Fade to Play

• EDITORIAL: Collect Calls – Larissa Hjorth and Olivia Khoo

• FEATURE: Approaching the Mobile Culture of East Asia – Jaz Hee-jeong Choi

• Mobile Intimacy: Theories on the Economics of Emotion with Examples from Asia – Gerard C. Raiti

• The Technological Gaze: Event Construction and the Mobile Body – Yasmin Ibrahim

• Media Reporting, Mobility and Trauma – Collette Snowden and Kerry Green

• Texting Love: An Exploration of Text Messaging as a Medium for Romance in the Philippines – Randy Jay C. Solis

• Modernity and the Mobile Phone: Exploring Tensions about Dating and Sex in Indonesia – Lee Humphreys and Thomas Barker

• Superstition or Modernity?: On the Invented Tradition of Lucky Mobile Phone Numbers in China – Li Li

• Understanding the Design of Mobile Social Networking: The Example of EzMoBo in Taiwan – Chih-Hui Lai

• Going Live: Converging Mobile Technology and the Sociability of the iGeneration – Mariann Hardey

• Mobility and Displacement: Refugees’ Mobile Media Practices in Immigration Detention – Linda Leung

• Staying Safe and Guilty Pleasures: Tourists and CB Radio in the Australian Outback – Peter B. White and Naomi White

• Zeitgeist – Andrew Johnson

Relevance: Linda Leung’s paper addresses how mobile technology is being used for communication between refugees in detention and their family outside of the Australian detention centre. As expected, these people try to make the best of a difficult situation and try to adapt functionality (e.g. SMS) so that social connections can be maximised between both groups. Mobile phones also provide a level of privacy and trust not always available with a pay phone.

The mobile phone serves the function of anticipating and verifying communications which may potentially be surveilled by staff of detention centres. Where detainees may not trust that they are being given all the letters or faxes that have been sent to them, the mobile phone enables a degree of privacy so that they at least know what to expect from their correspondents. Furthermore, it provides the opportunity for detainees to speak about matters related to their case for asylum that are regarded as too sensitive to risk being discussed in a public place such as on the centre pay phone. Often this involves seeking assistance with their application for asylum.

In The Cell Phone by Heather horst and Daniel Miller, they discussed how within the lower income areas of Jamaica such as Orange Valley, not everyone has a landline within their home or even the capability as telecommunication connections by the phone company may end kilometres from one’s house. In these situations, pay phones need to be utilised, however problem arise with the level of privacy during the conversation, possible vandalism, and the potential issues with waiting in line and being waited on while talking.