Women's Emotions Towards the Mobile Phone

The purpose of this study is to investigate whether women's emotions associate differently with the mobile phone depending on the type of family in which they live. James A. Russell's circumplex model of affect which explores four main emotional dimensions, excitement, distress, depression and contentment, was applied. The article is based on the female sub-sample (N = 3,704) of nationally representative survey data collected from Italy, France, the UK, Germany and Spain (N = 7,255) in 2009. The results show that it is women living in blended families who seem to associate more distress and less feelings of contentment with the mobile phone than women living in other types of family. peerRe…

A different glimpse into mobilities: On the interrelations between daily spatial mobility and social mobility

We explore the link between daily spatial mobility and social mobility, taking changes in the contemporary labor market and family as examples. We propose a new theoretical approach to mobility that is defined as a productive force of social labor. Analyzing the relationship between daily spatial mobility and social mobility, we show that spatial mobility has become a strategy of compensation for the lack of social mobility. Explanations for the increase in daily spatial mobility are also provided. Lastly, we reveal how spatial mobility has the capacity to produce major social change, taking the family as an example. peerReviewed

The advanced use of mobile phones in five European countries

The paper explores the advanced users of mobile phones in Italy, France, Germany, Spain and the UK (EU5 countries) and aims to clarify the social meaning of advanced use. The mobile phone is seen as a strategic tool of social labour, whose capabilities are exploited to a different extent in the five studied countries. The analysis is based on a cross-national survey data collected in 2009 (N = 7,255). First, the results show that there are substantial differences in the advanced use of mobile phone and its predictors in Europe. Generally, only about one third of the studied mobile features are exploited. British and French people are the most advanced users, followed by German, Spanish and …

Mobile Communication: Media Effects

This entry introduces the reader to various media effects of mobile communication devices. The special focus is on mobile phones. The entry begins with a presentation of media effects on communication practices, on users, as well as on interlocutors and bystanders. It continues by analyzing the reverse effects of users on the redesign of mobile media. Lastly, the issues of how mobile communication is connected to social and geographical surroundings and how the use of mobile communication devices is related to the social structures of society are addressed. The entry concludes with a discussion of the media effects of mobile communication in the future. Keywords: digital media; mobile commu…

Print and online newspapers as material artefacts

Traditional newspaper journalism is in a state of crisis and there have been several attempts to overcome this. Many discourses have reiterated the triumphal march of a digital revolution in newspaper journalism and anticipated the end of the print newspaper. This moment calls for an in-depth analysis of reader habits of news consumption and use in order to understand the audiences for journalistic output and their relationship with the journalistic objects. In this study, we adopt a multi-method approach, integrating (1) qualitative content analysis of student essays dealing with the physicality of printed and online newspapers, (2) ethnographic observation of the use practices of readers…

Adoption of new forms of television and emotion in five European countires

Introduction: Situating the Human in Social Robots

Traditionally the social has been considered as a characteristic of human beings, not of inanimate machines. At the same time, each technological device can be considered social born out of a complex process of invention, implementation, distribution and domestication by users (Hirsch and Silverstone 2004; Lasen 2013). Since recent technical developments have made possible rather detailed technical mimicking of human beings and their social features, and incorporating them in silicon chips, there is a pronounced need to understand to what extent the humanness can be implanted in social robots. This is also an occasion to think over and discuss what the human is when considered in this conte…

Organization of the social sphere and typology of the residential setting: How the adoption of the mobile phone affects sociability in rural and urban locations

Abstract The purpose of this study is to explore the role that the possession of the mobile phone plays in the organization of the relational sphere at a social level, in different geographical settings. The research questions were: is the possession of a mobile phone more connected to urban or to rural life, and does the possession of a mobile phone influence differently the organization of the social sphere in rural and urban settings? Data on the possession of mobile phones, the frequency of forms of communicative sociability, and various socio-demographic variables were collected by means of a phone survey in 2009. The sample is representative of the population in the five most populous…

Digital generations, but not as we know them

The aim of this article is to see whether or not adolescents were the real leaders of the digital ‘revolution’ in the 1990s and whether they have sustained or even improved their position in the 2000s. The analysis is based on two surveys carried out in Italy, France, the United Kingdom, Germany, and Spain in 1996 ( N = 6609) and in 2009 ( N = 7255). The results show that the adolescents belonging to the first digital generation in 1996 were the most equipped with new technologies, although not the most intensive users. In 2009, the adolescents lost their position as the leading adopters and lagged behind youth and young adults regarding the use of new technologies and computer skills.

Capturing methodological trends in mobile communication studies

This study investigates methodological trends in mobile communication studies. The articles published over the past 20 years in five journals (Communication Research, Journal of Communication, Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, New Media & Society, and Information, Communication & Society) are analysed. The results show that the quantitative and qualitative studies have increased while theoretical accounts have remained few. The quantitative approach is the most applied. The studied articles reflect a structural problem of science communication that stems from the lack of cumulativity of scientific results and cross-national analyses and from the standard length of articles that po…

Robot Shift from Industrial Production to Social Reproduction

This chapter analyses people’s attitudes towards the use of robots in the different domains of life and, specifically, in the domain of social reproduction. The analysis is based on Eurobarometer 382 “Public Attitudes towards Robots” data (N = 26,751), which was carried out among EU citizens aged 15 and over in 27 member states in 2012. The results of the study show that on average European perceptions of robots are positive and permissive. The life domains in which robots have already been used for a long time (e.g. space exploration, manufacturing, military and security business, search and rescue work) turn out to be the most popular areas for the further penetration of robots. The least…

Innovators and innovated: Newspapers and the postdigital future beyond the “death of print”

Along with other cultural organizations, newspapers, through waves of digital disruption, have become subject to a dominant narrative of crisis. But newspapers have long participated in change. A constructivist approach, qualified by consideration of media materiality, draws attention to diverse but essential processes of innovation around them. We see a contraflow of migration from digital to print, opening up a shared media space; bonding strategies are bringing multimedia to ink on paper, while bridging via boundary objects such as QR (Quick Response) codes are connecting the two. Among other initiatives, development of automation of news production and experiments with transparency are …

Organization of the social sphere and typology of the residential setting in Europe: how sociability affects the adoption of the mobile phone in rural and urban locations

The purpose of this study is to explore the role that the possession of the mobile phone plays in the organization of the relational sphere at a social level, in different geographical settings. The research questions were: is the possession of a mobile phone more connected to urban or to rural life, and does the possession of a mobile phone influence differently the organization of the social sphere in rural and urban settings? Data on the possession of mobile phones, the frequency of forms of communicative sociability, and various socio-demographic variables were collected by means of a phone survey in 2009. The sample is representative of the population in the five most populous and indu…

The diffusion and use of information and communication technologies and the city from 1996 to 2009

The aim of this paper is to investigate whether the diffusion and the use of information and communication technologies (ICTs) are associated with the size of the place of residence where people live. The article explores how the relationship between ICTs and place of residence changed between 1996 and 2009. The study presents data from two consecutive telephone surveys collected from Italy, France, Germany, the United Kingdom and Spain. Results show an unexpected role of the relatively rural areas as attractor of new technologies. Although the largest cities have remained the locus of telecommunications on the whole, the relationship between ICTs and the place of abode has changed consider…

Mobilities and the network of personal technologies: Refining the understanding of mobility structure

Our ambition here is to refine the various typologies that compose the mobility structure. We aim to complement the work done by Urry and investigate the role played in the structure of mobility by what we call the “network of personal technologies”. Our new model consists of four different levels: macro-mobilities, micro-mobilities, media mobility and disembodied mobilities. By “macro-mobilities,” we refer to the actions which imply consistent physical displacement, such as travels, tours and commuting. By “micro-mobilities,” we mean small-scale displacements, including bodily movements and emotions. With moving media, we refer both to the new mobility provided by the smartphone to the tra…

What happened to body-to-body sociability?

This article aims to investigate how the body-to-body forms of sociability evolved from 1996 to 2009 simultaneously with the proliferation of ICTs in Europe and why this happened. The article also aims to find out how the socio-demographic profile of Europeans practising these forms developed in the same period of time. The analysis is based on two surveys carried out in Italy, France, the United Kingdom, Germany and Spain in 1996 (N = 6609) and 2009 (N = 7255). Results show that although the internal diffusion and frequency of the forms of communicative sociability changed, on the whole the amount of sociability has increased so slightly that it would be more appropriate to speak about rea…