Mobile communication
By: Rich Ling and Jonathan Donner
Contributors: Donner, Jonathan
Series: Digital media and society series
Publisher: Polity
Published: 2009
Place of publication: Cambridge, UK; Malden, MA
Language: eng
Number of pages: 191
ISBN-13: 9780745644134; 9780745644141
Description: With staggering swiftness, the mobile phone has become a fixture of daily life in almost every society on earth. By the end of 2008, the world had over 4 billion mobile subscriptions. Prosperous nations boast of having more subscriptions than people. In the developing world, hundreds of millions of people without affordable access to landline telephony now have mobile handsets 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.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references (p. 165-184) and index.
Table of contents: title: Introduction : the quarter-century beyond the Maitland Commission Report; title: Short history of mobile communication; title: Mobile communication in everyday life: 3 billion new telephones; title: Mobile communication in everyday life : new choices, new challenges; title: Debates surrounding mobile communication; title: Conclusion : individual addressability, interlacing and the spillover of the control revolution.