and explain the phenomenon of mobilisation – the process by which mobile technologies are folding themselves into the fabric of our economies, social lives and communities. It confirms that mobile users are far ahead of political institutions in the creative embrace of mobile telephony. But in an age of unprecedented atomisation, mobile use remains largely restricted within personal networks of friends, colleagues and family. If mobiles are important to the modern sense of self, it is because they function as comfort objects, antidotes to the hostile terrain of wider society. And just as teenagers flock to the mobile because it offers a communication channel that remains outside the surveillance of parents and teachers, one of the central attractions of mobile technologies for adults is that they appear to be tethered to nothing and beholden to no one.

Wei-Ming Chiu 22:19, 10 Aug 2004 (EST)

"Mobile Phone", Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia [Online]Available:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mobile_phone [Accessed 7 Aug. 2004]

This page provides a wide range of understanding mobile phones, including history, features, spectrum allocation, differences between systems. By a way of explanation, this page provides uncomplicated terms to illustrate the technical terms used in telecommunication fields. The Believable page is edited and updated by a wide-range of individuals; it includes quite wide coverage of the term, even the 'terms in other languages'. Hypertexts in its internal links provide a wide range of both general knowledge and technical information. This page could be seen as a starting page of gathering information of mobile phone technologies and its social aspects; for example, there is an internal link: Japanese cell phone culture, which has a quite accurate description of subcultures between mobile phone users particularly teenagers in Japan where has the most successfully and ubiquitous mobile phone networks in the world.

Wei-Ming Chiu 22:19, 10 Aug 2004 (EST)

Wei-Ming Chiu 20:35, 10 Aug 2004 (EST)

Phillips, D. (2004)Cell Phones, Surveillance, and the State: Monitoring Daily Life, "Dissent" [Online], vol. 51, no. 2, pp 53-58. Available:ProQuest Social Science Journals [Accessed 7 Aug. 2004]

A controversial issue is emerging with mobile phones becoming everyone’s equipment for daily life: Who has the right to know where you are at any particular time? It is no doubt that mobile phone companies always know where their users are (not very precisely, but almost in which area); otherwise telephone connection would not be available. Wireless 9-1-1 system has triggered the change of Automatic Number Identification/Automatic Location Identification (ANI/ALI) system which its database only needs to be updated when new phones have been installed or old phones have been removed initially. After all, third-party location services are needed in order to pinpoint the mobile emergency calls. However, which parties have the right to access that information for any particular interest is the question behind it. Today’s mobile phone system has become another kind of surveillance tool in society. Phillips suggests that rather than focusing on individual privacy issue, activists should look at the relationship between public safety purposes which he illustrates the 9-1-1 service in the United State, and its aspects of democracy.

Wei-Ming Chiu 22:19, 10 Aug 2004 (EST)

Wei-Ming Chiu 20:35, 10 Aug 2004 (EST)

Rheingold, H. (2002)Smart Mobs: The Next Social Revolution, New York :Basic Book. ISBN 0738208612

This book draws an attention on how mobile communication has been changing human society. The smart mobs are made possible only because of the inexpensive microchips and variety of applications on the Internet. Due to the widespread ownership of mobile phone, mobile communication has been increasing the human ability for cooperation. Rheingold demonstrates that the invisible communities are growing throughout; Shibuya teenagers’ subculture changes the communication standard of the whole society is probably the best example. In addition, Rheingold argues that "why is the Japanese company DoCoMo profiting from enhanced wireless Internet services while US and European mobile telephony operators struggle to avoid failure?" This book gives an insight that shows mobile devices are now causing "the next social revolution"; in many cases, wireless communication provides extreme motive forces to change the world (in someway). However, when human cooperation is highly reliant on mobile communication, there are its beneficial and destructive aspects. The new challenge of technology (both new and ‘old’), regulatory regimes, and the whole communication industries are now emerging; while the world "unwiring".

Wei-Ming Chiu 22:19, 10 Aug 2004 (EST)

Wei-Ming Chiu 20:45, 10 Aug 2004 (EST)

Snowden, C. (2003) What’s Happening? Mobile Communication Technology and the Surveillance Function of News, Transformations: online journal of region, culture and society [Online], no.7. Available: http://transformations.cqu.edu.au/journal/issue_07/article_03.shtml [Accessed 8 Aug. 2004]

This paper discusses that due to widespread mobile communications technology, mobile device users are allowed to access news just about anywhere so long as the signal can reach; moreover users are allowed to decide which kinds of news are received. Snowden discusses that news has its “surveillance function� which means people monitoring the environment both the cyberspace and the reality environment.

Until recently, the use of mobile communication was confined mostly to one to one communication, primarily by voice, but also by Short Message Servicing (SMS). The introduction of mobile Internet access and a range of associated services, including the ability (for one to many messaging), is now creating a much more diverse and sophisticated mobile media environment. In the multiple environments of contemporary life, where people are mobile over large distances and interact with numerous social networks, there is an increased need and desire for people to be able to access information about what is going on in different places.

The surveillance function is not particularly only for monitoring danger but also the interest. Snowden points out that teenager and young adult subcultures in Japan and Norway have driven the surveillance function into its social environment which is quite different from the people in other use.

Wei-Ming Chiu 22:19, 10 Aug 2004 (EST)

Straubhaar, J. and LaRose, R. (2002) “Media Now: Communications Media in the Information Age�, Belmont: Wadsworth. ISBN 0534551246

This book provides a general introduction to mass communication; its focuses are on which media have been changed by technology. This book covers the mass media from historical, theoretical and social aspects. Straubhaar and LaRose put forward a comprehensive understanding from history of the different media to the effects driven by technology developments. Straubhaar and LaRose state that convergence of the Internet and other mass digital telecommunications infrastructure is creating a new communication era. In short, this book shows where today’s communication industries came from, how they transform in today’s information age; also, it states critical issues such as privacy and copyright which emerging from information age.

Wei-Ming Chiu 22:19, 10 Aug 2004 (EST)

Wei-Ming Chiu 21:45, 9 Aug 2004 (EST)

Thurlow, C. (2002) Generation Txt? The sociolinguistics of young people's text-messaging [Online]. Available:http: //www.shu.ac.uk/daol/articles/v1/n1/a3/thurlow2002003-paper.html [Accessed 8 Aug. 2004]

This paper has investigated the different usages of txt message or SMS between ordinary users and teenager users. This article discusses that language of SMS is re-inventing the English language; due to the sociolinguistic maxim in these days are:

• brevity and speed
• paralinguistic restitution
• phonological approximation

SMS language also has been seen as non-standard English (as well as other languages). Young users’ text messages are relatively linguistically unremarkable and communicatively adept. In addition, research of the relatively frequency of different functions orientations is showing that text messages sending between young people can be seen have its 'relational' and 'informational' dimensions of communication in participant responses. In this point of view, young text messagers have its own computer-mediated discourse beyond the ‘standard’ language for its own purposes.

Wei-Ming Chiu 11:16, 10 Sep 2004 (EST)