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Ling and Donner, 2009; Ling and Pedersen, 2005;
Taylor and Harper, 2002). Mobile telephony has
a highly flexible (e.g. mobile, text, audio and
oral) and rapidly developing (e.g. the increasing
convergence of other media platforms in mobile
telephony) nature which allows people to fit it
into their lives and select or reject certain ele-
ments of it on the grounds of the socio-cultural
context(s) where they live and experience this
technology. Thus, while the trait of mobility is
generally acknowledged as a significant feature
to be passed on to the functions and traits of other
ICTs, mobile telephony is ever more viewed as
a distinctive technology to be analysed from a
socio-constructivist perspective.
Research has attempted to disentangle the
possible influence of mobile telephony on certain
aspects of social and cultural living such as the
impact of electronic and mobile communications
on time and space settings of social life (Tsatsou,
2009), the influence of mobiles on timekeeping
and the co-ordination of everyday life, as well as
the socially and individually intrusive character
and operation of mobile telephony (Ling, 2004). At
the same time, the literature expresses strong inter-
est in examining the ways society and social life
shape and in turn change mobile technology. On
one hand, Katz and Aakhus (2008, p. 9) recognise
that established approaches to mobile phones 'tend
to fix either praise or blame on the purpose and
consequence of mobile communication'. On the
other hand, the literature (Haddon, 2004) argues
that mobile phones are not used in the same way
in people's daily lives and finds that the usage of
mobile phones is a subjective experience (Haddon
et al., 2002). Culture sets constraints which are
in turn open to cross-cultural variations, setting
different parameters on people's practices with
and on mobile phones. This is leading to what
is called the domestication of mobile telephony
(Haddon, 2003) and which takes place in more
or less different terms in different socio-cultural
environments. This can be considered a quite
prevalent thesis today, although early studies of
mobile telephony in Europe (Bakalis et al., 1997)
had failed to find a clear correlation between social
culture and the adoption of mobile telephony. In
a way, the social dimension or impact of mobile
telephony (Ling, 2004) as well as its embedded-
ness in diverse socio-cultural and everyday life
settings (Castells, 2007) are all issues which have
now drawn the interest of a significant number
of scholars who aim to make sense of mobile
telephony distinct from or in conjunction with
other ICTs.
Thus, it is presently argued that mobile phones
have their own 'culture' (Goggin, 2006), being
embedded in broader socio-cultural settings on
one hand, and generating a fascinating set of
particular cultural elements through the produc-
tion and consumption of mobile products and
services on the other. This 'mobile culture' is
arguably significant not only for today's mobile
technology and communication but also, and more
importantly, for broader socio-cultural structures
in communications and beyond: '…how existing
and new social structures, relationships, and be-
haviors have incorporated and been changed by
cell phones' (Goggin, 2006, p. 5). However, in this
chapter it is argued that this 'mobile culture' is
largely shaped by broader socio-structural trends
while being in a complex and continuing interac-
tion with them. That is to say mobile phones and
their culture cannot be looked at in isolation from
other forms of culture in communications, while
the specific characteristics of 'mobile culture' (as
defined by production and consumption processes)
can only be disentangled when one considers how
broader socio-cultural structures establish mobile
telephony and its culture as a particular case of
ICT-mediated communication today.
Further, this chapter challenges research that
attempts to identify culture and the cultural depen-
dency of the mobile telephony with the concept
of 'domestication'. Haddon (2004) speaks about
the domestication of mobile telephony within
the framework of the domestication tradition. In
his approach, ICTs are treated as objects with a
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