240 Pages
    by Routledge

    238 Pages
    by Routledge

    Gerard Goggin has produced an incisive and penetrating overview of the world according to mobiles. Covering sight, sound and status, plus a host of other issues, he provides a provocative analysis of how mobile communication gadgets come to play such a prominent role in our lives. Any scholar of New Media will want to read this bookJames Katz, Department of Communication, Rutgers University, USA

    With billions of users worldwide, the cell phone is not only a successful communications technology; it is also key to the future of media. Global Mobile Media offers an overview of the complex topic of mobile media, looking at the emerging industry structures, new media economies, mobile media cultures and network politics of cell phones as they move centre-stage in media industries.

    The development, adoption and significance of cell phones for society and culture have been registered in a growing body of work. Where existing books have focused on communication, and on the social and cultural aspects of mobile media, Global Mobile Media looks at the media dimensions. Goggin provides a pioneering yet measured evaluation of how cell phone corporations, media interests, users and policy makers are together shaping a new media dispensation.

    Global Mobile Media successfully places new mobile media historically, socially and culturally in a wider field of portable media technologies through extensive case studies, including:

    • the rise of smartphones, with a detailed discussion of the Apple iPhone and how it has catalysed a new phase in convergent media, audiences and innovation
    • the new agenda in cultural politics and media policy, featuring topics such as iPhone apps and control, mobile commons, and open mobile networks
    • a succinct map of the political economy of mobile media, identifying key players, patterns of ownership and control, institutions, and issues
    • a critical account of cell phones’ involvement in and contribution to much-discussed new forms of production and consumption, such as user-generated content, p2p networks, open and free source software networks
    • an anatomy of how cell phones relate to other online media, particularly the Internet and wireless technologies.

    Global Mobile Media is an engaging, accessible text which will be of immense interest to upper-level undergraduates, postgraduates and researchers in Communication Studies, Cultural Studies and Media Studies, as well as those taking New Media courses.

    @contents: Selected Contents: List of Tables and Figures  Acknowledgements  List of Abbreviations  Chapter 1. Introduction: Mobiles as global media  Part I Mobiles and the New Media Economies  Chapter 2. Power and mobile media: structures, networks, and control  Chapter 3. Cultural economy of mobiles: new relations of production and consumption  Part II Mobile Media Cultures  Chapter 4. Mobile music: ringtones, music players, and the sound of everything  Chapter 5. The mobile invention of television: post-broadcasting and audiovisual politics  Chapter 6. Mobile gaming: playing the portable  Chapter 7. Mobile Internet: new social technologies  Part III Politics of Mobile Media Networks  Chapter 8. The computer, the Internet, and the mobile: the case of the iPhone  Chapter 9. The mobile commons? Open networked cultures beyond the politics of code  Chapter 10. Conclusion: Culture garden — for mobile media futures  Notes  Bibliography  Index

    Biography

    Gerard Goggin is Professor of Digital Communication in the Journalism and Media Research Centre, University of New South Wales, Australia. His research interests focus on mobile media, Internet, disability, media history and policy. Previous publications include Internationalizing Internet Studies (2009), Mobile Technologies: From Telecommunications to Media (with Larissa Hjorth, 2009), Mobile Phone Cultures (2008), Mobile Media (with Larissa Hjorth, 2007), Cell Phone Culture (2006) and Digital Disability (2003).

    Gerard Goggin has produced an incisive and penetrating overview of the world according to mobiles. Covering sight, sound and status, plus a host of other issues, he provides a provocative analysis of how mobile communication gadgets come to play such a prominent role in our lives. Any scholar of New Media will want to read this book - James Katz, Department of Communication, Rutgers University, USA