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Adriana de Souza e Silva1, Jeffrey Boase2, Scott Campbell3, Colin Agur4, Ragan Glover-Rijkse5
1North Carolina State University, United States of America; 2University of Toronto, Canada; 3University of Michigan, United States of America; 4University of Minnesota Twin Cities, United States of America; 5Methodist University, United States of America
This panel submission identifies the contours of major shifts in mobile media and communication. Looking beyond the smartphone era, digital flows and configurations are increasingly spread throughout our environments and supported by complex layers of invisible infrastructures. The panel offers four papers that engage with the changing nature of mobile communication and the implications of these changes for everyday social life – as well as not-so-everyday moments of hardship and social unrest. The first paper revisits the original idea of “hybrid space,” as hybrid spaces 2.0, by updating the concept and expanding its theoretical utility. The second paper argues that the pervasive use of mobile technologies reconfigures the sociotechnical landscape, particularly by supporting the maintenance of complex weak and strong tie personal networks. The third paper re-examines the relationship between mobile communication and political protest, highlighting changes in technology and social practices. The fourth paper looks at the inclusion of mobile networks in rural regions, identifying three concurrent shifts with mobile connectivity within these regions: makeshift access, initial access, and hyperconnectivity. Collectively, the papers offer new ways of understanding how mobile communication is intertwined with revolutions in different components of society, including rural and urban, work and home, private life and civic life.
