>>> context weblog
sampling new cultural context
| home | site map | about context | donate | lang >>> español - català |
friday :: august 26, 2005
   
 
keitai internet: territory machines

In contrast to 'the cellular phone' of the US (defined by technical infrastructure), and 'the mobile' of the UK (defined by the untethering from fixed location), the Japanese term, 'keitai' (roughly translated, 'something you carry with you'), references a somewhat different set of dimensions. A keitai is not so much about a new technical capability or freedom of motion, but about a snug and intimate technosocial tethering, a personal device supporting communications that are a constant, lightweight, and mundane presence in everyday life.

The development of keitai uses and cultures is a complex alchemy of technological, social, cultural, economic, and historical factors that make it difficult to transplant wholesale.

Current social and cultural study of mobile phone use is reminiscent of the state of the study of the Internet ten years ago. Many researchers have moved from Internet studies to mobile communication studies.

Unlike the Internet, where the US has dominated both development and adoption trends, contemporary mobile communications have been driven forward most prominently by Asian and European countries, upsetting the geopolitics of information technology advancement. This disruption of the status-quo, combined with the diversity in implementation of mobile communications infrastructures, has meant that wireless technology, from the start, has been seen as located in specific social, cultural, and historical contexts, rather than seen as a cross-culturally universal solution (as Internet protocols are often cast as).

We critique a pervasive assumption that society and culture are irreducibly variable but technologies are universal. These approaches posit that technologies are both constructive of and constructed by historical, social and cultural contexts, arguing against the analytic separation of the social and technical.

Keitai was a business oriented technology that was hijacked by popular youth consumer cultures in the late nineties.

The social life of the keitai resonates with research traditions in computer science of 'pervasive' or 'ubiquitous computing' which have argued for a model of computing more seamlessly integrated with a range of physical objects, locations, and architectures. In many ways, contemporary keitai usage is an instantiation of these visions of computation as it has migrated away from the desktop and into more and more settings of everyday life. Yet the contemporary keitai usage differs substantially from many of the visions of sensors, smart appliances, and tangible interfaces that characterize the field of ubiquitous computing. What the work in this volume demonstrates is that 'ubiquitous computing' might best be conceptualized not as a constellation of technical features, but as sociotechnical practices of using and engaging with information technologies in an ongoing, lightweight, and pervasive way. >from *Personal, Portable, Pedestrian: Mobile Phones in Japanese Life.* Edited by Mizuko Ito, Daisuke Okabe, and Misa Matsuda. Cambridge: MIT Press, 2005

related context
>
datacities: sensity. may 13, 2005
> grafedia: hyperlinks for the urban landscape. february 18, 2005
> plan: pervasive and locative arts network. january 28, 2005
> the sensor revolution. march 2, 2004
> a decade in the development of mobile communications in japan. august 4, 2003
> flow: the design challenge of pervasive computing. november 6, 2002
> smart mobs. new uses of mobile media. october 3, 2002

imago
>
japanese ironman impressed by the full potential of keitai

sonic flow
>
my territorial machine [stream]
my territorial machine [download]

| permaLink






> context weblog archive
december 2006
november 2006
october 2006
september 2006
august 2006
july 2006
june 2006
may 2006
april 2006
march 2006
february 2006
january 2006
december 2005
november 2005
october 2005
september 2005
august 2005
july 2005
june 2005
may 2005
april 2005
march 2005
february 2005
january 2005
december 2004
november 2004
october 2004
september 2004
august 2004
july 2004
june 2004
may 2004
april 2004
march 2004
february 2004
january 2004
december 2003
november 2003
october 2003
june 2003
may 2003
april 2003
march 2003
february 2003
january 2003
december 2002
november 2002
october 2002
july 2002
june 2002
may 2002
april 2002
march 2002
february 2002
january 2002
countdown 2002
december 2001
november 2001
october 2001
september 2001
august 2001

more news in
> sitemap

Google


context archives all www
   "active, informed citizen participation is the key to shaping the network society. a new 'public sphere' is required." seattle statement
| home | site map | about context | donate | lang >>> español - català |
03 http://straddle3.net/context/03/en/2005_08_26.html