Engagement and Exposure

Engagement and Exposure: Mobile Communication and the Ethics of Social Networking

Herausgegeben von Kristóf Nyíri

Reihe Passagen Philosophie
Social networking sites have in the past few years become extremely popular, and have turned the web into a markedly social medium. However, online social networking has led to concerns about privacy, as well as about possible counterproductive effects on making new realworld acquaintances. These effects are, in the short run, aggravated by permanent mobile connectivity. In the long run, however, mobile social networking might actually enhance real-world connections, with persons in your physical vicinity able to introduce themselves on the screen of your handheld. Privacy, anonymity, virtuality, friendship– the topic of mobile social networking clearly invites philosophical, and, in particular, ethical discussions. The volume contains papers by, among others, Charles Ess, Leopoldina Fortunati, Richard Harper, James E. Katz, Rich Ling, and Kurt Röttgers.

Citation:

Nyíri, K. (Ed.) (2009). Engagement and exposure: Mobile communication and the ethics of social networking. Vienna: Passagen Verlag.

Mobile Communications

Mobile Communications: An Introduction to New Media

Nicola Green and Leslie Haddon

Product Description
The mobile phone has achieved a global presence faster than any other form of information and communication technology. A global multi-billion dollar industry, this small, mundane device is now an intrinsic part of our everyday life.

This communications medium has had an immense social and cultural impact and continues to evolve. Talking, texting, photographing, videoing, connecting to a network of other media - the cellphone now seems essential. But, beyond the ways in which it has actively restructured our daily lives, the mobile has changed our sense of ourselves and the way we see the world. The relationship between public and private space, how we view time and space, how we rely on and negotiate social networks - all are increasingly centred on this small piece of technology.

Mobile Communications presents a succinct, challenging, and accessible overview of the transformations and challenges presented by this most personal, yet most overlooked technology.

About the authors
Nicola Green is Senior Lecturer in New Media and New Technologies in the Dept of Sociology, University of Surrey.
Leslie Haddon is Researcher and Associate Lecturer in the Dept of Media and Communications, London School of Economics and Political Sciences.

Citation:

Green, N., & Haddon, L. (2009). Mobile communications: An introduction to new media. New York, NY: Berg.

Mobile Phones and Mobile Communication

Mobile Phones and Mobile Communication

Rich Ling and Jonathan Donner

Product Description
With staggering swiftness, the mobile phone has become a fixture of daily life in almost every society on earth. In 2007, the world had over 3 billion mobile subscriptions. Prosperous nations boast of having more subscriptions than people. In the developing world, hundreds of millions of people who could never afford a landline telephone now have a mobile number of their own. With a mobile in our hand many of us feel safer, more productive, and more connected to loved ones, but perhaps also more distracted and less involved with things happening immediately around us.

Written by two leading researchers in the field, this volume presents an overview of the mobile telephone as a social and cultural phenomenon. Research is summarized and made accessible though detailed descriptions of ten mobile users from around the world. These illustrate popular debates, as well as deeper social forces at work. The book concludes by considering three themes: the tighter interlacing of daily activities; a revolution of control in the social sphere, and the arrival of a world where the majority of its inhabitants are reachable, anytime, anywhere.

About the Author
Rich Ling is Senior Researcher at the Telenor Research Institute in Norway.
Jonathan Donner is Researcher for Microsoft Research India.

Citation:

Ling, R., & Donner, J. (2009). Mobile phones and mobile communication. Polity Press.

Mobile Communication and the Ethics of Social Networking

Budapest, Hungary

September 25–27, 2008

Conference organized by the Hungarian Academy of Sciences and T-Mobile Hungary.

Contributions are invited from philosophers, sociologists, psychologists, media theorists, and other interested scholars on the following and related topics: 

• Ethical implications of mediated relationships
• The mobile internet
• Exploring the self through social networking
• Mutual respect und acknowledgement
• Gossip and social cohesion
• The re-interpretation of privacy
• Geobrowsing, privacy, and GPS-equipped phones
• Real and virtual identities Inclusion of elderly people
• Exclusion and the network effect
• Social networking and big business
• Netocracy
• Fraud and secrecy
• Surveillance Informatics challenging bioethics (genomics and the new bioloy)

The Global and Globalizing Dimensions of Mobile Communication: Developing or Developed? (International Communication Association Preconference 2008)

Montreal, Canada

May 21-22, 2008

Organized by the University of Michigan Department of Communication Studies, Telenor Research, and Temple University.

CFP: Mobile Communication and the Ethics of Social Networking

[ Call for Abstracts ] 

Mobile Communication and the Ethics of Social Networking

Budapest, Hungary

September 25–27, 2008

Conference organized by the Hungarian Academy of Sciences and T-Mobile Hungary.

Contributions are invited from philosophers, sociologists, psychologists, media theorists, and other interested scholars on the following and related topics: 

• Ethical implications of mediated relationships
• The mobile internet
• Exploring the self through social networking
• Mutual respect und acknowledgement
• Gossip and social cohesion
• The re-interpretation of privacy
• Geobrowsing, privacy, and GPS-equipped phones
• Real and virtual identities Inclusion of elderly people
• Exclusion and the network effect
• Social networking and big business
• Netocracy
• Fraud and secrecy
• Surveillance Informatics challenging bioethics (genomics and the new bioloy)

Target dates:

Submission of abstracts (max. 300 words) and short biographical statements (max. 150 words) by March 25, 2008. Early submissions are strongly encouraged. Please send your submissions to Kristóf Nyíri, knyiri@t-email.hu. 

Those submitting abstracts will be notified of the decision concerning acceptance by Apr. 12, 2008. Deadline for receipt of draft full-length (max. 2500 words) versions of papers: July 13, 2008. Receipt of draft papers by this deadline is a condition for inclusion in the program. The papers will be compiled and distributed to all participants at the time of the conference.

New Tech, New Ties

New Tech, New Ties: How Mobile Communication is Reshaping Social Cohesion.

Rich Ling

Book Description
The message of this book is simple: the mobile phone strengthens social bonds among family and friends. With a traditional land-line telephone, we place calls to a location and ask hopefully if someone is "there"; with a mobile phone, we have instant and perpetual access to friends and family regardless of where they are. But when we are engaged in these intimate conversations with absent friends, what happens to our relationship with the people who are actually in the same room with us?

In New Tech, New Ties, Rich Ling examines how the mobile telephone affects both kinds of interactions--those mediated by mobile communication and those that are face to face. Ling finds that through the use of various social rituals the mobile telephone strengthens social ties within the circle of friends and family--sometimes at the expense of interaction with those who are physically present--and creates what he calls "bounded solidarity."

Ling argues that mobile communication helps to engender and develop social cohesion within the family and the peer group. Drawing on the work of Emile Durkheim, Erving Goffman, and Randall Collins, Ling shows that ritual interaction is a catalyst for the development of social bonding. From this perspective, he examines how mobile communication affects face-to-face ritual situations and how ritual is used in interaction mediated by mobile communication. He looks at the evidence, including interviews and observations from around the world, that documents the effect of mobile communication on social bonding and also examines some of the other possibly problematic issues raised by tighter social cohesion in small groups.

About the Author
Rich Ling is Senior Researcher at the Norwegian telecommunications company Telenor and Adjunct Research Scientist at the University of Michigan. He is the author of The Mobile Connection: The Cell Phone's Impact on Society.

Citation:

Ling, R. (2008). New tech, new ties: How mobile communication is reshaping social cohesion. The MIT Press.