Mobile Studies

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This chapter explores the implications of mobile technologies on gender through the lens of gender rituals. While maintaining social order and social roles, rituals also legitimate key category differences, ideologies, and inequalities. The increasing convergence of media and content in mobile devices, and the blurring of the spaces for work, family, and leisure amidst the landscape of globalization and mobility have important implications for the enactment of rituals, and in the performance of gender. The chapter discusses this mutual shaping of gender rituals and mobile technologies through a case study of the Philippines, with some broad implications for other contexts. The study finds that the personalization, mobility, and multitude of applications afforded by mobile devices offer many opportunities for the exploration of new possibilities for subjectivity that challenge particular gender stereotypes and restrictions while simultaneously affirming particular gender rituals. Whi...

In examining and exploring the currents and trends of mobile story-
telling, we shall also take a look at the historical developments of mobile
media and mobile stories. Mobile media as such is not new. The Greeks
(mid-eighth century BCE) and Romans used wax tables (43–410 AD) for
documentation and communication. From then up to now, mobile media
have been evolving in their respective forms, features and functions. By
2022, online videos will make up more than 82% of all consumer internet
traffic—15 times higher than it was in 2017 (Cisco, 2020 online). By
2023, nearly two-thirds of the global population will have Internet access
and over 70% of the global population will have mobile connectivity.
Having experienced many changes, challenges and chances over centuries,
mobile media have always been functioning differently to the same overall
objective, that is, to create and cater to time-specific needs, tastes, prefer-
ences and styles in storytelling as mentioned in the second chapter of this
collection (Fig. 1.1).
In the context of constant innovation, one should remember that those
who do not change and adjust to the changing condition can go out of
business rapidly. Steven Sasson invented the world’s first digital camera
while working at Eastman Kodak in 1975. It weighed 3.6 kg and shot a
mere 0.01MP. The camera could store 30 images on a delicate cassette.
The “Kodak moment” became a signifying moment in photography. In
1976, Kodak had 85% market share in cameras and 90% market share
in film. In 2021, however, the company filed for bankruptcy. The first
camera phone was introduced in Japan, the SHARP J-SH04 – 2000 and
as indicated in the first chapter, most early mobile filmmakers used a Nokia N95. In 2007, Nokia tried to develop everything, including soft-
ware for mobile devices, operating systems and an online video platform,
which was called OVI. Apple’s business model based on the App store
changed the entire smartphone landscape. With the iPhone 4s, which
introduced 1080p as broadcasting standard video, Apple has secured its
market share by October 2011.

O presente artigo apresenta um relato de experiência do projeto de pesquisa “A ecomotricidade no estado de Sergipe”, realizado durante os anos de 2014 e 2017, centrando a discussão no desenvolvimento dos métodos propostos pelo projeto para a pesquisa em/sobre ecomotricidade. Proposto pelo Departamento de Educação Física da
Universidade Federal de Sergipe, o objetivo central do projeto foi investigar aspectos fundamentais da relação de homens e mulheres com experiências de ecomotricidade no estado de Sergipe. Para alcançar tal objetivo, o projeto desenvolveu um conjunto de métodos, incluindo análise textual, entrevistas, narrativas, categorização de perfis, etnografias em movimento e leituras críticas. Em seu conjunto, o relato oferece uma perspectiva da experiência de três anos de elaboração, avaliação, execução e reflexão desses métodos, oferecendo-se, assim, exemplos e potencial inspiração para pesquisas futuras em/sobre ecomotricidade.

Mobile phones now play an influential part in the lives of men who surf. Mobile phones enable men who surf to access surf forecasts, up-to-the minute weather conditions and facilitate the coming together of masculinity, bodies, affects, emotions, friendship, risk, waves, etc. The materiality of mobile phones is also gendered in the ways they assemble with these men’s embodied masculine relationships, tastes and techniques e.g. what model of phone they use and the features it has, where and how they use it, what they do on it, how their physical techniques are orientated according to them, how their senses are extended, how they come to experience places of surfing, how they connect to a cornucopia of other technologies through them and more. It’s a process that refigures negotiations of masculinity in the surfing culture.
In this chapter I provide an ethnographic account of how some examples of relationships between mobile phones, masculinity, bodies and men play out. I interrogate these relationships through ontological experiences of sport, specifically surfing. As masculinity theorist Ian Wellard explains, sport is a significant site for the “making and remaking” of masculinities and bodies. It is also a site where mobile media – mobile phones, e-readers, laptops and tablets – are now integrated.

This opening chapter starts with a working definition of what is meant by mobile studies throughout this book, followed by a critical review of mobile studies around the world. The review consists of two parts. The first part of the review is to map the major currents of mobile studies while the second part is to locate topics of investigation, areas of examination and their major findings. To initiate a new branch of mobile studies, that is, comparative mobile studies, this chapter introduces theories, methods, dimensions, and directions of this field.