Mobile Media
an international conference
on social and cultural aspects of
mobile phones, convergent media, and wireless technologies

2-4 July 2007
The University of Sydney
Australia

Barely twenty-five years since their commercial introduction, mobile cellular phones are widely used around the world. Having become an important technology for voice and text communication in the daily lives of billions of people, mobiles are now recognised as central not only for communications but also for contemporary transformations in cultural and social practices, and in new developments in computing, media, telecommunications, Internet, and entertainment.

Equipment manufacturers, cultural and content producers, and user groups and creative communities are now focussing on the possibilities of mobile media – with mobiles and wireless technologies, platforms, services, applications, and cultural forms being designed, manufactured, and reconfigured as convergent media.

Various forms of mobile media have been imagined for sometime, and are now a reality: mobile Internet, new forms of mobile text, mobile music, mobile film and video, mobile games, mobile learning, mobile media for the workplace, videotelephony, and mobile television. This relatively short history of mobile telephony is concurrently marked by the shift of the role of users from consumers to active producers – and mobile media is being heralded as a new site for consumption, democratic expression, individualism, citizenship, and creativity.

In this international conference we aim to comprehensively analyse and debate mobile media – exploring its emerging structures, features, practices, value chains, producers and audiences, delving into its social, cultural, aesthetic and commercial implications, and debating its futures.

The conference will feature leading scholars including Genevieve Bell (Intel), Stuart Cunningham (Queensland University of Technology), Shin Dong Kim (Hallym University), Leopoldina Fortunati (University of Undine), Leslie Haddon (London School of Economics), Dong Hoo Lee (Incheon University), Rich Ling (Telenor), Shin Mizukoshi (University of Tokyo), Raul Pertierra (Ateneo de Manila and University of Philippines), Misa Matsuda (Chuo University) and Judy Wajcman (Australian National University).

We also invite papers on all aspects of mobile media, including, but certainly not restricted to:

• what does it mean to talk about mobiles as media?
• how do we map and theorise the transformations underway with mobile platforms, applications, and networks?
• mobile art
• mobiles and photography
• emerging cultural and narrative forms for mobiles (such as mobile films and videos)
• intersections between mobiles and Internet technologies
• wireless technologies and cultures
• mobile television, radio, and other kinds of broadcasting
• video calling and communications
• sexuality, intimacy, and mobile media
• mobile media and national or regional cultures
• subcultures, minority cultures, majoritarian cultures, and mobile media
• how do issues such as gender, sexuality, disability, socio-economics, cultural and linguistic contexts continue to inflect differing practices in the far-from-even-and-even terrain of mobiles?
• mobile media and political economy
• mobile gaming
• what are the implications of mobile media for our concepts of culture, communication, and media
• mobiles, community, and public sphere
• mobile media, place and space
• ramifications of mobile media for creative, cultural and media industries
• challenges of mobile media for policy, regulation, and legislation.