1st Edition

Mobile Communication Bringing Us Together and Tearing Us Apart

Edited By Scott Campbell, Rich Ling Copyright 2011
    358 Pages
    by Routledge

    360 Pages
    by Routledge

    Mobile Communication covers a wide range of topics. These include the replacement of co-present interaction with mediated contact and analysis of mobile-based cohesion and gender. The authors also explore the role of media choice and its effect on the quality as well as quantity of social cohesion. Other topics include mobile communication and communities of interest; and mobile communication, cohesion, and youth.

    This volume brings together scholars from around the world to consider how mobile communication both builds and destroys our sense of social cohesion. There is no question that uses of technology can lead to increased cohesion within personal communities. For example, this volume includes research on caravan couples in Australia, factory workers in China, young couples in Germany, citizens in Slovenia, and sports clubs in Ireland. It also includes research on drunken calls between university students in the US, calls of international students in Switzerland and communications between immigrant women in Melbourne, Australia.

    However, the contributors also argue that as social networks become inundated with mobile communication users, these users may become increasingly isolated and social division can ensue.

    1. Mobile Communication: Bringing Us Together and Tearing Us Apart 2. Mobile Symbiosis: A Precursor to Public Risk-Taking Behavior? 3. Mobile Specters of Intimacy: A Case Study of Women and Mobile Intimacy 4. (Im)mobile Mobility: Marginal Youth and Mobile Phones in Beijing 5. Mobiles Are Not That Personal: The Unexpected Consequences of the Accountability, Accessibility, and Transparency Afforded by Mobile Telephony 6. Mobile Communication in Intimate Relationships: Relationship Development and the Multiple Dialectics of Couples’ Media Usage and Communication 7. Bonds and Bridges: Mobile Phone Use and Social Capital Debates 8. Extended Sociability and Relational Capital Management: Interweaving ICTs and Social Relations 9. Network and Mobile Sociality in Personal Communities: Exploring Personal Networks of ICT Users 10. There’s an Off-line Community on the Line! 11. Mobile Social Networking: Learning from Tourists’ Use of CB Radio in the Australian Outback 12. Generation Disconnections: Youth Culture and Mobile Communication 13. Interpersonal Communication beyond Geographical Constraints: A Case of College Students Who Maintain Geographically Dispersed Relationships Their Impact on Social Cohesion 15. Conclusion: Connecting and Disconnecting through Mobile Communication

    Biography

    Scott W. Campbell is an assistant professor of Communication Studies and Pohs Fellow of Telecommunications at the University of Michigan, and will be an associate professor in the fall of 2011. Rich Ling, Ph.D., is a professor at the IT University of Copenhagen and is a researcher at Telenor’s research institute in Norway. He has also been the Pohs visiting professor of communication studies at the University of Michigan.