PsychNology Journal, Volume 5, Number 1, 59 - 81

Discourses on Mobility and Technological Mediation: The Texture of Ubiquitous Interaction

Giuseppina Pellegrino
Department of Sociology and Political Science, University of Calabria, Italy

Abstract
Mobility is more and more mediated, supported and transformed by technological artefacts and  infrastructures.  Especially  technologies  labelled  as  mobile,  pervasive,  ubiquitous  or nomadic,  show  an  interesting  shift  in  the  shaping  of  sociotechnical  environments  and mediated  interaction.  Starting  from some  recent  contributions  on  mobile  and  ubiquitous computing,  the  paper  attempts  to  draw  connections  between  discourses  and  practices related  to  the  technological  mediation  of  mobility.  The  assumption  is  that  discourses circulating in different public arenas shape core meanings attributed to technologies, beliefs about them and also directions of development for technological artefacts.
The  discursive  practices  examined  concern  mobility-centred  theories  of  globalization (academic  discourse),  the  relationship  between  the  media  and  mobility  (mass-media discourse),  and  the  designers’  discourse,  drawn  from  three  settings  of  design  and development in mobile/ubiquitous computing. As a result, the concept of ubiquitous interaction is presented as emergent pattern of mobile communication  and  theoretical  framework  to  propose  questions  for  future  research, considering how mobility and its opposite (immobility) can bring the emergence of mobile techno-elites entitled to travel both physically and virtually.

Keywords: Ubiquity, mobility, discursive frames, mobile communication, mediated
interaction.

Cite as: 
Pellegrino G. (2007). Discourses on Mobility and Technological Mediation: The Texture of Ubiquitous Interaction. PsychNology Journal, 5(1), 59 - 81. Retrieved [month] [day], [year], from www.psychnology.org.

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