Mobile Multimedia in Action

Ilpo Koskinen

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2017
• ISBN:
  9781351504966
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Languages & Linguistics
• Subtopic: Communication Studies
• Index: Languages & Linguistics

"Mobile Multimedia in Action" displays a revealing picture of how people communicate using camera phones and other mobile multimedia devices. With such devices spreading faster than practically any other new technology, questions about how these devices are being used (and abused) to capture and distribute embarrassing or raunchy images and content, and what should be done about it, are surfacing. This volume presents the first detailed study of the use of these devices. Using a variant of social science research known as ethnomethodology, Koskinen explores the kinds of images people take with camera phones and how they use sound to enhance these images. The book asks two main questions. First, what kinds of methods of expression, such as visuals or sound, do people use when they design multimedia messages? Second, how do people interact with and respond to each other through mobile multimedia devices? Koskinen has a broader objective centering on the impact of these devices on human relationships and society at large. He asks, What do people do with these devices? Is mobile telephony moving toward a more practical direction, or will it simply become a visual chatty channel fit for gossip but not for real news or other practical purposes? What kind of social activities and organizations does it best serve - peer-to-peer networks or institutional ones? Koskinen examines these questions from three unique perspectives: the design elements of mobile multimedia, which considers methods of expression people use in designing multimedia messages; mobile multimedia as interaction, which looks into how people interact with each other using this technology and makes a case for studying multimedia as a naturally occurring activity; and mobile multimedia in society, which searches for answers as to the societal consequences of mobile multimedia usage. A groundbreaking work, "Mobile Multimedia in Action" will be a fascinating read for both multimedia device professionals and everyday users alike. Providing a glimpse into the future, Koskinen asks where mobile multimedia technology is taking mankind and society.

Part I

Introduction and Theoretical Perspectives

1

Beyond Talk

Mobile Multimedia in Action, which analyzes one of the latest additions to mobile telephony, mobile multimedia, is based on Mobile Image and Radiolinja, two major studies conducted in Helsinki, Finland, in 1999–2001, both of which are described in detail in the final Chapter. The book probes how people use mobile multimedia as a part of their daily lives to organize their interaction with other people. More specifically, it respecifies mobile multimedia from an ethnomethodological standpoint (Garfinkel 1967, 1996). The central thesis of the analysis is that mobile multimedia cannot be interpreted in terms of a fixed set of needs, functions, and traditional sociological categories such as gender. With these concepts, people become “cultural dopes,” driven by something other than their own minds (Garfinkel 1967: 68–69).

By “mobile multimedia,” I mean a set of technologies that enable people to capture, send, and receive photographs, sounds, and sometimes video. These devices are small enough to be carried in pockets and handbags, making them perpetually available for communication. Typically, a mobile multimedia device is a mobile telephone with a camera and an audiocapture function. However, PDAs (personal digital assistants) are increasingly converging with mobile phones. The newest PDA models sold primarily in North America have increasingly become like multimedia phones sold in other parts of the world.

Since 2003, mobile multimedia has been the fastest growing segment of the mobile telephone market. In 2004, roughly 200 million digital cameras were sold in mobile phones. In the same year, the mobile phone manufacturer Nokia became the largest digital camera manufacturer in the world, selling approximately 60–70 million camera phones. Camera phones are pushing cheaper digital cameras out of the market, much as they earlier displaced alarm clocks, watches, and phone books.

Message 1.1 provides an example of a multimedia message. I received this message from a friend who was in Greece with his family. In essence, the message is a mobile postcard, created and sent with a mobile phone instead of the traditional procedure of buying, writing, and sending a postcard through the post office.

In addition to digital photographs, other types of content that can be communicated with mobile phones include sound files, animations, and video clips. The first experiments with streaming video and mobile television took place early in 2001 and 2002 in several countries like Sweden, Finland, and South Korea (Kasesniemi et al. 2003; Repo et al. 2003; Ok 2005). Similarly, the first experiments with video calls took place in Europe in 2002–2003. In video calls, the interlocutors see each others’ faces and, depending on where the camera is pointed, the environment (see O’Hara et al. 2006).

Message 1.1
Postcard from Greece

Greetings from Greece. Imagine… An old man lives in the upstairs of a windmill Downstairs he has a beach café and sells small snacks. It’s really relaxing to be out here. Remember to work hard at work while I’m vacationing... Best wishes, Junior, Mari and kids

The backdrop of mobile multimedia, of course, is mobile telephony. In less than two decades, mobile phones have become almost ubiquitous. The first digital cellular networks became commercially available in the early 1990s, and by the end of 2002, there were more than 1 billion mobile phone users. In 2005, about 700 million handsets were sold. Much like the Internet a few years before, mobile telephony is quickly transforming the world. By 2001, in many countries, with the Asian “tigers” and Scandinavia leading the way, mobile phones had become more common than landline phones and TV sets (Katz and Aakhus 2002: 5; Rice and Katz 2003).

However, mobile telephony is more than just a technological or business success. As Katz and Aakhus (2002: 2–3) note, mobile telephony is a mind-altering and society-altering technology. Many uses of mobile phones are related to managing practical affairs and work (see Rice and Katz 2003; Fortunati 2002) and coordinating actions without clocks and mass media (Ling 2004: 76; Rheingold 2003a). Many other uses of mobile phones are less instrumental: much like personal stereos (Bull 2000), mobile phones fill empty slots with activity and socializing, turning any location into a living room-like place where interaction with friends and acquintances is available at any time (Kopomaa 2000: 14–19). Mobile phones also make it possible for people to be in perpetual contact with acquaintances, friends, and family (Katz and Aakhus 2002; Gergen 2002; Fortunati 2002; Licoppe 2004). Also, some uses are symbolic. Especially among teenagers and young adults, mobile phones have become fashion items with which people construct social identities and define group memberships (Fortunati et al. 2003; Lobet-Maris 2003: 88; Ling 2003: 98; Kasesniemi 2003: 217–238). Mobile phones have changed the ways in which we experience our environment, orient in cities, work, communicate, understand our social environment, and also the way in which we interact.

This phenomenon must be the initial hypothesis for any study on mobile multimedia as well. Mobile multimedia has been a success for handset manufacturers, even though initial evidence from use suggests that people adopt mobile multimedia at a much slower pace than expected. For example, in 2005 in Norway, a country of 4.5 million inhabitants with one of the highest mobile phone penetration rates in the world, people sent 489,000 multimedia messages each day (e-mail, Rich Ling Jan. 2006; for 2002 figures, see Ling 2004: 145). At the same time, 504,000 text messages were sent every hour, making over 12 million daily text messages. The ratio of multimedia messages to text messages is thus only about 1/25. However, as absolute numbers suggest, mobile multimedia is already a significant force in Norwegian society. More than anywhere else, mobile multimedia has been a hit in Japan (Matsunaga 2000; Natsuno 2003; Ratliff 2001; Barnes and Huff 2003; Barry and Yu 2002; Bradley and Sandoval 2002; Ishii 2004; Kusahara 2004), despite the failure of WAP (Teo and Pok 2003a,b; Hung et al. 2003; Samtani et al. 2003).

The chief aim of this book is to describe how mobile multimedia messages are used by people in their ordinary daily activities. I focus on two main questions. First, what methods of expression do people use in designing multimedia messages? Second, how do people interact with each other through mobile multimedia? This book also has a more sociological aim, which is probed through a third question: what kinds of effects does mobile multimedia have on society? How does multimedia change mobile telephony? Does it make mobile telephony more practical, or does it simply become a visual, chatty channel fit for gossip but not for news? What kinds of social activities and organizations does it maintain, peer-to-peer networks only or also institutional ones?

These research questions are loosely motivated by what has become known as the social construction of technology (SCOT), perhaps best propounded by the Dutch sociologist and historian Wiebe E. Bijker (Bijker 1995; see also Hughes 1983; Latour 1987). In Bijker’s opinion, any new technology is understood in many ways, particularly in its early stages where “interpretive flexibility” is at its highest. However, as time goes by, social forces try to impose more rigid perspectives on technological development, pushing towards more stable interpretation until in the final instance, only one of a few perspectives remain. Bijker calls this process “closure.” In the context of mobile multimedia, it is clear that no closure has yet been achieved; rather, this technology is still in search of interpretation.

However, the central premise of this book is grounded in ethnomethodology: people come to define the nature of mobile multimedia technology in and through their ordinary actions. It is not technology as such, nor institutional forces like marketing, media, or company scenarios that define its fate. As people get new devices and new possibilities for communication, they may use industry and media frameworks as inspiration and, accordingly, come to construct mobile multimedia in the terms it was originally designed for. However, they may follow other courses as well. So, although the main ethos of this study follows SCOT as articulated by Bijker, I do not follow his research agenda in full. Rather, I focus on only one social force at work in reducing interpretive flexibility in technology: ordinary people using it for ordinary purposes.

Text Messages, Cameras, and Recorders as Technological Frames

Mobile multimedia phones combine the functions of several existing gadgets in one device. In designing and sending multimedia messages, you have to use at least one of these functions. In sharing a message, you have to send it through a procedure that is remarkably similar to sending a text message. You have to write a piece of text, select the recipient, and send the message. In addition, you can use two more functions. First, you can use the camera to capture photographs that are then inserted into the message. Secondly, you can use the recorder function in the phone to capture audio content—typically either talk or sounds—to be inserted into the message. These three functions both enable use and constrain it; they are key candidates for technological frames that people may use to define what kind of animal the multimedia phone is (cf. Bijker 1995: 191–197).

Are multimedia messages designed as text messages? After all, it is relatively easy to send a multimedia message instead of a text message, by simply adding a photograph or a piece of video to it. If this is the case, then multimedia messages function as enhanced text messages.

Beginning in around 1993, mobile phones became something more than just portable telephones: people could send text messages (SMS) consisting of first 20, then later 160 characters. Originally, the system was meant to function as pagers: you could send a short message to ask the other party to call (Kopomaa 2000: 60). However, by 1996 the SMS feature became widely available in phones, leading to something of a revolution in mobile telephony: SMS became the second main source of income for the telecommunications industry in addition to phone calls.

Text messaging has become successful because people use it for personal purposes rather than for services. In a survey of ten teenagers’ messaging in Cambridgeshire, England, Grinter and Eldridge (2001) learned that roughly 15 percent of messages were sent to coordinate times and media for communicating face-to-face calls, or with instant messages. Roughly 5 percent of messages renegotiated these arrangements. About 20 percent of messages were gossip and chat about weekend plans, job interviews, and other news, but only about 10 percent were sent to family. Text messaging is quick and cheap, and with it one can avoid long conversations. It is also a convenient communication method when a phone call would be intrusive (for example, late at night) (Rivière 2002; also Nurmela et al. 2000: 13–15; Höflich and Rossler 2002: 93–95).

The first scholars who paid attention to text messages as a form of interaction were Kasesniemi (2003: 197–198, original in 2001), Taylor and Harper (2003), and Laursen (2005). Kasesniemi formulated two rules for proper SMS etiquette: first, a SMS message should be replied to with a text message; second, the message should be responded to as quickly as possible, generally within 30 minutes, or the recipient appears rude (Kasesniemi 2003: 197–198). Absent response is typically accounted for by problems in transmission or reception, by something said, or by something in the relationship (Laursen 2006: 53–63). The main exceptions to this rule are chain messages, messages received at night, and service messages like proverbs, horoscopes, and news that can go unanswered (Laursen 2006: 64–68). For example, in the following Danish example reported by Laursen (2005), Henrik expects a quick reply from Dorte, and when he does not get it, he “shouts” HELLO? “louder” (i.e., in caps) about an hour later. Laursen’s proposal is that text messaging should be analyzed in terms of the formula A-B-A-B (and so forth), in which messages from A to B follow each other, always being tied to previous messages (see Message 1.2).

Message 1.2. (Laursen 2005: 58)

Henrik	09:11	HI dorte could you please tell grete that i’m ill?
Dorte	-	-
Henrik	10:18	HELLO?
Dorte	10:52	I have told it grete and ther’s porno between anders andmaja! It’s really funny What r u doing? Hugzz.

Teenagers and young adults have been in the forefront in spreading text messages. Children start with games, transfer to text messages in early adolescence, then while in their late teens switch to voice. Mobile phones make it possible for them to maintain friendships despite their parents’ interests (see the collection by Lorente 2002; Ling 2004: 145–147; Nurmela et al. 2002: 46–49). New cultural forms have emerged to mold the 160 characters for all these purposes. As Message 1.2 from Denmark already suggested, people created specific SMS languages to get the best out of 160 characters early on (Ling 2004: 162–163). For example, “want to talk” can be written “Wan2tlk?,” which saves four characters (for example, see Grinter and Eldridge 2003; see also Kasesniemi 2003: 203–207; Mante-Meijer and Píres 2002: 56; Fortunati and Magnanelli 2002: 76–77; Lobet-Maris and Henin 2002: 112–113; Rivière 2002: 136–137).

Another key candidate for making sense of mobile multimedia comes from the world of photography rather than mobile telephony. In what ways do multimedia messages function as cameras rather than as text messages? What sorts of uses can we expect to find if this is the case?

Perhaps the most sophisticated attempt to understand ordinary photography is Kodak Culture by Richard Chalfen (1987). In line with the performative movement in folklore (Hymes 1964), he studies the “home mode of imagery” as Kodak culture, which he defines in the following terms:

Kodak Culture will refer to whatever it is that one has to learn, know, or do in order to participate appropriately in what has been outlined as the home mode of communication…. By studying Kodak culture, we want to learn how people have organized themselves socially to produce personalized versions of their own life experiences …. We want to consider how ordinary people have organized their thinking about personal pictures in order to understand certain pictorial messages and make meaningful interpretations in appropriate ways. We also want to learn how Kodak culture provides a structured and patterned way of looking at the world…we are examining how a “real world” gets transformed into a symbolic world. (Chalfen 1987: 10)

Finnish artist Seija Ulkuniemi (1998) has studied the contents of ordinary photographs, finding that the main contents of photographs are the family and transitional rites (weddings, funerals, etc.); childhood homes and first homes; symbols of social status (summer cottages, boats, firms, etc.); nature; pets (especially children photograph pets); vacation and tourist pictures (hotel windows, landscapes, buildings, relatives, picnics, local life, beach life, trips, local inhabitants, group moments).

In everyday life, images interpret life for people by documenting it. The documentary mode is possible given certain assumptions we make about these images. For example, we believe that events in images have taken place, and believe that we see these things just as they took place when the original picture was taken (Ulkuniemi 1998: 126–127). Functionally, however, images do not document our lives simply by creating visual histories, validating, preserving, and encapsulating them, but also by acting as aide de memoire, as memory banks, and as tools of cultural membership. In photos, people do things right and grow into various membership roles. For example, children learn the signs of success and appropriate modes of kinship. Photography thus understood reifies existing social bonds, document...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Messages
• Tables and Figures
• Preface
• Ack
• Part I Introduction and Theoretical Perspectives
• 1 Beyond Talk
• 2 Multimedia in Mobile Telephony
• 3 Mobile Multimedia in Action
• Part II Design Elements of Mobile Multimedia
• 4 Snapshots, Media, and Age-Old Practices
• 5 Sound in Mobile Multimedia
• 6 Gestures, Faces, and Bodies as Communicative Resources
• Part III Mobile Multimedia in Interaction
• 7 Designing Opening Messages
• 8 Replies, Responses, and Gestalt Modifications
• 9 How People Stop Messaging
• Part IV Society on the Phone
• 10 Society on the Small Screen
• 11 Friends and Acquaintances
• 12 From Small Discoveries to Stable Activities
• Part V Conclusions, Data, and Methods
• 13 Mobile Multimedia as Ordinary Activity
• 14 Data and Methods