Week 5 Reading: Mobile uses among the youth in Japan

This week’s post will base on the reading “Mobile Phone, Japanese Youth and the Re-placement of Social contact” which is written by Mizuko, Ito. Throughout the essay, Ito explored the issue that the high pace of mobile phone usage was among the adolescent, and the adolescent was defined as the high school and the college student who are financially independent. It is surprising to find that the use of the business-oriented mobile phone was developed by the youth people in Japan even though the mobile phone is the adult-controlled technology.
Since the mobile phone creates a personal space of communication, it allows the user to have a multiple identity. The Japanese youth for example, have multiple identities in different space. In the school, they are the students sit still a concentrate on class, but as soon as the teachers turn to the blackboard, they are the larrikin who sending text message to joke around during the class (Ito, 2005, 125); even though they are back home on time as a good child, they shut themselves in the room and chat to friends. Whenever their parent ask them what they discuss on the phone, only a vague answer as the reply (Ito, 2005, 124).
From the two examples above, it can be the use of mobile phone would lead to the negative impact on study and the relationship between parents and the children. However, Ito also gave the positive example that the mobile phone can be use as sharing class information to the missing classmate and also a tool of parent to keep track to their children. In my opinion, I am more support the idea that the overuse of mobile phone will have a negative impact on study and family relationship.
This is my own experience that I have a lot of friends who currently using the mobile media and I found a lot of them and also include myself, have some depth addicted to checking news and the news of the peers via mobile blogging. It is so panic that if the net works knot down and I lost contact to my peers, I would felt I am blocking out from the world. It is also interesting to see the older generation have less intense in using the mobile net work. In this case, the generation gap is widen since the parents are not in “on-line”
Finally, I would like to query that as the mobile phone is being domesticated among the use, could it be possible that because of such technologies force, the older generation will also more engage in communication technologies. And then, how will people connected to each other in the future? What the world should be like?

By Ying, Xiao z3283915

Reference: Ito, Mizuko. “Mobile Phones, Japanese Youth, and the Replacement of Social Contact.” In Ling, Rich and Pedesen, Per, Eds. Mobile Communications: Re-negotiation of the Social Sphere. London: Springer-Verlag, 2005, 131-148

Week 4 reading: doubling pluralize of space

Week 4 reading: doubling pluralize of space
In this week’s reading, Shaun Moores, the writer, introduced the concept of the time-space arrangement of electronic media by developed and further research the idea “doubling of place”. This idea was extract from Paddy Scannell’s 1996 analysis which based on the study of broadcasting and the daily concerns of media. It is said that the sense of ‘farness’ among the audiences whom are of multiple, dispread local settings are removed by the daily basis media, experiencing the practice of ‘two space at once.’. Moores argued that even though the distance of space is being shorten, it is not necessary that the sense of place are being lost in the late modern life. He then gave three accounts of media uses to illustrate how electronic media pluralized the spaces.

The first account of media use is the broadcast media. Moorse gave tow examples to interpret the eventfulness of media, one is the funeral of Princess Diana and the events the collapse of world trade centre (the 9.11). Those two share a common feature that they interrupted the daily routine of the social members and have a large scale of effect even throughout the global world. It is mentioned that even a audience never seen Princess Diana in person, the feeling of not right to go out on such day is still very strong because the events happening broadcasting media bring them the view of real life situation and therefore even the audience from far away suburban area is feeling the emotion of the events of television. In other world, the broadcasting shifting is shifting space of real life events and the audience location.

The second account is the Internet Media. Compared to the broadcasting media, the changes of internet is far more eventful. It is very common that the social members are more connected via internet chatting and commenting on a particular piece of news that sharing the public views. Internet is a far more flexible and high pace space of communication since it allow all kind of roles and no matter any times or anywhere to share the information. A more innovated feature of internet media is that it is not just represent a particular group’s point of view, but the rest of the world.

The third account is the mobile media. If the internet media is a way to keep in touch with the rest of the world, the mobile media, as well as the telephone and telegraph, are for ‘kinkeeping’ purpose. Despite the example given by Moores, mobile media are having more mobility in present modern world. It can not only dial to the family or friends, but also connect to the internet. Some of the mobile company also providing the a set of program for the user to subscribe the news, weather, or some other mobile entertainment. It makes the location more flexible and also easy-to-carry.

To summaries, the electronic media which include broadcasting media, internet and mobile media are changing our sense of space and make us more connected to the rest of the world. It is positive that without travelling, we can have sensational views to the world. But it is necessaries to think about the liability of information which being spread since some of the information only represent the personal idea, not the public agreement.
By Ying, Xiao z3283915
Reference:
Moores, Shaun. “ The Doubling of Place: Electronic Media, Time-Space Arrangement and Social Relationships.” In Couldry, Nick. and MaCarthey, Anna., Eds. MediaSpace: Place , Scale and culture in a Media Age. London: Routledge, 2004, 21-37

Week3 reading: Dailiness

This week’s reading, “Deadliness”, written by Scannell, discussed about the concepts of  care and the care structure of media and how it build up the resonance with the society. Throughout the reading, time is the most important element to address with since the experience of time is the cornerstone of researching how media engrave in the social daily lives. Furthermore, the discussion of media time and its care structure in this reading was base on the experiences of broadcasting in the past decades whereas the new types of communication technologies such as internet and mobile phone were not in account. In this case, I would like to make a attempt to discuss about this issue in the end of this blog.

The Media time is abstract. The schedule of media is the practice of the households and the producer since the broadcasting were domesticated to the society. It is linear and irreversible plot in the day by day stories, but structure of everyday program could be the same. For example, the television structure, everyday from 6 to 7 in the evening will be the news time; after that there will be the soap drama or and sometimes the entertainment program. The various temporality of the broadcast program would inform the sense of time. For me, the program “dancing with the star” which start around the end of September and before the Christmas in every year make me feel that the times has been up to this time of the year and another information that it is about to summer. In other word, the schedules of media become a guideline to the individual to engage with the social lives.

The contends of media or say the care of media is also another key element to understand how media engage with the fabric social lives. Scannell pointed out the concept “concern”. The concern of media is how the quality of media raises up the basic concern of people to the world they lived. Through the press and the broadcast, we gain the sense of link between the outside world and our intrapersonal world. The fields of our concerns depend on how we learn to understand the world in our formative ages. In this case, the concerns of media will be very diverse and it need a proper structure of concern to make the information sharable, accessible, and available in the public world. To do so, the media producer will structuralize those concerns by placing the proper sequence of the program to meet the diverse need in the daily lives. Consequently, a particular routine will be recognized by the public and rhythm the social life, such as the alarm radio or the daily news time.

Moreover, I feel a little bit strange that the internet and mobile phone is not being count in this essay. As the information technologies being more develop in the present day, the functions of old types of media will are gradually replaced by the internet and mobile media since such types of technologies could provide us with far more up to date news and also the mobility. With a mobile phone in these days, individuals not only can contact with the others in time, but also can emailing, and reading news, and even mobile blogging. However, these technologies may not have a clear idea that how it structuralized the everyday lives, and also the particular routine in the social venues, they left out the discussion of dailiness and time.

 

By Ying, Xiao     z3283915

Reference:

Scannell, P. “Dailiness” In Radio, Television and Modern Life. Blackwell, London, 1996 144-178

For week 3:All Patterns

by Ying, Xiao  z3283915

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Week 2 readings: Domestication

The reading assessment for this week will base on the article “Domestication of media and technology. Reflections on the life of a concept” which is written by Roger Silverstone (2006, 229-248).

In this article, Silverstone summaries the concept of domestication by defining the origin of domestication as a consumption behavior of households which include four phases: appropriation, objectification, incorporation and conversion (Silverstone, 2006, 231-235). In addition, the inventions and technologies renewal are playing a irreplaceable role of generating such consumption behavior. Silverstone also explored the communication technologies affection to household and discuss domestication in the context of morality, stating that domestication success in the sense of defensiveness that protects the values from the disturbance of otherness.

One of the important points being raised in this article may be the relationship between domestication and morality. According to Silverstone, morality refers to how human beings relate to each other and express themselves to the world. As communications technologies taking an ongoing process of development, it allows the social members having more interaction with each other and domestication in this case taking a appropriation roles for the community members to adjust themselves to the technology use. It is interesting to query that if the extend of domestication are differ among households, will there be a condition that the poor technologies using sector being left out by the mainstream culture. The query being raised was because Silverstone stated another point that domestication defenses the further change of technologies to the home basis since the household “comfortable in its own sense of itself”. In addition, the high price of communication technologies product may not allow the poor technologies using sector to purchase the more updating equipment for communicate that lead to the information block from the mainstream society. However, this assumption may be naïve since it only address on the context of domestication, not the whole operation of other elements in the social lives.

One more thing that I would like to make a short exploration as the summary of my reading assessment was the question being raised in the last paragraph of the article, which is “how dose such innovation enable a better world, and a more responsible and more sustainable relationship with the world which it now brings more radically into focus?”. In my opinion, to make a more responsible a sustainable world in the age of rapid technologies change, need the responsibility of all the social members: inventor responsible for produce more perfect fit technologies in different occasion; political power responsible to make proper decision on censorship; users responsible to not disturb the general moral rule in terms of communication.

By Ying, Xiao

Reference:

Silverstone, Roger. “Domesticating Domestication. Reflections on the Life of a Concept” In Berker, Thomas, et al eds. Domestication of Media and technology. Berkshire, UK: Open University Press, 2006, 229-248

Week 1 writing task: Media studies

In the daily social life, media is playing a significant role in social interaction and cohesion that risen the sense of unity and belongings among the social members. For example, the celebration of annual Melbourne cup became a national identity of Australia was because the events were being broadcast by the television and also reported on the news headline that arising broad social concern among Australia society. However, it is not always having resonance in the multicultural context because there are gaps between different social groups. Thereby, the study of media will be very complex. Since media and technologies are changing our everyday life, to study how media affect on the society will be helpful to understand and mange the relationship of diverse culture groups.

In the weekly readings materials, chapter 3, “What Do the Media Do to us? Media and Society”, outlined the clear ideas about how media work in the complex society and its effect on social lives (O’Shaunessy、Michael &Jane, 2005). The authors pointed out that the media as the tool of making sense of the world for the members in the global society, presenting three major role which are: firstly, represent the physical model in the reality; secondly, interpret and giving further information about the representation model and finally evaluate the interpretation and suggest a framework of judgment to the social members to justify the information they receive through the mass media. Media in this chapter also being explain as a controlled tool of a certain privilege, the information being given will be depends on the audience stakes. The effects of is controversies among diverse stake holders. It also relate to the political agenda beneath the chaotic debate. For example the promotion of cigarette on the film and soap cold bring a great benefit to the tobacco producer but smoking would damage the health of the smoker or the passive smoker, and also the example of media in Iraq raising another important issue about censorship.

Censorship is a crucial element to address in the discussion of how media affect the everyday life. It could be define as a political power to limit the contend of media in order to maintain the stability of the society. However, it is controversies that the increases of media censorship would against the idea of liberalization and freedom of speech. I would like to argue that the censorship is needed. On one side it is an efficient way to protect children from being abused by sex and violence. The other side is the censorship would showing respect to different culture group in the society, prevent certain group of people insulting by the program which showing some extend of discrimination, thereby to make a society more stable and harmony. Nevertheless, this argument may contradictory to the consideration of economic benefits because the selection of media construction will base on the audience at most, but not the small numbers of less advantage stake holders.

In summaries, the media study is a complex subject since it pervasive in different stages of social life. To understand how media work and how it affect the social life would lead to a path way to have a rational judgment of the contemporary media issues and to be active to participate in the social lives.

 

By Xiao, Ying (Wing), z3283915 F12A

 

Reference:

O’Shaughnessy, Michael, and Jan Staler. “What Do the Media Do to Us? Media and Society” Media and Society: An Introduction, Third Edition. South Melbourne, VIC: Oxford Press, 2005, 31-58