Brenda's Media and Literature Review Presentation

OVERVIEW

I have identified three major themes that run through my research topic: lesbian identity politics, public health, and new media technologies. I am interested in exploring the intersections of these themes in hopes to find new possibilities for lesbian identity expression and emergent healthcare communication and information avenues for this community. I intend to approach my research from a cyberfeminist theoretical lens, addressing specific topics such as (dis)embodiment, cyborg identity, and the practical/creative application of theory. While my main objective will be to investigate current applications and critique their viability in terms of aesthetics and functionality, I also intend to propose new ones and launch my own.

READINGS AT THEMATIC INTERSECTIONS

The exercise we did in thematic visualization was really helpful for me. This is how I came up with my beautiful Venn diagram. =) It helps me understand my research in terms of thematic integration, rather than chronology or some other organizational method. Below, I've chosen a few of the readings I've found so far to inform my research. I locate each of them at the intersections of my primary themes. The body of work I intend to produce will be situated at the interstices of all three themes, thus "filling the gap" and fulfilling an unmet need in terms of research and practice.

NEW MEDIA AND IDENTITY POLITICS

"Of Shit and the Soul: Tropes of Cybernetic Disembodiment in Contemporary Culture" by Allison Muri

Synopsis: Muri examines the ways in which scholars have analyzed the influence of new technology on the body and identity, and their tendency to envision a disembodied, posthuman state. She addresses cyberpunk literature and film, as well as influential cyber-theory and suggests that they reinscribe Western Christian narratives about human identity, consciousness, spirit and the body. Unlike theorists such as Donna Haraway or artists such as Stelarc (S T E L A R C ' S Site), Muri believes that these cyber cultural texts and theories do a disservice to the embodied subject. Her critique is useful when considering the physical, lived realities of lesbians, particularly in terms of tying theory into the practice of health communication.

IDENTITY POLITICS AND PUBLIC HEALTH

"Lesbian Health: Current Assessment and Directions for the Future"

Excerpt: "Despite growing attention to research on women’s health over the past decade, the health problems of some subgroups of women have continued to receive relatively little attention. Lesbians are one such subgroup. Although the body of research on lesbian health is growing, much of the research to date has methodological limitations, such as the lack of appropriate comparison groups, that make it difficult to draw clear conclusions about the health status and health risks of this group of women."

PUBLIC HEALTH AND NEW MEDIA

"Happy Ending: a randomized controlled trial of a digital multi-media smoking cessation intervention"

Synopsis: This study demonstrates the efficacy of a digital media smoking cessation intervention, Happy Ending (HE), over a 44-page self-help booklet. It exemplifies the ways in which new media technologies can be leveraged to communicate and intervene with specific populations in order to improve their health. It demonstrates the strengths of digital media in comparison to print media and face to face intervention, which are both more resource intensive and sometimes less effective.

"The Search for Peer Advice in Cyberspace: An examination of online teen bulletin boards about health and sexuality"

Synopsis: This study examines the Web behavior of adolescents seeking advice related to health and interpersonal relationships on electronic bulletin boards. Overall, adolescents tended to use the health bulletin boards most frequently to ask questions related to romantic relationships and sexual health. One of the weaknesses of the study is that there were a limited number of questions referring to sexual identity and therefore, gay and lesbian youth may have been underrepresented. Nevertheless, the methods used in this study could be applied to the lesbian community, as they may exhibit similar behaviors, such as anonymous advice seeking, especially in terms of sexuality.

MEDIA RESOURCES

The fields of public health/health communication and new media have been converging in ways that seek to meet the needs of diverse populations. Examples of this new phenomenon are evident in blogs, mashups, photo sharing, podcasts, social network sites, RSS feeds, video games, virtual worlds, and wikis. Some of these are exemplified by the following online resources:

Blogs, podcasts, virtual buttons, posters, videos, etc.:
AIDS.gov and HIVTEST.org

Widgets:



Video/Texting:


Virtual World/Video Games: Second Life and Public Health


Webcast: This is Public Health


Documentary: Gay and Lesbian Health Victoria


Cyberfeminist Art/Theory:
Digital Health and Feminist (Re)visionings of Healing

Online Resource Center:
The Lesbian Health Research Center
This is one of the only online resources that specifically addresses the health concerns of lesbians. Its objectives are to generate research and to provide easily accessible health information to the lesbian community and its allies. While the website references a body of research and houses the center's document, The Importance of Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity in Health Research, a powerful call to action, it is not very user-friendly.

Discussion Questions:

• Does digital culture liberate users from gender, race, age, or sexuality by detaching identity from the body? Or, as Muri suggests, does it merely replicate the existing social order of material culture?
  
• Muri refutes the proclamation by artist Stelarc that bodies are obsolete, or merely part of a larger machine, but how might these cybernetic imaginings, such as the transcendence of sexual organs, non-reproductive sexual pleasure, and mechanical prostheses (particularly in terms of transgender identity, drag, etc.) -- be helpful in liberating lesbian/queer identity from mundane, physical reality?
  
• How does the "anxiety of disembodiment," evident in the work of Kroker and Baudrillard, relate to homophobia, particularly in terms of Muri's description of the cyborg as having "divorced reproduction from human emotion" and the technological matrix as threatening "an ancient tradition of love and romance culminating in marriage?"
  
• How can the paradox in cyborg theory of the simultaneous anxiety over the loss of the body and distaste for the physical functions of the body, inform the use of new media for understanding the queer, embodied subject?

Materials for Leo's Class

Here are some materials and projects to peruse. I've loosely grouped
them into the themes of my project. I look forward to discussing them
and the DIPGS in class on Monday.

Nature as Cultural Construction:

The Trouble with Wilderness

Revised Public Sphere (Digital Media):

Public Spheres and Network Interfaces

Sustainable Design and Urbanism:

Sustainable Urbanism Chapter 1 part 1

Sustainable Urbanism Chapter 2 part 1

Consider these last two as a pair. Fiber City is a great example of an experimental project that deals with urban design issues brought up by the Shrinking Cities Project.

Shrinking Cities (just read to I 6, before the graphs)

Fiber City: Tokyo 2050

Here are some questions to guide discussion today:

Questions for Cronon:

• What composes a nature narrative?
• What are sublime and frontier nature narratives?
• Are these narratives really pervasive enough to matter? Modern iterations?

Questions for Broekmann:

• Broekmann places emphasis on unlikely juxtaposition, constructive conflict, and instability as ground for democratic potential, what role does digital media play in heightening these positive tensions?

Questions for Sustainable Urbanism:

• Do the contemporary American problems Farr lists correlate with Cronon’s nature narratives? How?
• How can Farr’s five characteristics of Sustainable Urbanism be applied to Cronon’s Trouble with Wilderness and Broekmann’s notion of experimental digital art and revised public sphere?

Regina Marchi

Regina is coming to our class on Wednesday and we will have lunch and chat with her about her book Day of the Dead in the USA.

The Book of Probes

Leo, I'm pretty sure you are already using McLuhan in your research, but I have The Book of Probes, and I really think it would be useful for you in your proposal. He talks a lot about space, technology, and human communication. I am pretty sure there's another copy at the Denver Public Library. I'll bring it for you to check out though. Actually, Claire, this book might be useful to you as well for another voice in your proposal.

The Book of Probes - Marshall McLuhan

Some Early Attempts at Multimedia Story Telling

While these are not documentary projects, I think they do a great job of creating an aesthetic and telling a story utilizing new media. Also, they work to create a cultural precedent for multimedia storytelling, documentary or otherwise. Might be worth a glance. The first is Stuart moulthrop's Color of Television. He really launched the hypertext medium. These multimedia stories frequently utilize a fragmented aesthetic and the hyperlinkability of the web. At once these pieces are a celebration of cybernetic life and the web as medium. I even took a few stabs at one point.

The second is the collaboration, 99 Rooms. It uses a lot of industrial photography and sound to create a wonderful experience with some loose narrative elements. I don't know if these will actually be useful, but they may provide 15 minutes of diversion/entertainment.

Found a cool resource with lots of random full length books and articles on cyberpunk, cyberidentity and other cyber misc. May prove an interesting peruse for anyone dealing with identity and cybernetics (kind of a stretch).

The Cyberpunk Project

Did you know 4.0

I'm sure you all have seen the "Did you Know?" YouTube videos the last few years, well the newest one posted yesterday and it's viral.




My question is: How do we as digital media producers and users keep up with the exponential growth of these emerging technologies? Or is that the point, that things are just going to rapidly change and we have to be aware of what is happening to take advantage of what we can where we can?



Here's the other two:

Facebook, MySpace Divide Along Social Lines

I think this NPR piece on the socioeconomic status of Myspace and Facebook users is apropos per our conversation on how technology and culture are intertwined. It addresses how online environments are often divided by class, race, and lifestyle, just as "real world" environments are segregated. Facebook, MySpace Divide Along Social Lines aired October 21, 2009 on NPR.

Josh's Class Lit/Media Review Presentation

For my media and literature review I will link some project examples and some discourse in the journalism and new media realm that discuss the advantages of multimedia content presentation over traditional silos of content dissemination. Please visit these links and be sure to interact with the projects to be able to discuss further in class.

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There are two key examples of interactive documentary media that incited my desire to create my thesis project. Until I did further digging I did not realize that the two projects were put together by the same photojournalist, Zach Wise.

The first was a piece done at the Las Vegas Sun called "Thirst in the Mojave."

It is as Wise states on his blog post about the project, an "attempt at making video interactive and contextualizing its content. Video on the web is great but it lacks many web-centric features or enhancements." Wise also points out the ability for users to take advantage of time-shift in watching online video content as opposed to the trappings of traditional video outlets such as broadcast television. A user can pick ans choose what portion of the video they would like to watch first, second or whenever in this presentation. But this is only the beginning of the advantages of this multimedia project.

The Mojave project incorporates several unique web-based abilities that are not available to traditional media platforms, but yet are not being embraced by many news outlets in their web portals – for several reasons such as cutbacks and lack of vision by management. One element is the ability to geo-tag video content as it is played and drive an interactive map in the same window to help guide a user through the experience of an issue of water use. The complex water system which is constructed by geographic limitations as well as man-made intervention can be depicted with this very informative tool alongside the informative video. Other smaller elements of the project are additional informational blocks that update as the video plays to provide backstory or fill-in the user that may be pertinent but could slow down the overall narrative of the video. Meaning, if the user desires more information, it is available but the overall delivery of the piece is still concise. One minor component of the project that could potentially have great impact is the simple countdown clock at the top of the window, winding down to the possible day of reckoning with the vanishing element of water. Though there are several other elements of this complete package of information, one final piece I would like to highlight is the water usage map that was created for users to enter their address into and learn about how much of an impact on the complex issue of water usage. This portion of the piece, though it is placed as a footnote to the overall presentation, took an intense amount of research and design to create for a complete interactive experience for a user.

The second documentary project that became somewhat of an inspiration to me was the Soul of Athens annual project in Athens, Ohio, through the Ohio University's School of Visual Communication and E.W. Scripps School of Journalism program. The first year of the Soul of Athens project was 2007, which Wise was the executive producer for. There was a 2008 version of the site as well as the current 2009 version. All three hold on to the notion of deploying storytellers out into the community of Athens as well as inviting community members to submit content for the site in the quest to find the "Soul of Athens." To simplify the lens in which to examine this project, I will focus mainly on the 2009 version of the site, because I feel it is the best of the lot due to the third iteration of development and application of newer technology in developing the site.

The Soul of Athens project is a unique social examination of a community to gain a better understanding of the people that make up the community. The site is a collection of videos and audio slide shows that illustrate who makes up this blend of all kinds around the area of Athens. The portal allows the user to decide what video looks interesting to view based on the title or the thumbnail of the link to the content, allowing the user to dictate what they would like to learn about rather than being told to "sit back and watch." The ability to have a user "lean forward" and participate is the key to interactive media as Carolyn Handler Miller states in her book "Digital Storytelling: A Creator's Guide to Interactive Entrainment." By engaging the user into the content by allowing them the opportunity to drive the content, they will ultimately learn more and gain more from the presentation. Then there are related links at the bottom of the window for the user to find other stories to learn about. The main aspect of the site is the diversity of the people that make up the community of Athens. Though, I feel that there are a few weaknesses in the presentation that are not utilized like the Mojave project, such as interactive maps or better joining of the various types of media and content. All of which I intend to address in my own thesis project.

To illustrate older conventions of media use and presentation I would like to share with you "Ian Fisher: American Soldier." This was a 27 month reportage by a mentor of mine at the Denver Post, Craig Walker. Walker is an amazing photojournalist, but the production of the project was done by others in the newspaper's photo department and I do not know the extent of involvement by Walker in the final production. The presentation is very simple and quite literally silos.

Just as Marshall McLuhan's theory of "the media is the message," the main entry of the Fisher project has bins of photos, videos, a story and the "extras" that didn't fit into the already bulging silos of the primary content. Navigating between these various bins limits the user's ability to get a complete picture of the story and intentions of the journalism. The disconnection of the masterful photos Walker captured of emotion and life from the written perspectives of three different reporters ruins the user's ability to garner the breadth of the story at large. Even the difficult interactive way of "turning the pages" of the story creates barriers and communication noise for a potential user of the project portal. A fellow photojournalist, Chuck Fadely of the Miami Herald, offered a scathing review of the project that reminds multimedia producers to design platforms with intelligence rather than with techno-wizardry.

For if a project is effective and engaging for users they will inevitably share their findings with others and as the infection of this quality becomes "viral" the message will spread to others. Brian Storm, creator of MediaStorm.org, has been producing multimedia videos and interactive sites for more than 15 years. In an interview Storm talks about how a 21-minute online video gets a 65 percent completion view rating, despite the notions of a YouTube attention span and social media grazing. (Another posting discussing long-form quality journalism can be read here.) His argument is that because the content is all about quality and completeness, people know what to expect and are willing to invest the time to learn about the story.

All of the examples given here are considered award winning projects in a few different judging contexts, save for the Fisher soldier story. It is understood that contests are varied and may have different values or criteria, but when the same project wins several different contests from a diverse set of judges the argument of a solid piece of work is fairly simple.

Finally, Dan Blank offers some simple guidelines for serendipity in digital media. More traction can be gained by allowing for a user to generate new connections of interest and understanding in a digital multimedia project.

Creating a quality project with multiple forms of media that are interactive while being effective is a tall order. But when that lofty goal is met with logic and strategy, the results are unmistakable.

_____________

If you are interested in a couple other very informative yet strongly presented multimedia projects have a look at some of these:

"A Gamble in the Sand" - an in-depth interactive history of the Las Vegas Strip
"Driving Detriot" - driving around 2,700 miles of Detroit streets to get a true view of the city.
"Water Life" - a very unique and massive look at the water system of the Great Lakes and impacts on the region.

Is It a Day to Be Happy? Check the Index

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/12/technology/internet/12link.html

An anonymous Facebook study about words used in status updates to determine the "Happy Index."

Book Review: Personal, Portable, Pedestrian

Personal, Portable, Pedestrian compiles multiple essays on mobile phone use in Japan into a variety of categories corresponding to different methodological and disciplinary frameworks. This covers infrastructure considerations which relates to our discussion of the “political economy” approach, historical cultural and social contexts which influence a technology’s adoption, and also includes a broad range of “virtual ethnographies” that indicate, (as our discussions have also) that the separation between on-line and off-line strategies for research purposes are no longer relevant (and perhaps never were).

The transparency with which mobile communications are embedded in everyday life has become seen as an opposite trajectory of the accepted notion of a colonization of cyberspace by constructed identities. Rather, everyday life seems populated by identities that move fluidly in and out of “comm-space”, structuring real-life through a simultaneous engagement in multi-threaded social psychogeographies.

I felt there were a variety of approaches used in the collection of data, especially in the ethnographic studies, which included discourse analysis, textual analysis (chapter 13), and in chapter 10, which looked at the use of keitai on public transportation.

I like the discussion of the digital divide conversation and the apparent reduction of that argument to a presumed universal need or implementation of “neutral” technologies. The ability of the authors to explore the notion of this “divide” as being more of a set of varying trajectories through a complicated terrain of sociocultural diversity reveals what seems like more of a globally co-created expansion and refinement of features and practices, that is akin to an emergent social phenomenon, with technological artifacts, rather than a top-down imposition of structured uses, based on a universalized technology.

What is unique about the practices surrounding mobile technologies in Japan? We discussed in class this idea of Techno-nationalism, or this sense that a universal technology (a cell-phone) ends up being adopted or its use modified due to the unique characteristics of the culture in which its use occurs. It seems after closer inspection however that this is not necessarily the case. Through the articles it becomes clearer that many shared components of keitai use in Japan are tied to quite disparate cultural and social behaviors.

I found it interesting that the chapter on cell-phone cameras seems so outdated. My own personal use of cell phones has included image messaging since 2004 or so, when I was traveling quite extensively and exchanged playful images from my workday with my wife and kids. I also produced and performed a collaborative live cinema show based on images and video captured via my cell-phone during these travels.

In the September 2000 survey among school-aged children, I was surprised to see such low penetration, given that my kids have had their own cell phones since 6^th and 7^th grade (1999 or 2000). I have always been under the impression that this penetration into younger populations was much earlier and more prevalent in Japan. I recall being in Tokyo for an internet music conference when NTT DoCoMo announced their new texting and internet access service, called I-mode, and realizing that the cell phone would ultimately become the vehicle for personal services via the internet. Shortly thereafter I had actually struck a deal with an emerging music service provider in the US to deliver the content of our fledgling internet radio business. While the initial adoption of cell-phones was apparently slower in Japan than the US, their rate of penetration and the profusion of services has quickly outpaced our own.

To satisfy my curiosity about the current use of keitai, and to counter the time lag inherent in the publishing process, I wanted to get some “on the ground” input from my friend who lives in Tokyo, to see how some of the behaviors on public transportation may have changed since the publication of the book, and since my last visit there. He indicates that a much more structured social contract has emerged with regards to keitai use in trains, particularly with regards to voice calls. It is almost non-existent, although texting continues “madly”. He also indicates that keitai use in other public places such as coffee shops has taken on a different character and that people, even the very young, are much more well-mannered and almost invariably take their calls outside. Many are now also able to use their keitai like a credit card for the trains and the coffee shops. I wonder if this will be a service that will catch on in the US?

In summary I felt the collection of essays was well-rounded in terms of the balance of methodological approaches, although the broad scope of the work was distracting (I found I wanted more of the kind of material in the Practice and Place section). Seeing the emergence of this “relevancing” of a technology, via my own use, my children’s, and through my proximity to an even younger generation’s continued refinement and collective re-structuring and ongoing re-defining of services and features is fascinating and exciting, both as an observer and participant in cultural production, and as an entrepreneur.

Personal, Portable , Pedestrian Review

Personal, Portable , Pedestrian (PPP)is a collection of case studies investigating the different dynamics of Ketai in Japanese cultures. Each contributor takes great space and time to explore Ketai and understand not just the use of technology but it as an extension of the culture and personalities of those who use it. PPP attempts to take, Ketai, which on the surface appears to be unique to Japan make connections to other cultures.

The book is divided into 5 sections which help the reader make thematic connections between the research conducted, as well as lessen the complexity of the studies. Each researcher has a different method of rationalizing qualitative data of understanding Ketai .

Some based their research in the historical context of the evolution of Ketai over time and use the space in a manner that shows the technology is more than just an instrument of communication but also helps others understand Japanese culture.

The studies do not just focus on social implications of Ketai and the utilization of the technology but also look at how growth of the technology and access have changed how the gadgets are used. Research methods allow the opportunity to draw understanding of Ketai from different perspectives. Each work looks at an aspect of Ketai, building a bank of observations and a vocabulary that can be taken further by the next researcher. Western societies do not understand the complexities of Ketai. Substantiating research in history allows connections to form between the present and the past emphasizes how technology is becoming an extension of culture and interactions among people.

The editor points out that it is not enough to study the interactions between people and the technology; to fully comprehend the impact of Ketai researchers must explore theoretical and methodical basis that lie beneath the surface.(5)

In Kenichi Fujimoto’s chapter, “The Third-Stage Paradigm: Territory Machines from the Girls Pager Revolution to Mobile Aesthics,” he uses ethnological reasearch to discover how Ketnai among Japanese youth is used as opposed to adults. The author sets up the parameters of research by first looking at sociological terms and creating a vocabulary to discuss Ketai and how it has evolved over time. Defining the vocabulary that is used within the article is helpful for the author as well as the readers. Once a background is formulating the author then has the space to create a working term to describe what is occuring.

Fujimoto uses the common idea of class as a starting point for the article. From class, the author explores different historians’ ideas eventually establishing a three-tiered paradigm to analyze Ketai, not only as a culture class between different generations, but as a discussion of place and its importance within Ketai. From these definintions the boundaries of the study are established. Fujimoto wants the audience to understand his rational for definging common sociological terms. Common terms allow the reserch to transcend different cultures. There are similrities and differences can be seen more easily understood by creating these definitions. This type of setup illustrates Fujimoto’s use of reflexive thought to make sure that the study has some type of universal purpose and can be used as a reference in others research.

It would be a flaw in the research if Fujimoto did not discuss specific vocabulary in Japanese culture. Fujimoto recognizes the faults in focusing only on soicological terminoligy as a basis for his research. The author explains, “I see paradigm norms and structures as including both the mental and the material” (Ito 93). To bring give the study more depth, He looks at Japanese vocabulary to make sense of Ketai within sociological contexts.

Another research method the Fujimoto’s study looks at is the public versus the private. At one point the discussion involves Ketai in public spaces and how it augments interactions in public and private because a private conversation is taking place over the techinical tool while physically being in a public space.

Fujimoto’s chapter an illustration of how to create a vocabulary for his studies. In PPP it is just one type of research method used by the its contributors. By rooting his study in history it gives makes his study more reputable, and context so that Ketai is not looked at as just a current phenomena, instead it is something that has developed over time.















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Personal, Portable, Pedestrian

Stacey Ball
Personal, Portable, Pedestrian
Book Review
10-06-09

Throughout Personal, Portable, and Pedestrian, the researchers who compile the chapters mainly use empirical research. Most use interviews and surveys of keitai users, historical research on social technology use such as bell-tomo, dengon dial, and telekura, and other statistical data. Because keitai is integrated into everyday use and users are so connected to them, using observational and ethnographic methods to study keitai use is the most logical method of study.

I chose to focus on part three of the book, “Social Networks and Relationships.” The first three chapters, “Mobile Communication and Selective Sociality,” The Mobile-izing Japanese,” and “Accelerating Reflexivity” all use either a combination of interviews and surveys or only surveys. The last chapter of the section, “Keitai and the Intimate Stranger” uses only historical evidence and statistics. Only one chapter includes quantitative methods in its research method.

For the “Mobile Communication and Selective Sociality” survey, Matsuda collects data from users, mostly through questionnaires, but also through two interviews, one over the telephone and the other, I assume, in person. The users interviewed or questioned ranged in age from youth to senior. The research itself tends to be number heavy and rely more on statistics than user feelings or thoughts. I imagine if Matsuda would have used more conversational methods of interviewing users, then more information about how and why keitai users are selective about who they are social with would have been more evident and revealing.

In “Mobile-izing Japanese,” the researchers take data gathered through a survey about social relations conducted through mobile phones and personal computers, then analyze it in a local (Japan) context, then apply it globally by comparing Japanese relationships with those in the United States. In the notes, the researchers address a couple of cultural differences. One being that New Years cards are analogous to Christmas cards in the U.S. and the other being that most Japanese people are not willing to disclose information about their personal lives as easily as most Americans makes comparing the cultures difficult.

“Accelerating Reflexivity” uses empirical data from youth interviews. The interviews were extensive and helped form Habuchi’s eventual hypothesis. Other quantitative data was gathered from a professional research study. Habuchi’s use of the interviews to change and focus the research echoes the point made in the “Producing Work That is Meaningful Across Time, Space, and Culture” chapter in Internet Inquiry. Markham suggests that by talking about your project with a peer, mentor, or even the subject being interviewed, that those discussions might lead you in a completely different direction than you at first envisioned, but that the process might lead to a more focused and interesting study.

The “Keitai and the Intimate Stranger” chapter studies the concept of the intimate stranger by studying historical developments that enabled this new social category to emerge. Tomita studies statistics regarding use of early social networking technologies. By looking at the past and how keitai became integrated into personal lives and allows for intimate connections with strangers, Tomita is able to conclude that intimate strangers will become even more commonplace in everyday life as keitai becomes more flexible.

Observing how people use and function with keitai is best shown through empirical, ethnographic study because of its social nature. Observing users and hearing or reading about what they think about keitai seems to be the most logical method for actually coming up with new thoughts and questions regarding keitai use, though surveys of statistical use weaved into the theory has great value as well.

PERSONAL, PORTABLE, PEDESTRIAN: BOOK REVIEW

The authors of Personal, Portable, Pedestrian as a whole have a key understanding of the complex and nuanced interplay between culture and technology. Shingo Dobashi’s piece in particular, The Gendered Use of Keitai in Domestic Contexts, addresses this interplay in a culturally relevant way. Because understanding the cultural framework surrounding the keitai is paramount in understanding the technology as a whole, Dobashi’s ethnographic approach to his piece is the focus of this paper. The value of any technology anywhere in the world is most effectively studied through its relationship with the immediate culture that surrounds it—a facet of research that does not necessarily limit its meaning to that particular culture. The research conducted and conclusions drawn in Personal, Portable, Pedestrian (and Dobashi’s piece specifically) embody many of Annette N. Markham’s research suggestions in her Internet Inquiry chapter addressing issues of time, space and culture. Where Dobashi’s piece (and all the essays included in Personal, Portable, Pedestrian) fall short is the lack of transparency regarding the researcher’s gender and sexuality, an element that Lori Kendall suggests can give important context to research.

Markham writes that “the adroit management of contingencies in the ever-changing internet contexts relies on solid grounding the practices and principles of social inquiry” (Markham 2009, 151). In any approach to the ever-changing sphere of digital media, especially when dealing with the subtexts of a highly metamorphic technology such as keitai, adhering to solid research methods is paramount in substantiating conclusions drawn about the culture being studied. In addition to abdicating solid research methods Markham illustrates the importance of understanding the framework that contextualizes your research. This idea becomes especially important when researching and writing about specific cultures. The researcher must both acknowledge the local situational factors and their relevance in a greater context.

Personal, Portable, Pedestrian as a whole addresses issues of locality versus globalism. In the introduction Mizuko Ito writes “we argue against the idea that variable technology use is an outcome of a universal technology (the mobile phone) encountering a particular national culture (Japan); both technology and culture are internally variable and distinctive” (Ito 2006, 14). Ito and the other essay authors address the immediate locality of their pieces (often within the umbrella culture of Japan as a whole), and yet explain why these cultural trends are important on a larger scale. Dobashi tackles the cultural hierarchy surrounding the Japanese housewife, and in so doing also deals with both the locality of the Japanese housewife in particular as well as alluding to a larger conversation about gender roles in different societies and their subsequent relationships with technology. He writes that “keitai can be understood not only as a transformation of existing social order, customs and culture but also as a simultaneous process of maintenance and reinforcement, depending on the social position of the user” (Dobashi 2006, 220).

In general the authors Personal, Portable, Pedestrian who take an ethnographic approach tend to be more diligent about defining their own role in the research, sometimes including specific information about their history in relationship to the culture they are studying. The point could be made that the nature of ethnographic studies requires a more transparent disclosure of the researcher’s own position, and yet discourse analysis, the collection and interpretation of quantitative data and a political economy approach all endow the researcher with a degree of power regarding what information is included and what is not—a subjectivity that is an important factor in how the research is conducted and presented.

Dobashi’s research was conducted primarily through interviews with Japanese housewives. His research group gathered information and interpreted it in an academically viable way. It is also culturally interesting and adheres to Markham’s guidelines for conducting work that is “meaningful across time, space and culture” (Markham 2009). While Dobashi exercises some sensitivity regarding the subtleties of gender issues, he and his research group do not include any transparency regarding their own embodiment of gender issues in the way Lori Kendall suggests in How Gender and Sexuality Influence Research Processes. Kendall views gender as a spectrum instead of a duality and hypothesizes that the work could be enriched with the researcher’s embodiment both of gender and sexuality. Dobashi does not include any mention of his own gender or sexuality in his research. Neither do any of the other essayists in Personal, Portable, Pedestrian, but because Dobashi’s chapter focuses specifically on one gender and on one subculture of that gender, it could be argued that his own assumptions and position regarding gender and sexuality are especially relevant.

Personal, Portable, Pedestrian as a whole stands up remarkably well to the research suggestions outlined by the various authors of Internet Inquiry. On a more specific scale, Dobashi’s The Gendered Use of Keitai in Domestic Contexts is concurrent with many of Markham’s ideals regarding the necessity for a local context while still remaining viable in non-Japanese contexts. Dobashi attempts to cultivate a degree of sensitivity regarding issues of gender in his approach to studying Japanese housewives. He achieves this in part, but fails to deliver the degree of transparency regarding his own gender and sexuality suggested by Kendall. Still, despite this minor (and highly acceptable) shortfall, Dobashi’s approach to keitai use among housewives not only brings to light specific nuances of this subculture, but also aligns nicely with the overarching themes of Personal, Portable, Pedestrian as a whole.

PPP Review - Josh

Joshua Lawton
DMST 4850: Digital Research Methods
Book Review of “Personal, Portable, Pedestrian”
edited by Mizuko Ito, Daisuke Okabe and Misa Matsuda



The complete integration of which mobile technology became a standardized extension of Japanese culture can be represented by which the term keitai is adopted rather than the grammatically correct term of keitai denwa (cellular phone) or idou denwa (mobile phone)(p. 20). As a society, the Japanese modified language to represent the acceptance of this technology of personal connection and space as commonplace as streetlights.

Originally used as a tool for businessmen, keitai was embraced by young Japanese girls after becoming accustomed to the alphanumeric pagers of the early 1990s. The book explains how the progression of the keitai came to be integrated into everyday life through an arc of admonishment and moral threat to a popular niche culture of teens to the connected lives of families and selective social groups to the near-present day saturation of keitai in Japan. As Ito explains in the introduction, keitai is “an intimate technosocial tethering, a personal device supporting communications that are constant, lightweight, and mundane presence in everyday life.” (p.1)

To get to the understanding of how integral keitai is to the culture, several forms of research were performed and complied with different approaches to the people of Japan. Some research was simply interviewing people in specific parts of the country, some was done as a simple written survey to be returned by a sample set, whereas some ethnography studies of observation were conducted. Many data sets were the function of companies and organizations reviewing internal numbers of keitai usage and statistics to determine market share of certain devices or application. Though there were also instances of combined research methods conducted to get a better understanding of how the keitai functioned in the lives of the subjects.

One example of utilizing ethnography methods was in studying mobile service technicians who they found had utilized keitai to become more efficient in completing tasks and restructuring the organization of the technology repair business as explained in chapter 12, “Design of Keitai Technology.” Researchers shadowed repair technicians in the field doing repair work to document the use of keitai for the various applications of use. The researchers studied three different areas of service with varying characteristics to get a wider range of potential use and structure. Following the shadowing in the field, researchers interviewed the service technicians to extrapolate better details of field use to garner a better understanding of keitai applications. The research group wanted to investigate a notion that technology and social constructs were co-joined in the case of keitai rather than as perceived by many other researchers and academics arguing that sociology influences technology or technology alters sociology. The keitai researchers wanted to oppose the idea that technology and society were separate.

There most likely were some questions they might have had in while developing and performing the research to help better reach their findings. In reading the chapter, some may have been: How does the keitai make their job easier? Is the keitai more of a personal tool or a tool that helps the entire team? Or does the tool aid smaller portions of the team? What effect do standard social norms or company policies have on the workers with regard to freedom to improvise? What systems or constructs do the company have in place to cultivate or limit the integration of keitai into the service technicians’ workflow? Has the company trained the technicians to use their keitai for work or has the phenomenon of integration been derived from the servicemen themselves?

The ease of which keitai has been integrated into the average workplace and utilized highlights the notion that the keitai has become nearly an expectation of life in Japan. The workers were able to become self-sufficient and self-regulated and redraw the organization of the repair company to be more effective. The researchers must have learned through their shadowing and interviewing the level of engagement the workers had with keitai even after learning of the system designed for the technicians to use via their keitai. By researchers shadowing the technicians and doing the follow up interviews, the data might have better context from which to understand the use of the keitai.

In order to generate a clearer understanding of the findings, the researchers must also have a complete understanding of the social systems in Japan, in the particular region of research as well as the company. For if the keitai is merely an extension of culture, the research would not necessarily just be on the keitai, it would have to be on the social system of the workers. The instance that the workers are immersed in technology – repairing copiers, fax machines, information networks, etc. – may have implications as to their technological literacy. Thus forcing the researchers to examine more instances of keitai use than just the service technicians to have a better window in which to examine the notion of keitai as an extension of Japanese life.

This chapter would have a difficult time as a stand-alone case of keitai culture, but as part of the larger context of the “Personal, Portable, Pedestrian” book it helps to elevate the overall notion of acceptance and utilization of keitai.

Leo's Book Writeup

Leo Kacenjar

Research Methods

Boundaries and Global Approach: Spatiality in Keitai Research

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The Keitai offers constant connectivity to alternative social environments and a uniquely personal attachment to virtual, imaginary, and physical realms. The use of these mobile devices constitutes an exclusively Japanese, yet multi-national techno-social phenomenon. It is not surprising that qualitative research on Keitai culture must reflect on connected issues of research boundaries, multi-sited approach, and connotations of globalness in scale. Personal Portable Pedestrian (PPP) addresses Keitai use with praxis that extends beyond traditional notions of research spatiality, while maintaining an appropriate lens on Keitai, as trans-national object.

Many of the articles published in PPP confront the unique multi-spatial reality of Keitai interaction. In addition to the mobile, multi-tasked “Nagara” lifestyle, the effervescent social connectivity of Keitai and the personalization of the object allow for constructed projections of self to occur across space and time. On the way to or from school, a typical youth may be walking her bicycle home, while talking to friends in person, connecting via short message service to friends in other neighborhoods, and emailing her significant other through email. At one moment the youth and her friends exist in many realities with many different personal identities.

While European and American use of mobile technology increasingly mirrors Keitai culture in Japan, the introduction to PPP isolates the Keitai as a unique element of Japanese techno-nationalism. However, the global nature of this phenomenon is further abstracted by the Western hemisphere’s preconceptions and fetishment of Japanese society. The international applicability of Keitai culture is left for the reader to determine, but the research’s global sensibility is felt throughout.

PPP’s research methods, which are frequently made transparent, grapple well with the complex spatiality of Keitai use. Many traditional qualitative research approaches must be deeply reconsidered to maintain effectivity in lieu of Keitai’s multiplicity of sites and vernacular. Most of PPP’s authors take a revised ethnographic approach fused with heavy textual analysis.

A major challenge with conducting ethnographic research on Keitai or any mobile digital technology is coping with the interconnectivity of spaces. This raises a challenge of research boundaries, where to start and stop, but also of site and immersion. Traditional ethnographies have been conducted as immersive, observational experiences, where the researcher assembles systems of social meaning over long periods of time. This places heavy emphasis on choosing a site very carefully, and maintaining observation for an extensive duration. Keitai culture challenges the traditional praxis because sites may geographically change, be multiplicative, virtual, or fleeting.

Christine Hine writes about this issue in Internet Inquiry. To ascertain the most meaningful information from this diversity of site, researchers must act reflexively, being careful not to separate technology from the context of cultural complexity. She writes that engaging with multiple sites is often a must, but that the researcher need always be careful to engage appropriately in each sector. Hine purports that, “Ethnography of the internet [or any digital phenomena] can, then, usefully be about mobility between contexts of production and use, and between online and offline and it can creatively deploy forms of engagement…” (Markham, 11) Many of PPP’s writers address the spatiality of Keitai in just the reflexive, context aware manner Hine suggests.

Misa Matsuda, Mizuko Ito, Daisuke Okabe’s exposure of their research methods specifically reveal a reflexive, multi-sited ethnographic approach. Matsuda’s Discourses of Keitai in Japan begins by contextualizing the book’s Keitai research methodology as both exploring the connection of technology production and use, but also public and personal spaces/connectivity. Okabe and Ito’s writings, Keitai in Public Transportation and Technosocial Situations deal specifically with Keitai’s complexity of space. The prior reports ethnographic study on public transportation, a fluctuating space with complex social rules, in combination with user based diary studies. The latter, conducted Keitai interviews and observations in the college setting of Fujisawa Campus, near Tokyo, but also refers to the same diary process as the prior. Both purport that the personal Keitai usage diaries allow for exploration of “settings being constructed by mobile phone communications themselves”. (Ito, 258) The research methods behind these writings clearly transcend site immersion in the traditional sense, employing just the sort of transparency and reflexivity of which Hine prescribes.

Another spatial, methodology challenge revealed by Keitai culture is the globalness of research issue. The meaningfulness of research in lieu of globalness is discussed in length by Annette Markham’s writing in Internet Inquiry. She asserts that true global scope and applicability is probably impossible. She recommends that researchers operationalize their terms, contextualize themselves within their research, and attempt “global sensibility”. The goal is not work that is universally applicable, but work contextualized by reflexivity and socio-historical placement that becomes empathically connectable across vast audiences.

PPP addresses the globalness of Keitai culture throughout the book, but Mizuko Ito’s Introduction specifically grounds the authors’ collective approach. She writes that there are many texts comparing mobile cultures internationally, and that Japan’s unique technosocial sphere is often left out. She explains the work and research of PPP is exclusively dealing with Keitai culture as a techno-nationalist feature of Japanese society. Keitai culture is further contextualized as a product of Japanese industrial expansion, but also as the result of continuous interplay between social and technical dynamics. This approach offers easy access to Keitai culture, within its unique setting. It advocates the phenomenon as unique, yet personally applicable to non-Japanese.

The research approach taken my PPP extends traditional research practices to provide the most utility in analyzing mobile technologies. The transparency and reflexivity of the research makes the book an archetype for dealing with the nascent requirement of multi-spatial ethnography. PPP’s attention to its scale in lieu of globalness works to make universally accessible this uniquely Japanese techno-culture.

Works Cited

Ito, Mizuko, Daisuke Okabe, Misa Matsuda eds. Personal Portable Pedestrian. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2006.

Markham, Annette N., Nancy K. Baym eds. Internet Inquiry. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications Inc., 2009.