Mobile Communication Society

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ACTA SOCIOLOGICA 2007 Review Essay Mobile Communication Society? Ilkka Arminen University of Tampere, Finland Friend 1: We were waiting at a place with reception. We tried calling you, too, but could only call your home number. Why don’t you get a keitai (mobile phone in Japanese)? Friend 2: You have a lot of nerve not carrying a keitai in this day and age? Friend 3: Yeah, it’s weird. – a scene from a film: ‘A man without a mobile phone’ (Kato, 2005: 108) The mobile telephone (cell phone, U.S.) has been the most rapidly disseminated technology in world history. The first commercially available mobile telephone networks were developed in the 1980s. In 1994, Finland was leading in terms of relative number of subscribers, which had just exceeded 10 per cent of the population. In 2004, there were almost two billion mobile subscribers world-wide. Most industrially developed (OECD) countries have a penetration rate well over 70 per cent and most developing countries follow close behind (Ling, 2004; Castells et al., 2007). A phenomenon of this kind is a sociological wonder demonstrating increasing world networking. However, the details of this development show persistent cultural differentiation. The appropriation of mobile telephones by no means leads to uniform cultural and social development. Indeed, mobile communication is indexically tied to local circumstances and ways of life that may be affected, enriched or modified by the potential of mobile communication, but local paths of development have not yet been combined. Mobile communication technologies enable seamless interaction between people and integrate the global network. They may well have an impact on the organization of social action and societies, with the resulting cultural and political upheavals being appreciated only afterwards (McNeil and McNeil, 2003). Furthermore, the impact of innovation is
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