Mobile Phone Cultures

Gerard Goggin

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2013
• eBook ISBN: 9781135186678
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Media Studies
• Index: Social Sciences

What do we really know about mobile phone culture? This provocative and comprehensive collection explores the cultural and media dimensions of mobile phones around the world.

An international team of contributors look at how mobiles have been imagined through advertising and social representations - tracing the scripting and shaping of the technology through gender, sexuality, religion, communication style - and explore the locations of mobile phone culture in modernity, urban settings and even transnational families.

This book also provides a guide to convergent mobile phone culture, with fresh, innovative accounts of text messaging, Blackberry, camera phones, moblogging and mobile adventures in television. Mobile Phone Culture opens up important new perspectives on how we understand this intimate yet public cultural technology.

Previously published as a special issue of Continuum: Journal of Media and Cultural Studies.

The Construction of the Mobile Experience: the Role of Advertising Campaigns in the Appropriation of Mobile Phone Technologies

Juan Miguel Aguado & Inmaculada J. Martínez

Introduction: Advertising Discourse and Domestication Processes

The current approach to the social uses of the mobile phone tends to emphasize their private nature, restricting the configuration of their shared image to those meanings performed in personal and group interaction rituals. The use of the idea of domestication is a good example of this prevalence given to the role of social private actors in the appropriation of the mobile phone. Domestication originally referred to the process of socio-cultural appropriation of technologies in the context of the family home (Silverstone et al., 1992; Silverstone, 1994; Silverstone & Haddon, 1996). In this paper we intend to revise the term for the field of mobile phone technology appropriation by focusing on the role that commercial discourses play in the construction of a coherent imaginary of these technologies.

Two conceptual choices mark our critique of the current literature on domestication the first is to open the appropriation process to other cultural spaces beyond the strict limits of the home, which seems almost obvious when approaching mobile technologies (Haddon, 2000). The second choice is to consider appropriation as a part of consumption processes, and, hence, as a simultaneously public and private process. Our aim is to verify the oft-presupposed complicity between institutional and non-institutional discourses and to clarify the way in which they cooperate to connect the imaginary o mobile phone technologies to the concrete ‘biography of objects’ (Kopytoff, 1986).

Consumption is a cultural phenomenon that increasingly involves specific forms of appropriation, re-structuration and transformation of meaning practices with regard to things and symbols (Appadurai, 1986). This approach to consumption as a meaning negotiation process seems especially relevant in the case of mobile phone technologies, in which appropriation by users must face a significant complexity derived from their strange condition with regard to standardized practices and meanings.

Following Ibáñez (1994), we understand advertising as a prevalent institutional discourse in the context of consumption practices. Through advertising, institutional actors pose and disseminate changing proposals of meaning frames attached to functional instructions, suggestions and evocative analogies. Its symbolic resources however, are not only social contexts of use or mere plain representations of values, but life episodes, biographic anecdotes and experiential instructions. By means of advertising discourse, products, services or brands become not just things, behaviours or names that ultimately serve the purpose of satisfying needs or desires for consumers, but systems of meanings and practices that involve social rituals and discourses (Baudrillard, 1981; Appadurai, 1986; Featherstone, 2001). Advertising discourse transforms practices, objects and subjects into signs that are used as parts of a cultural conversation. In this way, products and services become the medium through which brands and consumers construct each other in terms of social interaction.

Advertising Experiences and Experiencing Identities

Understanding consumption as a meaning negotiation process between institutional and non-institutional discourses asks for a kind of ‘common language’ by means of which they represent—and thus recognize—each other. That coherent code allows translating the institutional discursive axis (the use of the product or service, the social image of the brand) to the social discursive axis (interaction patterns and values) and vice versa. The presentation of recognizable experiences related to objects, uses and lifestyles operates in our understanding as the ‘common code’ for institutional and non-institutional discourses.

On the side of institutional discourses, Pine & Gilmore (1999), Rifkin (2000) and Schmitt (1999) observe an experiential turn in marketing strategies. In a context of increasingly undifferentiated products and services, the influence of multi-level commercialization strategies developed in cultural industries and the adaptive potential introduced by ICTs have moved the focus of consumption dynamics from property to access (Rifkin, 2000) so that the value of consumption lies less in owning product than in having access to its use. In such a context the assets of a brand lie rather in its capability to generate loyal customers than in its capacity to generate products. Consequently, companies turn their attention to the way in which consumers experience their products and services, codifying the access to goods or services in terms of experiences that link brand imagery to customers' social imager through values, emotions and identity markers.

On the side of non-institutional discourses, biographies and identities (related to both objects and subjects) are codified in terms of significant experiences, that is, life events which involve meanings, emotions, uses and interactions which are registered and integrated into what Giddens (1991) calls the narratives of the self.

In the case of mobile phones, advertising discourses usually focus on the social interaction nature of the mobile experience and on the transparency of experiential mediation (accessing mediated experiences equates to experiencing them). Brand or campaign slogans constitute a good example of this: ‘connecting people’, ‘experienc life’; ‘don't miss a moment’, ‘see new, hear new, feel new’, ‘the vivacity of life’, or ‘live it!’

From a functional point of view, advertisements are addressed to produce discursive coherence between institutional and non-institutional discourses, becoming a sort o meeting point where advertisers' meaning proposals and social context-situated meaning practices confront their symbolic imaginaries and represent each other. This kind of discursive mediation is the key element of MacCannell's (1976) concept of cultural experiences.

Cultural experiences refer to the kinds of experiences that constitute consumption practices, and, subsequently, commercial and media discourses. According to previous work (Thompson, 1995; Ritzer, 1999; Aguado, 2002) we understand cultural experiences as social meaning constructs that link social imaginaries with life events in terms of access and consumption. An intuitive way to understand cultural experiences is to observe the way they work in tourism and leisure: a theme park or a tourist site organizes the structure, nature and time of consumers' experiences constituting simultaneously the main resource for their realization (Richards, 2001). The processes through which cultural experiences are formed involve three relevant elements: experiential frames, mediations and experiential realizations.

Experiential frames are meaning structures that evoke—and allow reproduction of—experiences in terms of meaning interactions. They operate as sense-making patterns with regard to interaction situations and include markers (signs and objects that communicate the performing nature of the situation), scenarios (arrangements of objects and spaces in order to evoke meaning structures), demonstrations (actions, roles and situations linked to experiences) and meta-experiences (instructions about the appropriate interactions with environment in order to successfully reproduce experiences).

Experiential realizations refer to the concrete experience of consumers and involve their participation in the embodiment of an experiential frame within a given situation. Experiential realizations include the appropriation of meaning through emotions and shared values, the coordination of meaning patterns in communities of practice, the evaluation of the experience with regard to its biographical coherence, and the register of the experience in order to ensure its biographical insertion, its authentication and its sharing with others.

Both concepts are inspired by the theoretical work of Goffman (1963) and Garfinkel (1967). Experiential realizations take place in situations of interaction as a part of the confluence between actors' biographies and the biography of things (Kopytoff, 1986). Experiential frames play a relevant role in the definition of interaction situations, thus contributing to build meaning nets that coordinate actions and interpretations. Experiential frames are produced and reproduced through discourses and consequently, the encounter between experiential frames and experiential realizations always involves some form of mediation.

Mediation works as a coherence producer between experiential frames and experiential realizations. Mediation refers to any agency that (re)presents experiential frames and attributes values to them, making them recognizable to users in terms of interaction situations and identity differentiation. It is almost self-evident in this context to point to advertising discourse as a prevalent mediating agent in the context of experience consumption, and, consequently, as a relevant part of the appropriation process (Haddon, 1998).

Advertising Mobile Phones: Discursive Strategies, Experiential Frames and Experiential Realizations

In the following section we present the general outcomes of a research on the impact of advertising campaigns in the appropriation of mobile phone technologies. The fieldwork and analysis was out between June and December 2005 as part of wider research on experiential mediation and ITC appropriation developed by the Research Group on Communication, Culture and Technology at the University of Murcia (Spain). The theoretical framework and the general hypothesis follow the assumptions outlined in the preceding sections, placing emphasis on advertising discourse as mediation agent between experiential frames and experiential realizations in the context of the commercialization of experience.

Methodology

Our aim was to look at (a) how ads represent the experience of mobile phone technology; and (b) how users perceive the coherence between their everyday use of mobile phones and their perception of the experiential frames presented in advertising discourse about mobile phones. In doing so, we compared the results of a discourse analysis on a sample of TV and press ads with a series of three discussions with mobile phone users belonging to different age groups. The sample for the discourse analysis included 25 TV commercials and 25 press ads, dating from the period 2003–2005. Eight of them were part of international campaigns and the remainder were part o national campaigns from Spain, Portugal, France, the United Kingdom, the United States, Australia, Japan and Argentina. Due to their small presence, their local nature and their limited impact on audiences (CMT, 2005), the selected sample excluded ads by mobile content providers. Consequently, the sample for the discourse analysis included TV and press ads from the period 2003–2005 by manufacturers (Nokia, Motorola, Samsung, LG, Panasonic, Sony-Ericsson) and operators (Vodafone, Orange, Movistar, Amena, Nextel, T-Mobile and Universal Mobile).

Discussions were distributed in three age groups, each of eight informants The informants of these groups were all experienced mobile phone users. The first group included people aged 15–19. The second group comprised young adults aged 20–35. Informants who were aged 45 years or older constituted the third group. The guideline for the group interviews were twofold: they were asked for comments on their everyday experience with mobile phones, as well as comments on a series of five TV ads and five press ads selected from the discourse analysis sample. Accordingly, the intersection between the institutional and non-institutional discourses was investigated from two perspectives: firstly, at the level of the discussion groups (on the basis of the informants' freely offered comments on ads, as in campaign post-tests); secondly, at the level of discourse analysis of both the sample of ads and the transcripts of discussions.

With regard to the sample of ads, a discriminatory pre-selection was made on the basis of two differentiating criteria: perceived advertiser's intention (the purpose of the ad) and perceived focus in the argumentative structure of ads (where the advertisers placed stress on persuasion). Three communication patterns were consequently discriminated: competitive ads narrative ads and illustrative ads.

The first category includes advertisements aimed at exclusively differentiating the product or service from competitors. Competitive ads qualify objects through functional values typical of the social representation of technologies, such as ease of use, quality, comfort, safety, price, and so on. They often involve classical advertising discursive forms such as comparison, exhibition and information. Discursive representation restricts technological values to the concrete purchasing interest. Due to this contingent nature and their limited reference to the social imagery of mobile phone use, competitive ads were excluded from the sample.

Narrative ads, secondly, involve discourses organized through socially and biographically situated interaction frames. They aim to socialize the uses of mobile phone technology concerning interaction rituals, lifestyles and person-linked aesthetics in reference to both individual and collective identity. Discursive forms prevalent in these cases are performance and presentation, depending on whether the emphasis is placed on the social situation or on its conditions for viability (aesthetics or lifestyle as a precondition for successful social relations). Discursive representation resorts here to social interactions, and the mobile phone is presented, so to speak, as ‘medium with a human face’. This pattern is illustrated by Nokia campaigns that place emphasis on visually representing the brand slogan (‘Connecting people’) or camera phone ads that emphasize social situations in which available camera use affects the meaning of interactions.

Illustrative ads involve discourses simultaneously structured upon objects and concrete interactions, both aiming at socially explaining the uses of mobile phone technology. In this case, advertising discourse connects technology-centred functional values (design, usability, functional versatility) to consumer identity-centred values (aesthetics, identity markers, lifestyles). The stress is placed on the interaction with technology rather than in the social interaction through technology. As such, it demands a previous clear delimitation of targets in terms of consumer profile classification and standard situations in which interaction with technology makes a difference.

The kinds of ads selected for the discourse analysis sample and for the discussion groups fit both narrative and illustrative categories.

Discursive Strategies

Discursive strategies refer to the way in which texts connect products or services t social interaction and identity frames. The function of the advertising discourse is to assimilate the symbolic connotations of both the social interactions and the objects, dealing with them as interpretable signs. Assimilation works as evocative analogy by presentation of a meaning frame (connotations of the mobile phone technologies) through the symbolic resources of the other (connotations of social interactions). The experiential frames presented this way act as guiding lines for both the discursive coherence and the concr...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• Introduction—Mobile Phone Cultures
• 1 The Construction of the Mobile Experience: the Role of Advertising Campaigns in the Appropriation of Mobile Phone Technologies
• 2 Social Thinking and the Mobile Phone: a Study of Social Change with the Diffusion of Mobile Phones, Using a Social Representations Framework
• 3 Illusions of Balance and Control in an Always-on Environment: a Case Study of BlackBerry Users
• 4 Feminizing the Mobile: Gender Scripting of Mobiles in North America
• 5 ‘What Hath God Wrought?’ Considering How Religious Communities Culture (or Kosher) the Cell Phone
• 6 Pocket Technospaces: the Bodily Incorporation of Mobile Media
• 7 Becoming the Milky Way: Mobile Phones and Actor Networks at a U2 Concert
• 8 Snapshots of Almost Contact: the Rise of Camera Phone Practices and a Case Study in Seoul, Korea
• 9 ‘Hol’ Awn Mek a Answer mi Cellular’: Sex, Sexuality and the Cellular Phone in Urban Jamaica
• 10 Overseas Filipino Workers and Text Messaging: Reinventing Transnational Mothering
• 11 Socio-cultural Aspects of Mobile Communication Technologies in Asia and the Pacific: a Discussion of the Recent Literature
• 12 Picture This: the Impact of Mobile Camera Phones on Personal Photographic Practices
• 13 The Cameraphone and Online Image Sharing
• 14 Text-messaging Cultures of College Girls in Hong Kong: SMS as Resources for Achieving Intimacy and Gift-exchange with Multiple Functions
• 15 Mobiles into Media: Premium Rate SMS and the Adaptation of Television to Interactive Communication Cultures
• Index