Recent Changes

Check in or opt out: Public response to location-based services, 2009 – 2011
Last year, when Facebook decided to launch Facebook Place, media devote their coverage to discuss the issues with the Location-based services (LBS). Foursquare, one of various LBS apps, has been introduced in the terms like “business model of 2011” or “business frontier”. LBS is not a new term, or at least it could be traced back to many old-fashion aspects of life, but social networking, Internet and mobile devices together make it special—even Foursquare has its Foursquare Day on April 16 in many states in America. Based on the previous researches studying the media representation of the technology diffuse, this study examines some world major newspapers, magazines and blogs to provide themes of the public responses to Foursquare. Born with the concern of surveillance and privacy issues, it is interesting to explore the media discourse on these conflicts.
During Foursquare two-year history, other apps and sites, for instance Please Rob Me, were created to increase the awareness of using Foursquare especially related to privacy issues. With the potential risks to the users’ privacy on LBS, the government administration and experts were all starting working to increase the legislation of Internet privacy. The LBS service providers have been working and updating on their private policy. The providers say that the users have all the right to opt out anything and they can choose what information they want to share with those whom they select.
The aim of this analysis is to identify the dominate theme in the news coverage of Foursquare by the world newspapers, magazines and weblogs from March 2009 to March 2011. It extends the researches on the public responses to a new technology and how it is socially constructed through various mainstream media; and it also provides a comparison between the media discourse of other social media and LBS for the future study.
"Technology is neither good nor bad, nor is it neutral."
The first decade of the 21st century is the period in which mobile technology has been leading the way to new computing applications, which is almost the same as the first decade 30 years ago. In the 1980s, personal computer revolution was a successful in America with various factors including advertising and social exchange within groups, making the personal computer “a standard part of the typical American household”(Cogan,2005). For example, seen as the most influential computer during that time, in the year of 1984, Apple advertised Macintosh with the introduction of the user graphic interface and mouse (Cogan, 2005) and also with the implication of that their computer could bring a different world which was not like 1984 articulated by George Orwell. Not only Apple, other companies, such as Xerox, Commodore, Digital Equipment Company and IBM were sharing the market in the computer industry. It was also estimated a huge increase of new Americans getting home computers in the early days of the 1980s (Davis, 1983, p. 1). But, why were there such huge groups of consumers and increases in the computer industry? Scholars (Kumar, 2001; Deluca & Peeples, 2002, Cogan, 2005; also see Katz & Dayan, 1994) turn to examine the media content and public perception towards the introduction of personal computers; introduction of personal computer has been framed as inevitable, necessary and unavoidable (Cogan, 2005).
When it comes to other theorists of new technologies, a school of researchers (Innis, 1951; Mumfold, 1963; Postman, 1985) argue that the new technologies bring substantial changes to the social, political and economic structures. Marvin (1988) suggests that the changes are a complicated process involving the negotiations between people and forms of mass media and new technologies. She notes that “the introduction of new media is a special historical occasion when patterns anchored in older media that have provided the stable currency of social exchange are reexamined, challenged and defended.”(p. 4) As the media discourse of personal computers attracts those scholars, Internet has become another important area where its diffusion and use have been studied. Rossler’s (2001) study finds that the German magazine, between January 1995 and June 1998, covered Internet in the same overwhelmingly positive way as personal computer was portrayed in America. The research shows that the German magazines approach the multimedia been perceived as a “media revolution” with useful outcomes for communication in the society and also shows the magazine coverage favors the economically optimistic pattern— Internet been credited as a factor of economic revolution leading to “economic growth, international competitiveness and the creation of new jobs.” (Rossler, 2001) But other scholars (Wellman, 1999; Cornish, 2008) find some negative pattern in studies of the Internet. Wellman (1999) focuses on the notion of community created and used with the computer mediated communication—the Internet actually separates its users from real social relationship. Cornish’s (2008) study concerns that when Internet approaches to a wider range of users, some vague worries become “crystallized” with many issues such as hackers, privacy, pornography and information overload.
In addition to personal computer and Internet, a body of previous studies on the media discourse and public responses to the diffusion of technologies reveals different themes. Arceneaux (2005) examines the responses to mobile phones in America in 1981 to 2001, and the findings suggest that the diffusion of mobile phones encourages tolerance, such as people see speaking in public with a handheld device as normal behaviors. Therefore, the violation of established etiquette and social protocol is no longer been perceived as negative. However, other technologies challenging the established social protocols are studied as examples which having the reversed pattern of media representation of technology diffusion, such as telegraph, early radio and other electronic devices (Blondheim, 1994; Czitrom, 1982; Marvin 1988 and Covert, 1994). Arceneaux and Schmitz Weiss (2010) argue that Twitter and telegraph disturb the established concepts of communication, particularly the concepts of space and time and the differences between public and private sphere.
All the aforementioned arguments around the media representation of technology diffuse are informed by Melvin Kranzberg’s note–technology is not good, bad or neutral. His notion can be interpreted in two ways. Firstly, the nature of the technology (or a specific technology or application software) and the way of its diffusion and use can be employed in different ways. For instance, in the recent years, social media have been constantly mentioned as a critical role in revolutions in different countries and regions. Morozov (2011) in his book The Net Delusion points out that in the process of democratization, Internet have been used as weapons to expedite the regime change such as in Iran but also been used to strengthen the authoritarian control in countries like China and Russia. Secondly, how people perceive the good or evil side of technology also depend on the way they are informed by their information sources, the media framing, which is also the theoretical background of my analysis.
Framing theory is often used to understand communication and the behaviors in many fields (e.g. Goffman, 1974; Gamson & Modigliani, 1987; Pan and Kosicki, 1993; Tuchman, 1978, Gitlin, 1980). Goffman claims that the frame, as the “schemata of interpretation”, enables people “to locate, perceive, identify and label.” (Goffman, 1974, p.21) Tuchman brings the concept of story frame into the operation of news, which she says to report news is usually more like to tell a story rather than the truth of what has actually happened.
In regards to the specific news channel, Marvin (1988) argues that newspapers functioned as “arenas for negotiating issues critical to the conduct of social order” (p.8), assuming the shifts of written discourse of a technology shows the shifts in the public perception and discourse including “who is inside and who is outside, who may speak and who may not and who has authority and may be believed” (p.4). Because individuals can not experience the whole world ourselves, Gitlin (1980) suggests that people are dependent on the mass media which creates different frames or “patterns of cognition, interpretation, and presentation of selection, emphasis, and exclusion, by which symbol handlers routinely organize discourse whether verbal or visual.”(p.7)
"I am so totally, digitally close to you."
New communication technologies give people platforms for various uses (Castells et al., 2007) “on the basis of independent channels of autonomous communication from person to person.” The networks among people can be easily established by the mobile telephony, which has been increasing dramatically worldwide. For example, in the Middle East, the penetration of mobile-phone was 16.59 percent in 2002 with a yearly increase of 30 percent (Ford, 2003). The mobile telephony, because of its wide availability of individually controlled communication, makes it possible for people not to rely solely on mass media but to form a new space, either private or public. So it is necessary to examine the news representation of the use of mobile devices’ personal activities in public space. The development of mobile telephony, as argued earlier, increases the use of technology for surveillance such as police use, transportation, news reporting, entertainment, which also raises the privacy issue at the same time.
As discussed in the beginning, the new computing apps on mobile devices allow people to access their emails, e-commerce or e-business, which Nickerson et al. suggest that now those names could be changed into m-commerce, m-business and m-dating (Nickerson et al., 2007). They also argue that the new apps offer anytime computer and a newer anywhere computing, which is location-based. What should be notified is that scholars point out the location-based information is not new with the mobile devices. Espinoza et al. (2001) point out that the position-specific information exists long before. The location-/position-specific information can be exchanged in one-to-one communication such as notes and graffiti, or sometimes it can inform its local mass audience by posters with events or traffic signal with navigation. However, current LBS allow the probability for two-way or multi-way communication and interactivity. Steiniger et al. describe the model as the users inform the providers their context, needs and position; and the provider of location services deliver the corresponding information to the users. The increasing number of mobile phones and other devices makes such model possible for people not only to gather geographic information such as looking for a restaurant on the maps but also allow them to show their presence of that place and generate information, where the interaction can take place among the users.
Virrantaus et al. (2001) define LBS as “information services accessible with mobile devices through the mobile network and utilizing the ability to make use of the location of the mobile device.” International OpenGeospatial Consortium (2005) provides another definition of LBS as “a wireless-IP service that uses geographic information to serve a mobile user, any application service that exploits the position of a mobile terminal.” To be able to use LBS, there are several components: mobile devices, communication network or positioning component (Global Positioning System), service and app provider and content and data provider. The definitions and components emphasize the location of the users through network service, which draws attention to the concern of privacy in the public places and during the data exchange. Barkhuus’ (2006) study on privacy in LBS, using two cases, shows that users have initially concerns on the privacy issues involved with LBS. More interestingly the study also shows that after the actual use of LBS, privacy becomes a less concern than the initial stage.
Given a lack of study on the public response to LBS, this study can extend the discussion on LBS and privacy issue by analyzing the media content on Foursquare and privacy. It also re-explores the previous studies on the public response towards the diffusion of technology, and examines their approaches and findings to see whether they are transferable to the media discourse on LBS.
Method
The study proceeded from an analysis of the frames and tones used by a wide range of world major publications. At this stage, the study is concerned with media content on Foursquare and privacy by world newspapers, magazines and weblogs from March 12, 2009 to March 12, 2011 (both days included), the period after Foursquare has been created for two years. The decision to examine the world newspaper is driven by the nature of the issue. Prior researches (Nelkin, 1991) suggest that when it comes to complex issues such as wars (Stromback, 2005), printed channels such as newspapers provide more in-depth information than other media. Another motivation is that because the newspapers and magazines have still a large audience, they are also considered to “uphold an important democratic and informative role for opinion information” (Sandberg, 2007). The decision to use weblogs in this analysis was followed by Arceneaux and Schmitz Weiss’ study on Twitter (2010).
To explore the public responses to Foursquare, this study combines the methods used in the previous researches on Twitter and Internet use (Arceneaux & Schmitz Weiss, 2010; Rossler, 2001). Using the grounded theory approach (Glaser and Strauss, 1967), the analysis process borrowed the themes and subtopics from those studies. The sample content was coded (open-coding format, also see Arceneaux & Schmitz and Weiss, 2010) into different categories and the corresponding notes were taken during the process.
For this study, I drew 20% of all the articles included both of Foursquare and privacy during the date (see Table 1). Repeated stories are treated as one story and finally 251 news articles were coded. All the news stories were collected online from Lexisnexis academic database. All the population and sample content are shown in Table 1, and it is obvious that the coverage on Foursquare increased in the second year. Same as the increase of coverage on Twitter, weblog has the highest increase from my population content, which increased from 62 to 642 and followed by newspapers from 97 to 354.
Table 1. “Foursquare and privacy” content by media type and year (March 2009 to March 2011)
Media type and year
Population of content
Sample
Newspapers
March 2009—March 2010
97
19
March 2010—March 2011
354
71
Magazines
March 2009—March 2010
9
4
March 2010—March 2011
83
17
Weblogs
March 2009—March 2010
62
12
March 2010—March 2011
642
128
Findings
Consistent with the previous on Twitter, among the sample content, the most prominent theme discovered was the Explanation theme. As a new site, app and company, the news coverage on Foursquare or even the mention of Foursquare explained what Foursquare is and its use. Interestingly, the news stories not only explain Foursquare, but they use Foursquare as an explanation to other service.
Because the analysis aims to find coverage on both Foursquare and privacy, I decided to use two dichotomies in deciding the themes. The overwhelming majority of news coverage uses the Positive theme in the articles. Within in Positive themes, several subcategories were created: economical optimistic view; social connectedness and users’ opt-out. Only a few stories have a strong Negative theme towards Foursquare in regards to privacy, but the findings have explored some negative or skeptic subthemes such as the privacy of others, information overload and user skills.
Explanation Theme
News articles especially data retrieved from 2009 to 2010 presented the explanation of Foursquare whenever the name of the app or the company appears. At the earlier stage, the explanation was on Foursquare company itself and its founders, where the news articles provided a detailed history of the creator and the company. For instance the first news article in my sample content was by the Financial Times on March 25, 2009, provided a very detail of the history of the company:
Google bought Dodgeball in 2005 but did nothing with the service, and its founders left in 2007, disappointed at the lack of attention their product had received. Jaiku, bought later that year, also failed to make the grade at Google. It was freed by Google in January as open-source software for others to develop if they wished, while Dodgeball was finally closed down this month. Within days, its founders had launched a new product called Foursquare, restarting four years later their idea of a location-based Twitter-type service.
Another popular theme under explanation is that the news articles try to explain the features of the app, and most of them are associated with the words such as “check in” and location:
Just as online services like Twitter and Facebook let people update their friends on what they are doing, a new service called Foursquare (http://foursquare.com) allows users to tell their friends where they are.
Foursquare members ''check in'' by cell phone at locations around the city, from bars, restaurants and coffee shops to galleries, grocery stores and gyms. By sending up a flare marking wherever they are, users can alert their friends to come join them.
It is interesting to note that, at the early stage, the introduction to Foursquare usually appear as one of the well-known social media such as Twitter and Facebook, but another very important finding is that gradually the journalists and bloggers use Foursquare to explain the new features or activities launched by Facebook or a completely new service:
Now Facebook has its own offering, Facebook Places, expect more brands to look into location-based marketing using old kids on the block such as Foursquare but also newbies popping up now that Facebook has opted in.
Positive Themes
Economic optimistic view towards Foursquare and other LBS are the most dominate subtheme founded in the positive themes. The economic optimistic view consider the privacy a minor or secondary issue when it comes to the discussion about a new start-up or well-established social media/company goes to invest money in LBS. The journalists and bloggers concern the possibility to succeed in the market or the gaining of new users more than the privacy.
Foursquare's growth shows no sign of slowing with the first million users taking 12 months to acquire and the second million only three. So how is it going to make money? Famously, Twitter only launched its own commercial model - embeddable tweet-adverts - a few weeks ago, some four years after its creation. Foursquare, with several partnership deals already in place and a $20m cash injection from the likes of Facebook board member and Twitter investor Marc Andreessen, appears quicker off the blocks.
Another subtheme uncovered is the social connectedness, in which the articles would address how importantly it is to connected with friends, families and colleagues; some articles mention the privacy concerns, but the journalists and bloggers shift the privacy issue very easily into the fun and coolness of the app, such as the mayorship in Foursquare. For example:
Social networks are great for staying connected to family and friends, but you must be as careful as you would be on a phone call with a friend knowing strangers are listening too.
Foursquare's not a tool for better and more polite stalking - at least not directly. Instead, it's a social city guide and online game.
The last but not least important finding from the Positive theme is the users’ opt-out theme, where the news articles use various sources such as the interview with people working in the privacy lab at Foursquare, or direct quotes from Foursquare’s privacy policy or so-called technologists to explain the improvement of privacy settings on this app. When talking about the improvement, they are likely to provide the updating policies, which makes the process is ongoing and they would not stop updating:
On Aug. 17, Foursquare updated its privacy policy and policy 101 page, both can be viewed at the bottom of Foursquare's website. They are marked "new." Kalamazoo users Sarah Lee and Enrique Martinez suggested using Foursquare like any other social-networking vehicle -- use caution about the information you put out there and consider using the "off the grid" option.
When talking about the “off the grid” option, which is the focus of the opt-out theme, the journalists use the aforementioned sources to reassure the readers that the users can totally opt out and they can decide what privacy setting they want—share with all people, friends or nobody. Because typically in the same articles, the journalists would mention Foursquare does not track users, so the use of such an opt-out theme may function as reassurance to the users:
Sharing: You have the option of keeping your check-ins private ("off the grid") or sharing them via Twitter and Facebook. If you want to share them, link to them in your settings.
News articles also use quotes to show how to deal with young kids using Foursquare and how easily to “opt-out” when talking about the privacy issues in general in all social networking sites:
“If you know at least know the key words, know what Foursquare is, know what Gowalla is, Facebook and Twitter, and know what they do, and maybe sit down with your kids and go through the privacy settings, to make sure they're protected, I think that is a great step in the right direction.”
However, this subtheme is the most “attacked” and criticized aspect of privacy in Fousquare by other journalists and bloggers.
Negative Themes
Overall, the negative themes towards Foursquare and privacy are not obvious in my sample content. The most dominate negative theme is the concern of others’ privacy: mostly, friends and families. The articles explain how “check in” works and it would turn very skeptical about whether the friends you tag in the “check in” care about their privacy; and some news articles concern about the cybercriminals, who might stalk people to their regular check-ins; and issues also revolves around the check-ins of the parents—if the parents check in at some other places than home (or even home is a very “dangerous” check-in) it means your kids would be left alone at home. The finding also shows that bloggers have more concerns about those issues other than the newspapers and magazines. For example:
But recent geolocation technology such as Foursquare and Facebook's Places feature, which allow users to "check in" to an exact location on a map and see who else is there, are ratcheting up concerns that more abuse will occur, putting young people at risk
Another negative theme towards privacy and Foursquare is the discussion of the users’ online skills, which serves as a response to the “opt-out” theme, and most of the criticism comes from bloggers as well. By talking about the users’ online skills, the bloggers point to the default setting of Foursquare or other social networking sites such as Facebook—your checkins and your profiles are open to public if you do not opt out or change the settings. The bloggers blame the providers because they notice that not everyone is technology savvy and there may be many under-aged teens or young kids using such app.
Discussion and Limitation
By studying the news coverage on Foursquare and privacy, this analysis finds that the most dominate theme is positive theme, which means more people would check in on those LBS. The economic optimistic view of Foursquare is the most popular subtheme used by journalists and bloggers, which also means the diffusion of Foursquare would still be positive by the media coverage. News articles echo the previous researches on the introduction of personal computers and Twitter, where during that period of time the news talked about the market, the companies and their popularity among users. The preference on the economic optimistic theme could help promote the diffusion of the new app and the company. The economic optimist view is not only towards Foursquare but the similar services, and some articles clearly state that the LBS will lead the Internet business and Foursquare serves as a model of successful business. The emphasis on the market or the economic prosperity of LBS may direct people’s concern to different direction other than privacy. Another area, which the media have been very positive too, can promote the diffusion is the social connectedness/coolness of using LBS. This also recalls Barkhuus’ findings that the actual use of LBS can eliminate some of the concerns on privacy. The mainstream media address the social connectedness provides its audiences other suggestions for social life but they didn’t fully explain the risks of having such fun. The overwhelming coverage on the economic optimistic theme and the social connectedness within the search results from “privacy and Foursquare” show that the privacy issue is not the key or the major concern of my sample content.
Another interesting point is that the content retrieved is basically from America and Canada, only one article from China addressing the market in LBS. This is identical with my other study on the political impact of social media during Tunisian revolutions. In China, there is an app/service called Jiepang, which means “at the side of the street”, but the data from Chinese media seem completely absent. Chinese government has been very carefully about those LBS and other social media. It is interesting to explore why and how some countries are afraid of covering issues on newer communication technologies and tools. Chinese government has a very strict control on the Internet—Twitter, Facebook and Youtube have been blocked. Due to the nature of media, it is highly possible that in the future governments or policy makers in countries like China or even Russia their journalists would not cover the LBS as the same in the degree with the Western counterparts, even in economic terms.
This study does have some limitations. Firstly, it only focus on the mainstream “texts” and does not look at how actual users’ responses towards Foursquare. For example there are a lot of people sharing their check-ins and mayorships with friends on Twitter and Facebook, but some may not. Secondly, with the findings and discussion, I feel a quantitative study is necessary and needed for my follow-up investigation. This study does not answer the questions like whether the themes vary by different media types, and what is the variance across different outlets and regions. Third, the sample is consisted of 250 news articles but the sampling strategy can be improved in the follow-up study, for example the choosing of search keys may block out some other topics.
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Title: Check in or Opt out: Public Response to Foursquare
sample:listed is the total number of articles retrieved, and this paper uses 20% of them

Author: Meghan Grosse
Personalizing Mobile Consumption: A History of Smartphone Applications
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The use of application basedapplication-based mobile devices are still (physicallyphysically in a customizable device. Nowhere are these tools more accessible or customizable than in the form of a mobile application. Applications offer users a large and diverse set of options for navigating their day-to-day lives. No matter what the task, Apple promised users in an early commercial that “there’s an app for that.” The narrative of accessibility and choice on the part of the individual user has quickly infiltrated the way users understand mobile technology and mobile computing. Using the portability and connectivity of early, non-application-based smartphones as a foundation; applications accelerated the integration of mobile technology into every part of users’ lives. Unlike the focus on hardware that came with the introduction of other technology, applications notably pushed users to focus on the versatile, flexible software available. With access to any number of relevant tools also comes the presumption that users should take advantage of them in all these spaces at all times creates some shifts, potentially positive or negative, in the way users of these devices are expected to move around in the world.
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The idea of everyware again emphasizes the role of the user in shaping the rituals built around the use of mobile technology. The software that seeps into all areas of our lives will not be “simply vended to a passive audience,” but will instead require their input (Greenfield, 2006, 163). Technology may be designed in anticipation of its uses and effects, but this does not mean its use is pre-determined. While users may wind up shaping developer’s decisions, developer’s decisions are in turn shaped by the guidelines for development laid out by hosts of application stores. The most notable example can be found in Apple’s “Human Interface Guidelines,” or HIG. As Apple states in the HIG “people expect to find iOS technologies in the apps they use.” Apple outlines principles relating to aesthetics as well as functionality. Buttons, menus, and icons are all expected to work in a certain way and remain consistent across apps. These guidelines on top of the technological constraints, such as the size of the screen or the difficulty to multitask on the device, may limit developers, but these boundaries also add a degree of precision to the design and use of applications. In a system that is so flexible, users need to find some common ground in functionality even as they personalize the device for their own use.
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While the motivation for app use may be shared across different smartphones, users must head to different digital stores to download applications. Mobile applications can be purchased through stores linked directly to the native operating systems of smartphones or through third party platforms. While there seems to be a growing number of these third party platforms, stores tied directly to specific smartphone systems remain central to application development and purchasing at this time. For iPhone users there is the App Store in Apple’s iTunes, for Android users there is Google’s Android, for Palm users there is the Software Store, for Blackberry users there is App World, for HP users there is App Catalog, for Nokia users there is the Ovi Store, and for Windows users there is Windows Marketplace. Recently, Amazon launched its own Appstore for Android, arguably becoming the most well known third party distribution platform for apps.
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2. How technological advancements influence app development.
3. How about social norms influencing app development?
Mobilefunctions. Because of this tendency, apps also are often tailored more specifically not only to the user, but to the limits of the technology itself (i.e. the small, touch screen), yet another advantage over somewhat unwieldy mobile websites that require scrolling or typing or other involved maneuvers.
Mobile devices and ¶ 12). Still, even after spending all this time and money “the gatekeepers at Apple” can reject the app. Apple is attempting to limit the “marketplace clutter” found particularly in open-source markets like Android users find and push developers to create unique applications (Bascaramurty, 2010, ¶21).
The proliferation of the app is specific to the development of smartphones, but the push towards convergence, constant connection, and personalization in media have been building for some time. Most obviously with the rise of the internet, the multimedia experience became the norm. Users began to expect all the content they once pulled from older media platforms be available on one device, a device that could also offer a new web features. Smartphones built on these expectations providing its users with access to the features of a phone, web features like email and browsing, and applications boosted the functionality and integration of this technology into everyday life as users could also view television, listen to radio, read newspapers, organize their calendars, and play games. In addition to these features users associated with the internet and earlier technology, smartphones also drew on the desire for local information as well as the desire to stay connected, even where an actual internet connection may be unreliable. It is through mobile applications that an expanded sense of connectivity was made possible. Unlike a web browser, apps can frequently function with a web connection, taking advantage of the downloaded quality of the app. Regular, dependable access to apps have transformed mobile technology for many people from a device of convenience to a device fully integrated into and sometimes necessary to the way they function as an individual, socially, and professionally. With Apple’s claim that for any need “there’s an app for that,” users and non-users alike built meaning into the technology. The strong desire for connectivity and choice became tied to the software found in apps and the hardware found in smartphones, making the social value of each even greater.
Television, radio, and print have long been tailoring their content to suit more and more specific audiences. The internet, partially because of its multimedia capabilities, amped up personalization as users could pull in content, in some cases automatically, that suited their specific goals, needs, and interests. Still, with the rise of the smartphone and mobile applications, this process of personalization has further intensified. Users of applications are not only accessing the type of personalized content they have grown accustomed to, but because of the portable nature of smartphones, they are actually personalizing their experience in spaces that were once held as public. With mobile applications users can create a private bubble where they can choose not only to close themselves off from some of the audio and visual elements of public space, but also from the social elements. There are certainly benefits to having the connection to one’s preferred content and social circle at all times, but this shift also brings about some real changes. The same connectivity to social networks, entertainment, and tools for productivity that users love so much also create expectations that these features be utilized to their fullest, making it difficult for an individual to shut down or disconnect even when they may want to.
The future flexible, the appsapp’s flexible past the way individualsusers function in smartphones and aps)apps) into all 2002, 139).
Arguably, this
The shift in public spaces as a result of smartphone and app consumptions changes the 2005, 97). The option to personalize private and public spaces has its advantages and disadvantages. With the option to move towards a state of constant connectivity can also come expectations that people remain constantly connected. Users not only have access to the kind of interpersonal, one-on-one communication of traditional mobile phones, they also have access to groups of friends, co-workers, acquaintances and even strangers, access to which is pretty easy with popular social networking applications. Increasingly, users’ are expected to make use of this access.
Smartphones are 2009, 143-144). Smartphones and applications relate not only to the way we experience our social networks, but also the way we experience media content at large. The personalization seen in older media has since extended into our hands, portable and accessible at all times. The growth of the app has shifted the way users experience and move about in the world. Even with discussions about the growth of the mobile web diminishing the importance of the mobile application, the app is still holding strong, offering users personalized, multimedia consumption, and social connectivity in a richer, more accessible way than the mobile web or any other technology has been able to at this time.
References:
Agar, J. (2003). Constant touch: a global history of the mobile phone. Cambridge, UK: Icon Books
Aguado, J.M. & Martinez, I.J. (2008). The construction of the mobile experience: the role of advertising campaigns in the appropriation of mobile phone technologies. In G. Goggin (Ed.), Mobile phone culture. (pp. 1-12). London: Routledge.
App Store Review Guildelines (2011). Access May 4, 2011 from http://developer.apple.com/appstore/guidelines.html
Apple’s App Store downloads top 10 billion. (2010). Accessed May 4, 2011 from http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2011/01/22appstore.html
Bascaramurty, D. (2010). App approved? The Globe and Mail.
Brodsky, I. (2008). The history of wireless: how creative minds produced technology for the masses. Telescope Books: St. Louis, MO.
Coronia, L. (2005). Mobile culture: an ethnography of cellular phone uses in teenagers’ everyday life. Convergence, 11, 3: 96-103.
Goggin, G. (2006). Cell phone culture: mobile technology in everyday life. London: Routledge.
Greenfield, A. (2006). Everyware: the dawning age of ubiquitous computing. Berkeley, CA: Peachpit Press.
Jacobsson, S. (2010). New Windows phone marketplace rules: trial apps OK, porn booted.
PC World.
Jenkins, H. (2006). Convergence culture: where old and new media collide. New York: New York University Press.
Klemens, G. (2010). The cellphone: the history and technology of the gadget that changed the world. McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers: Jefferson, NC.
Ling, R. & Donner, J. (2009). Mobile communication: digital media and society series. Cambridge, UK: Polity.
Cambridge University PressPress.
Lucia M. (2010). Apps as money pit. MediaWeek.
takes command. Available atAccessed May 2, 2011 from http://lab.softwarestudies.com/2008/11/softbook.html
Marvin, C. (1988). When old technologies were new. New York: Oxford University Press.
Patel, K. (2010). Little love for the mobile web in app-adoring world. Advertising Age.
Purcell, K., Entner, R., and Henderson, N. (2010) The rise of apps culture. Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project.
Tuttlebee, W., Babb, D., Irvine, J., Martinez, G. and Worall, K. (2003). Broadcasting and mobile telecommunications: internetworking not convergence, EBU Review, 293, http://www.ebu.ch/en/technical/trev/trev_293-tuttlebee.pdf.
Other info from previous outline:
-- Development of the smartphone
1. IBM’s Simon (1992)
2. Nokia’s 9110 Communiator (1998)
3. RIM’s 857/957 Wireless Handheld (2000)
a. RIM’s Blackberry (2002)
4. Windows Phone (2002)
5. Palm’s Treo [Windows OS] (2005)
a. Palm’s Centro [Palm OS] (2007)
6. Apple’s iPhone (2007)
7. Motorola’s Droid (2009)
a. Google’s Android OS (2008)
-- Built-in applications
a. iPhone (1st edition)
- Phone
- Mail
- Safari (web browsing)
- iPod
- SMS (text messages)
- Calendar
- Photos
- Camera
- YouTube
- Calculator
- Stocks
- Maps
- Weather
- Notes
- Clock
- Settings
b. iPhone 3G
- Phone
- Mail
- Safari (web browsing)
- iPod
- Text (SMS)
- Contacts
- Clock
- Calendar
- Weather
- Maps
- Camera
- Photos
-YouTube
- Notes
- App Store
- iTunes
-Calculator
- Stocks
- Settings
c. iPhone 3GS
- Phone
- Mail
- Safari (web browsing)
- iPod
- Messages (SMS text messages)
- Calendar
- Photos
- Camera
- YouTube
- Stocks
- Maps
- Weather
- Voice Memos
- Memos
- Clock
- Calculator
- Settings
- iTunes
- App Store
- Compass
d. iPhone4
- Phone
- Mail
- Safari (web browsing)
- iPod
- Messages (SMS Text messages)
- Calendar
- Contacts
- Photos
- Camera
- YouTube
- Stocks
- Maps
- Weather
- Notes
- iTunes
- App Store
- Clock
- Voice Memos
- Calculator
- Compass
- Settings
e. Android (less clear than Apple; “Many Android-powered phones come with Google applications pre-installed” http://www.google.com/mobile/android/)
- Quick Search Box
- Gmail
- Latitude
- Goggles
- Google Talk
- Google Contacts
- Google Shopper
- Blogger
- Google Maps
- YouTube
- Buzz
- Google Voice
- Google Calendar
- Google Finance
- Google Earth
f. Windows Phone
-- App Store Hall of Fame (see via iTunes; view: Featured): Apple’s own list of top Apps sorted here by category and frequency
- Games (18): Angry Birds, Archetype, Carcassonne, CHAOS RINGS, Cut the Rope, Dark Nebula - Episode Two, Espaguluda II, Flight Control, Guitar Hero, Homerun Battle 3D, Jet Car Stunts, N.O.V.A., Osmos, Plants vs. Zombies, Real Racing, Reckless Racing, Spider: The Secret of Bryce Manor, Zen Bound 2 Universal
- Photography (5): Color Splash, Hipstamatic, Pano, Photogene, TrueHDR
- News (4): CNN App for iPhone (U.S.), Instapaper, Pulse News Mini, Reeder
- Productivity (3): Awesome Note (+Todo), Evernote, Siri Assistant
- Entertainment (3): Brushes - iPhone Edition, IMDb Movies & TV, Movies by Flixster
- Music (3): Guitar Toolkit, Ocarina, Pandora Radio
- Sports (2): Golfscape GPS Rangefinder, Yahoo! Sportaculr Pro
- Lifestyle (2): Epicurious Recipes & Shipping, 20 Minute Meals - Jamie Oliver
- Education (2): Explore 9/11, Star Walk
- Travel (2): Fotopedia Heritage, Yelp
- Business (1): Dragon Dictation
- Books (1): The Elements for iPhone4
- Social Networking (1): Facebook
- Healthcare & Fitness (1): Nike + GPS
-- Application Stores
1. App Store (Apple)
2. Android Market (Google)
3. Software Store (Palm)
4. App World (Blackberry)
5. App Catalog (HP)
6. Windows Marketplace (Windows)
7. Amazon Appstore for Android

Introduction
As 2010 gave way to 2011, the political uprisings in Tunisia and Egypt caught the attention of the U.S. press. News coverage was extensive with the Egyptian Revolution garnering the most attention: the popular uprising that lead to the removal of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak was the largest international news event covered by U.S. news organizations since 2007, according to the Project for Excellence in Journalism (Jurkowitz, 2011). One of the story angles explored by U.S. news organizations was the role of new media and technology in the revolutions. Photojournalists working in Egypt captured images of people celebrating with mobile devices in hand (see Figure 1), and a CNN.com headline declared “Tunisian Protests Fueled by Social Media Networks” (Lister, 2011). This study uses discourse analysis to investigate how two prominent and politically divergent online news organizations in the United States, CNN.com and FoxNews.com, explained the role of technology during Tunisia’s Jasmine Revolution and the Egyptian Revolution of 2011. In particular, this study aims to assess how mobile media was presented in news reports in comparison to other forms of new media, such as social media, and to document how the news sources frame the role of new media in political revolutions.
Figure{egypt-night-laptop_1824631i.jpg} Figure 1: Reuters, telegraph.co.uk
||
{file:///Users/andreaguzman/Library/Caches/TemporaryItems/msoclip1/01/clip_image002.jpg}
Understanding how CNN.com and FoxNews.com covered mobile media in comparison to other types of new media during the Tunisian and Egyptian revolutions and how the news outlets’ framed the role of technology in the uprisings are important to communication research for several reasons. Scholars have explored mass media messages for nearly a decade because mass media provide consumers with knowledge about their environment (Lippmann, 1922). This knowledge includes information about foreign countries (Besova & Cooley, 2009; Rosengren, 2000). The way in which the news media frame that information has the potential to influence news consumers’ opinions of it (Brewer, 2006; Druckman, 2001; Entman, 1993; Evans, 2010). Little research exists regarding the framing of new media in news reports (Cornish, 2008), and because of the recency of the uprisings in North Africa, scholars have not had a chance to study the media reports regarding the revolutions. Mobile technology is a ubiquitous media throughout most of the world and has the potential to have political consequences (Nelimarkka, 2008). A handful of researchers have explored the use of mobile technology in political uprisings (e.g. Castells, Fernandez-Ardevol, Qiu, & Sey, 2007; Pertierra, Ugarte, Pingol, Hernandez, & Dacanay, 2002; Rheingold, 2002), but no comparison of the portrayal of two types of media, for example mobile versus social media, during a recent revolution exists. And so, this study helps to fill a research void by providing an understanding of which new media U.S. news organizations cover and how they frame the role of new media during political uprisings in foreign countries.
Literature Review
New media as generation shaper
One of the frames of new media’s role in the revolution is that of a force that shaped a generation of protesters calling for democracy. This frame is found only in CNN.com’s stories about the Egyptian revolution. Part of CNN.com’s coverage included a focus on exploring why protesters, particularly young and educated citizens, were suddenly marching for government reform in a country that had been ruled by an autocrat for decades. One of the explanations given for the sudden revolt was that the young people taking part in the protests were part of a new generation – a generation influenced by and formed around the Internet and social media. One way in which the Internet is alleged to have shaped the protest generation is through instilling the young people with the belief that answers to questions and solutions to problems should be instantaneous, like Internet communication. This portrayal is found in a quote by Kamal Zakher, a Coptic Christian leader, regarding the protesters:
`These"`These protests are affected by any
politicalanypolitical leadership. There to the demonstrations’(CNNdemonstrations’" (CNN Wire Staff, par. 12).
CNN.com CNN.com also portrays
New media as weapon
In her analysis of the framing of the Internet by newspaper journalists, Cornish (2008) found the press portrayed the Internet as “war.” A similar frame can be identified in CNN.com and FoxNews.com’s portrayal of the use of new media as a weapon during the Tunisian and Egyptian revolutions. This frame is built by the naming terms each website uses for new media as well as the actions associated with new media. The clearest example of how CNN.com frames the role of new media as a weapon is through its description of social media as “another important weapon for the demonstrators” (Milian, 2011, par. 2). FoxNews.com also compares the protesters to soldiers and their use of social media to the use of military arms: “The tyrants’ antagonists are not conventional armies or coup plotters but literate and disaffected young people, more of them than ever before, armed with access to instant, global communications in the form of social networking media like Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, and the Internet” (Rosen, 2011, par. 4). The news websites use other terms in reference to new media like attack, launch, salvo, and combat that also are commonly associated with weapons. For example, an effort by the hacking organization Anonymous to help Tunisians retaliate against their government is described by CNN.com as carrying out an attack (Lister, 2011).
Blumler, J. G., & Gurevitch, M. (2001). The new media and our political communication
discontents: Democratizing cyberspace. Information, Communication & Society, 4, 1–13.
affairs. The
International Journal of Press/Politics, 11, 89-102.
communication and
society : A global perspective. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
CNN Staff. (2011, February 10). Revolution that began 18 days ago leads to Mubarak’s ouster.
CNN Wire Staff. (2011, January 25). Will Egypt follow Tunisia’s lead? CNN.com. Retrieved
from LexisNexis Academic.
1988 to
1995 (Doctoral dissertation). Retrieved from ProQuest Dissertations and Theses database.
(UMI 3314750).
Davis, R. (1999). The web of politics: The Internet’s impact on the American political system.
New York, NY: Oxford University Press.
competence. Political
Behavior, 23, 225-256.
Journal of
Communication, 43, 51 – 58.
Entman, R.M. & Rojecki, A. (1993). Freezing out the public: Elite and media framing of the U.S.
FoxNews.com. (2011, January 28). Internet, phones down as Egypt braces for `day of ‘rage.’
FoxNews.com. Retrieved from http://www.foxnews.com.
of the
New Left. Berkley, CA: University of California Press. Accessed via Google Books.
Greenfield, A. (2006). Everyware: The dawning age of ubiquitous computing. Berkley, CA:
Lafayette, IN: Purdue University Press.
Hoffmann, J., & Kornweitz, A. (2011). New media revolution? Media Development, 1, 7-11.
Excellence in
Journalism News Coverage Index. Retrieved from http://www.journalism.org/index_report/
pej_news_coverage_index_january_31_february_6_2011.
Polity Press.
Perusco, L., & Michael, K. (2007). Control, trust, privacy and security: Evaluating location based services. IEEE Technology and Society Magazine.
ubiquitous cell
phone ownership. Retrieved from http://pewresearch.org.
Txt-ing selves:
Cellphones and Philippine modernity. Manila, Philippines: De La Salle University Press.
Reese, S.D. (2001). Prologue – Framing public life: A bridging model for media research. In
Rosengren, K. E. (2002). International communication at the mass media level. In McQuail
(Ed.), McQuail’s Reader in Mass Communication Theory. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications. (Reprinted from Communication: An introduction, pp. 184-190, 2000, Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage)
Social meaning
of news: A text reader (pp. 7 – 22). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications. (Reprinted from Media, Culture & Society, pp. 263-282, 1989).
on mass
media content (2nd ed.). White Plains, NY: Longman Publishers.
Sunstein, C. (2001). Republic.com. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

Entman,Andrea L. Guzman
Facebook rising: The U.S. media’s disproportionate emphasis on social media over mobile media during the Tunisian and Egyptian revolutions
Introduction
As 2010 gave way to 2011, the political uprisings in Tunisia and Egypt caught the attention of the U.S. press. News coverage was extensive with the Egyptian Revolution garnering the most attention: the popular uprising that lead to the removal of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak was the largest international news event covered by U.S. news organizations since 2007, according to the Project for Excellence in Journalism (Jurkowitz, 2011). One of the story angles explored by U.S. news organizations was the role of new media and technology in the revolutions. Photojournalists working in Egypt captured images of people celebrating with mobile devices in hand (see Figure 1), and a CNN.com headline declared “Tunisian Protests Fueled by Social Media Networks” (Lister, 2011). This study uses discourse analysis to investigate how two prominent and politically divergent online news organizations in the United States, CNN.com and FoxNews.com, explained the role of technology during Tunisia’s Jasmine Revolution and the Egyptian Revolution of 2011. In particular, this study aims to assess how mobile media was presented in news reports in comparison to other forms of new media, such as social media, and to document how the news sources frame the role of new media in political revolutions.
Figure 1: Reuters, telegraph.co.uk
||
{file:///Users/andreaguzman/Library/Caches/TemporaryItems/msoclip1/01/clip_image002.jpg}
Understanding how CNN.com and FoxNews.com covered mobile media in comparison to other types of new media during the Tunisian and Egyptian revolutions and how the news outlets’ framed the role of technology in the uprisings are important to communication research for several reasons. Scholars have explored mass media messages for nearly a decade because mass media provide consumers with knowledge about their environment (Lippmann, 1922). This knowledge includes information about foreign countries (Besova & Cooley, 2009; Rosengren, 2000). The way in which the news media frame that information has the potential to influence news consumers’ opinions of it (Brewer, 2006; Druckman, 2001; Entman, 1993; Evans, 2010). Little research exists regarding the framing of new media in news reports (Cornish, 2008), and because of the recency of the uprisings in North Africa, scholars have not had a chance to study the media reports regarding the revolutions. Mobile technology is a ubiquitous media throughout most of the world and has the potential to have political consequences (Nelimarkka, 2008). A handful of researchers have explored the use of mobile technology in political uprisings (e.g. Castells, Fernandez-Ardevol, Qiu, & Sey, 2007; Pertierra, Ugarte, Pingol, Hernandez, & Dacanay, 2002; Rheingold, 2002), but no comparison of the portrayal of two types of media, for example mobile versus social media, during a recent revolution exists. And so, this study helps to fill a research void by providing an understanding of which new media U.S. news organizations cover and how they frame the role of new media during political uprisings in foreign countries.
Literature Review
Framing theory provides the theoretical base for this study. The creation of news is not an objective process in which detached journalists observe the world and pass unbiased information along to the public; rather, news is created through subjective journalistic practices affected by multiple influences including a society's dominant ideology and media routines (Gitlin, 1980; Shoemaker & Reese, 1996; Schudson, 1997). According to framing theory, these influences manifest themselves in media content through the elevated presentation of particular aspects of the subject of the news report and suppression of other factors (Gitlin, 1980; Entman, 1993; Reese, 2001). "Frames are principles of selection, emphasis, and presentation composed of little tacit theories about what exists, what happens, and what matters" (Gitlin, 1980, p. 6). The media frames found in news content, then, provide a limited view of a phenomenon, like the role of new media in a political uprising. Media framing of a particular subject is important because researchers have established that framing affects consumers' perceptions of the person, place, issue, or phenomenon ( Druckman, 2001; Entman, 1993; Entman & Rojecki, 1993; Evans, 2010). "Upon finishing a clear, well-constructed article, readers form opinions on the causes, actors and significance of the events reported. However, the apparently factual news items presented to the public often lead the public to understand events from a particular perspective, or frame, advanced by the media" (Evans, 2010, p. 210). And so, the study of media frames used to describe the role of new media in political uprisings is important because these frames have the potential to influence how the public may view new media within the context of revolution.
Since the writing of the Phaedrus, and possibly even prior, discourse regarding communication technology has reflected a "binary logic": technology can improve life or destroy it (Gunkel, 2007). This dialectic has been applied to the discussion of the impact new media has had and will continue to have on politics, particularly democracy (Papacharissi, 2010). Scholars and activists who argue new media has the power to improve the political system think that technology can create new space for civic discourse (Blumler & Gurevitch, 2001; Feenberg, 2009); increase dialogue between citizens and their leaders (Blumler & Gurevitch, 2001); enable direct democracy to replace representative democracy (Westen, 2000); and empower citizens to hold people in power responsible for their actions (Kann, Berry, Gant, & Zager, 2007). Social media has been framed as having the potential "for enhancing democracy on the one hand by providing new ways of inclusion and direct citizen participation and spreading democracy on the other by means of inhibiting secrecy by repressive governments and providing unprecedented possibilities to self-organize" (Hoffmann & Kornweitz, 2011, p. 7).
But other researchers have argued that new media do not lead to a revolution in the political process and, instead, maintain the status quo (Davis, 1999). These scholars frame the Internet as a crowded, imperfect place with a "cacophony of voices" (Sunstein, 2001, p. 56) in which no one’s opinion can be heard or people only listen to opinions similar to their own. New media also are framed as a threat to the autonomy in the political process: “Democracy is threatened above all by new technologies of surveillance that employ the network to concentrate information from many sources, exposing deviations from the norm through tracking and data mining” (Feenberg, 2009, p. 78).
As mobile technology has spread and replaced fixed forms of media, scholars have started to explore how mobile media and other emerging forms of new media, such as online social networks, affect the political process (e.g. Castells et al., 2007; Rheingold, 2002). Castells et al. (2007) explain that the coupling of mobile technology and social media has created a "new form of public space" that can be used for multiple purposes including the facilitation of political change (Castells et al., 2007, pg 185). The Tunisian and Egyptian revolutions are not the first popular uprisings to bring attention to the role of new media in modern politics. Mobile technology often is credited as playing an integral role in the overthrow of the Philippine president during the People Power II movement (Pertierra et al., 2002). But, Castells et al. (2007) and Pertierra et al. (2002) also caution that although new media was used in the facilitation of political change in the Philippines, it was not the sole factor that caused the uprising or forced the president from power.
Although scholars have explored societal views of new media, very little research exists regarding how news organizations frame new media technologies in general (Cornish, 2008) and how the press portrays new media during recent political uprisings in particular. Newspaper coverage of the Internet from 1988 through 1995 frame the emerging technology overall in a predominately negative manner (Cornish, 2008). News stories from this time period explore the connection between the Internet and democracy and frame the Internet as either an equalizer that could provide a path to democracy or a hurdle to the reasoned debate needed to sustain democracy (Cornish, 2008). Although not the aim of their research regarding the use of cell phones in the Philippines, Pertierra et al.’s (2002) limited analysis of the Philippine news media’s coverage of the role of mobile technology during the People Power II movement reveals that the popular press portrayed the cell phone as a “mysterious force” that should be credited with the formation and success of the political movement: “In short, it is the technology that does things – makes things happen – not the people who use it” (Pertierra et al., 2002, p. 104). Pertierra et al. (2002) point out that this portrayal is laden with a false “utopian understanding of technology” (p. 107) and conclude that although mobile technology was a factor in the uprising, it “was not the one for which it has usually been praised in the media since the event – namely, that of crowd drawer par excellence” (p. 123).
Given the dearth of research regarding how U.S. news organizations portray new media during political uprisings, the goal of this study is to provide a baseline of knowledge regarding which new media receive coverage and how U.S. news outlets frame the role of new media during the Egyptian and Tunisian revolutions. This study comes at a critical time in the history of North Africa and the Middle East. Following the uprisings in Tunisia and Egypt, citizens in neighboring countries began protesting for government reform. As of the writing of this research, NATO was using force to protect Libyan rebels from acts of violence from their own government. The way in which U.S. President Barack Obama addressed the Tunisian and Egyptian revolutions and his decision to order the U.S. armed forces to take part in attacks on the Libyan government have become political hot buttons that may affect the 2012 presidential race. And so, the events in North Africa and the Middle East have had an impact throughout the world. Given the extensive media coverage of the uprisings, the ability of media frames to affect consumers' understanding and perceptions of a topic, the ubiquitous nature of mobile media and the lack of research comparing it with other media, the political context of the region and the world, and the lack of research regarding how news organizations frame new media during revolution, the exploration of media frames of new media's role in the Tunisian and Egyptian uprisings is warranted.
Analysis
Discourse analysis is used to identify the different types of new media covered by U.S. news organizations and the media frames of new media’s role during the Tunisian and Egyptian revolutions. Discourse analysis involves the study of texts that can be written, spoken, or visual (Fairclough, 1995). For this study, texts are written news stories regarding the Tunisian and Egyptian revolutions that include references to or are about new media, are produced by journalists working for the study publications, and are not opinion pieces. CNN.com and FoxNews.com were selected as the study texts for several reasons. American media consumers are increasingly obtaining their news online: In 2010, approximately 6 out of every 10 news consumers obtained their news from an online source, and two of the most prominent online news outlets are CNN.com and FoxNews.com, according to the Project for Excellence in Journalism. Furthermore, the news organizations have a reputation for portraying political news differently. CNN is regarded as being a centrist news organization while Fox News is often viewed as having a conservative bent.
For CNN.com, the study texts were obtained from LexisNexis Academic using the keywords Tunisia and Egypt. FoxNews.com is not part of the LexisNexis database, and texts from this source were obtained from the news website. FoxNews.com does not have an advanced search feature on its site, so multiple keyword searches based on key people, places, and possible technology used in the uprisings had to be conducted to collect the study sample: “Tunisia and Bouazizi,” “Tunisia and Ben Ali,” “Tunisia and Twitter,” “Tunisia and phone,” “Tunisia and social media,” “Tunisia and Facebook,” “Tunisia and mobile,” “Hosni Mubarak,” “Tahrir Square,” “Muslim Brotherhood,” “ElBaradei,” “Wael Ghonim,” “Egypt and Twitter,” “Egypt and phone,” “Egypt and social media,” “Egypt and Facebook,” and “Egypt and mobile.” The study time period was the beginning of the formal protests in each country through one week after each country’s leader left power. One week was added at the end of each revolution to allow for analysis stories that typically come after an event. The study dates for Tunisia were Dec. 17, 2010 – Jan. 21, 2011 and for Egypt, Jan. 25 – Feb. 18, 2011.
The sampling procedures yielded an unequal amount of stories for each news organization and for each event. For both publications, the amount of coverage devoted to Egypt dwarfed the amount of coverage allotted to the Tunisian Revolution. There are several explanations for the disparity. Two of the most likely explanations are that Egypt is a larger country with greater power in the region and the Tunisian Revolution occurred first and alerted the U.S. media to unrest in the region. The organization of each news outlet also affected the amount of stories produced. CNN.com has an internal wire service and staff writers, but FoxNews.com relies heavily on the Associated Press for stories from other parts of the world. Based on the sampling criteria, stories from the Associated Press were excluded from the study because they were not authored by someone at FoxNews.com. Nine stories about the Tunisian Revolution and some form of new media were studied from CNN.com, and only one story was available from FoxNews.com. For the Egyptian Revolution, 31 stories from CNN.com and 15 stories from FoxNews.com were reviewed.
Several thematic questions, based on the goals of this study, guided the discourse analysis: What types of new media do news outlets identify in connection with the revolutions? How is mobile media portrayed in the stories in comparison to other types of new media? How do news outlets explain the connection between new media and the revolutions? How does coverage of new media and the revolutions change over time? To what extent is framing of new media’s connection to revolution similar for each uprising? To address these questions, study texts first were examined for references to new media and explanations of new media’s connection to the revolutions. Next, the texts were examined for the presence of patterns regarding the descriptions of new media’s connection to the revolutions and repetition of these patterns over time.
New media coverage
Both websites contained stories about the Tunisian and Egyptian revolutions that discussed new media’s role or mentioned a particular type of new media. Coverage of new media took two forms: new media were either the focus of the story, as in CNN.com’s “Making Sense of the Internet and Egypt” (Sutter, 2011 January 31), or, more frequently, were mentioned in passing as part of a story regarding a different aspect of the revolution. New media were not discussed throughout the entire revolution; Instead, a few stories about or including new media would appear, and then coverage would drop off for a few days, only to come back into focus later. Part of this ebb and flow of new media coverage had to do with the events occurring during the revolutions. At one point, the Egyptian government shut off Internet and mobile phone service, a move that spawned several stories about these outages; however, after data services were curtailed, stories discussing new media declined because the Internet could not play a role in the revolutions. The inconsistent media coverage also can be attributed to the degree of awareness each news outlet had of the revolutions. CNN.com’s first story that mentioned a type of new media in connection with the Tunisian uprising didn’t come until January 10, three weeks after the protests started. FoxNews.com’s only story on the subject was on January 17, three days after Tunisia’s leader left the country. In comparison, references to new media during the Egyptian Revolution popped up on the first day on CNN.com and within three days on FoxNews.com. New media were most likely discussed earlier in the Egyptian uprising because the events of the Tunisian Revolution had primed the news outlets to look for similarities in Egypt. In addition, Tunisia is a small country in North Africa, and its uprising might not have been covered heavily at first because it was not as great of a consequence to the U.S. as other world events.
The types of new media and particular applications and services discussed include “social media,” Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Flickr, blogs, the internet (general reference), specific websites (like WikiLeaks), Blackberry messenger, and text messaging. Although different types of new media were covered during each uprising and by each news outlet, “social media” and the social networking sites Facebook and Twitter dominated the media coverage. Social media and specific social media sites not only were mentioned most often in stories about the revolutions but also were the main focus of the majority of CNN.com new stories aimed at explaining technology’s connection to the uprisings. Out of CNN.com’s nine stories regarding Tunisia’s uprising that mentioned some form of new media, two of them centered on the role of social media in the revolution: “Tunisian Protests Fueled by Social Media Networks” (Lister, 2011) and “Tunisians Abroad: Facebook, Regular Citizens Key to Revolution” (Yan, 2011). Several of CNN.com’s stories regarding the Egyptian Revolution also looked at social media’s role in the revolution: “Social Media @ the Front Line in Egypt” (Lister & Smith, 2011) and “Google, Twitter Help Give Voice to Egyptians” (Gross, 2011).
In contrast, mobile media received minimal coverage by each news outlet. Only one news story regarding the Tunisian Revolution from either FoxNews.com or CNN.com mentions mobile devices, and then, the reference is brief. In a first-person narrative of arriving in Tunisia, a journalist describes how after the plane landed, the cell phones of passengers lit up with the news that the president had fled the country (Wedeman, 2011). A single story by FoxNews.com, “Vodafone: Egypt Forced Us to Send Pro-Mubarak Text Messages,” centers on mobile technology and the Egyptian Revolution (Doocy, 2011). It details how the Egyptian government ordered mobile service providers to send out several pro-government text messages but does not explain whether the messages were effective or whether protesters also used mobile media to distribute messages.
Mobile media are discussed most in connection with the Egyptian Revolution in stories regarding the government’s decision to block Internet and cell services, and the role mobile media may have had in the revolution often is implied. For example, in “Internet, Phones Down as Egypt Braces for `Day of Rage,’” FoxNews.com (2011 January 28) states, “The Internet appeared to remain cut off Friday morning, and cell-phone text and Blackberry messenger services were all cut or operating sporadically in what appeared to be a move by authorities to disrupt the organization of demonstrations” (par. 8). The preceding text indicates that text-messaging and mobile devices were somehow involved in organizing the protests but does not provide any additional information on how the process of organizing an uprising via mobile device or the Internet occurs. A reader can assume that if the government took the step of cutting off mobile service, then it must have had some importance to the demonstrations, but the role of mobile media in the revolution is not clear.
Furthermore, stories regarding the Egyptian government’s shut down of communication services emphasize the loss of the Internet and an inability to connect to social media over the mobile media blackout. Most of the space in these reports is dedicated to discussing the implications of the Internet going dark with little space allotted to discussing the loss of mobile services. Journalists also present the inability to use social media as the main consequence of the communication shutdown. A FoxNews.com report about the outage states, “Those who had been using social media sites like Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube to distribute images and video to the outside world have had to come up [with] more creative ways to communicate after the Egyptian government blocked Internet and cell service…” (Macedo, 2011 January 28, par. 2). Another CNN.com story also explains that “many in Egypt were lamenting their inability to access Facebook and Twitter on Thursday” (Lister & Smith, 2011, par. 15).
The brief exception to the presentation of social media as more important than mobile technology comes several paragraphs into the CNN.com story “Reports say Egypt Web Shutdown is Coordinated, Extensive” (Milian, 2011). The story dedicates three of 28 paragraphs to presenting an Egyptian activist’s opinion that cell phone service is used more by Egyptians than social media. Milian (2011) quotes activist Parvez Sharma: “`These people,’ Sharma said of Egypt’s low-income population, ‘are not Twittering and Facebooking and e-mailing. They’ve never even heard of the damned internet, most of them’” (par. 8). Sharma explains that Egyptians rely most on cell phones and text messages to communicate and that protest organizers have used mobile services to coordinate protests. Milian, however, seems to immediately discount Sharma’s claims by following his comments with, “But social media sites have been used by key event organizers to reach other visible activists with Web access and to get the word back to other parts of the world” (par. 28). In addition, other paragraphs that precede and follow Sharma’s statements emphasize social media. As a result, Sharma’s opinions are presented as a minority viewpoint that is questionable, and mobile media again is portrayed as lesser to social media. Overall, the news outlets’ emphasis on social media and the importance of Facebook and Twitter portrays mobile media, as well as other new media, as less important to the revolutions than social media.
New media frames
Analysis of the study texts yielded numerous media frames, but because of time and space constraints, only the most prominent frames are discussed here. The role of new media during the revolution is framed as a generation shaper, a weapon, a revolutionary force, and a tool. As discussed previously, social media were featured more prominently than any other new media, and so, readers should keep in mind that the media frames identified here most closely reflect the portrayal of social media. The media frames are discussed below in order of their frequency with new media as generation shaper being the least used of the prominent frames and new media as a tool being the most common.
New media as generation shaper
One of the frames of new media’s role in the revolution is that of a force that shaped a generation of protesters calling for democracy. This frame is found only in CNN.com’s stories about the Egyptian revolution. Part of CNN.com’s coverage included a focus on exploring why protesters, particularly young and educated citizens, were suddenly marching for government reform in a country that had been ruled by an autocrat for decades. One of the explanations given for the sudden revolt was that the young people taking part in the protests were part of a new generation – a generation influenced by and formed around the Internet and social media. One way in which the Internet is alleged to have shaped the protest generation is through instilling the young people with the belief that answers to questions and solutions to problems should be instantaneous, like Internet communication. This portrayal is found in a quote by Kamal Zakher, a Coptic Christian leader, regarding the protesters:
`These protests are a part of a phenomenon created by the youth – not affected by any
political leadership. There is a black hole between these protesters and the current regime because these youthful protesters are a part of the internet generation who is used to quick responses. This black hole is created due to the regime’s slow response to the demonstrations’(CNN Wire Staff, 2011 February 1, par. 12).
CNN.com also portrays the demonstrators as youth who have been shaped by the revolutionary power of social media. The news outlet quotes an explanation of the protesters’ motives by Eric Trager, a scholar and a student who studied in Egypt: “`Egypt’s liberal activists overwhelmingly come from the wired generation of Twitter and Facebook, and this makes them optimistic that pro-democratic movements can go viral…’” (CNN Wire Staff, 2011 January 25, par. 10). CNN.com further shows how social media have shaped a generation in its portrayal of Wael Ghonim, one of the revolution’s leaders who maintained a Facebook page popular with the revolutionaries. In an article about Ghonim, CNN.com identifies one of Ghonim’s heroes as Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg (Watson, 2011). The news organization also uses naming terms for the protesters, like “young digital revolutionaries” (Labott & Levs, 2011, par. 3) that further add to the framing of new media as a generation-shaping force.
New media as weapon
In her analysis of the framing of the Internet by newspaper journalists, Cornish (2008) found the press portrayed the Internet as “war.” A similar frame can be identified in CNN.com and FoxNews.com’s portrayal of the use of new media as a weapon during the Tunisian and Egyptian revolutions. This frame is built by the naming terms each website uses for new media as well as the actions associated with new media. The clearest example of how CNN.com frames the role of new media as a weapon is through its description of social media as “another important weapon for the demonstrators” (Milian, 2011, par. 2). FoxNews.com also compares the protesters to soldiers and their use of social media to the use of military arms: “The tyrants’ antagonists are not conventional armies or coup plotters but literate and disaffected young people, more of them than ever before, armed with access to instant, global communications in the form of social networking media like Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, and the Internet” (Rosen, 2011, par. 4). The news websites use other terms in reference to new media like attack, launch, salvo, and combat that also are commonly associated with weapons. For example, an effort by the hacking organization Anonymous to help Tunisians retaliate against their government is described by CNN.com as carrying out an attack (Lister, 2011).
New media as revolutionary force
Another frame found in CNN.com and FoxNews.com’s coverage of both uprisings is new media as a revolutionary force. The press build this frame by presenting new media as separate from their human users and as operating as autonomous entities that can influence the revolution. CNN.com uses the term “fueled” in stories regarding both Tunisia and Egypt to describe how social media, and not its users, propelled the revolution: “The protest movement in Egypt has been fueled by blogs and social media sites like Twitter and Facebook” (CNN Wire Staff, 2011 January 27, par. 42). In this statement, the technology, and not humans, is driving the revolution. In fact, the term “drive” is used several times by the news outlets in reference to new media’s role. Journalists also endow new media with the ability to create themselves and the revolution: “A Facebook page called `We Are All Khaled Said’ – named after a 27-year-old Egyptian businessman from Alexandria who was beaten to death by police last June – sprung up, calling for protests on January 25” (CNN Staff, 2011 February 10, par. 9). In FoxNews.com (2011 February 9), the same Facebook page that spontaneously created itself also is credited with having “rallied support for the protest movement” (par. 19). And Facebook is credited with not only starting the Egyptian Revolution but also ending it according to a quote by Sally Toma, one of the protest organizers: “Facebook brought down the regime” (FoxNews.com, 2011 February 11, par. 18).
New media as tool
The most pervasive frame in the news organizations’ coverage of both revolutions is that of new media as a tool. Through this frame, CNN.com and FoxNews.com portray new media as technology used by protesters or the government to obtain a goal. Unlike the revolutionary force frame in which technology acts on its own, the tool frame positions action with the human users of the new media. The news outlets frame new media as a tool that helps protesters organize demonstrations and disseminate information and that aids the embattled governments in their suppression of protesters.
In a CNN.com article regarding the role of new media during the revolutions, several experts rebuke technology as the cause of the uprisings, and instead directly refer to new media as a “tool” used by both protesters and governments (Sutter, 2011). Both news outlets frame new media as a tool for organizing the protesters’ actions. CNN.com portrays social media as “a critical tool for arranging rendezvous” for Egyptian protesters (Lister & Smith, 2011, par. 6), and FoxNews.com explains that the Egyptian “protests were started by a small core of secular, liberal youth activists organizing on the Internet…” (2011 February 11, par. 17). CNN.com describes demonstrations in Tunisia as “being organized and supported through online networks centered on Twitter and Facebook” (Lister, 2011, par. 1).
The news outlets also frame new media as a tool used to disseminate information among protesters and from the protesters to the outside world. A CNN.com article explains, “Young digital revolutionaries are using social networking to both share their best practices and inspire would-be activists throughout the region – so-called `liberation technology’” (Milian, 2011, par. 10). During the Tunisian Revolution, protesters are described as using blogs, Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube to disseminate information, photos, and video about the uprising (Lister, 2011). Stories from CNN.com and FoxNews.com regarding the Egyptian Revolution contain numerous references to how key protest leaders, including Mohamed ElBaradei and Wael Ghonim, use Twitter to communicate with other demonstrators and the media.
The majority of coverage on CNN.com and FoxNews.com ties the use of new media to the protesters, but the governments of Egypt and Tunisia also used new media to advance their own causes. When the press discussed the governments’ use of technology, they framed new media as a tool of suppression. Stories from both news sources regarding Tunisia explain how “activists in Tunisia had digital technology turned on them when the government allegedly captured its citizens’ usernames and passwords on various e-mail and social media sites in order to spy on them and squelch dissenting speech” (Macedo, 2011 February 4, par. 3). They also portray the Tunisian government as using Internet filters to bock citizens’ access to particular websites. The press also focuses on how the Egyptian government used technology to stop Internet and cell phone service, and thus, the flow of information between organizers: “Cell-phone text and Blackberry Messenger services were all cut or operating sporadically in what appeared to be a move by authorities to disrupt the organization of demonstrations. Authorities appear to have been disrupting social networking sites, used as an organizing tool by protesters, throughout the week” (FoxNews.com, 2011 January 28, pars. 48-49).
Discussion and Conclusion
New media coverage
Examination of the study texts revealed that CNN.com and FoxNews.com stress the role of social media in the Tunisian and Egyptian revolutions over the contributions of other types of technology, including mobile media. Although outside the scope of this study, there are several explanations for the press’s emphasis on social media versus mobile media. The most obvious reason the news outlets may have focused most on social networking sites like Twitter and Facebook is that social media actually was a greater factor in the revolutions than other types of new media. However, the extreme effort by the Egyptian government to block cell phone service; the comments by at least one Egyptian about the importance of text-messaging and phone calls to the revolution; and previous research regarding the role of mobile media coupled with social networks in political uprisings (e.g. Castells et al., 2007; Pertierra et al., 2002; Rheingold, 2002) seem to indicate that mobile media also may have played a vital role in the revolutions and the importance of social media may have been exaggerated.
The role of social media and, in particular, sites like Twitter and Facebook may have been overemphasized for several reasons. Twitter and Facebook, the two most commonly referenced SNS in U.S. news coverage of the events, are run by U.S. companies. In addition, the services are popular in the U.S. and during the past year have garnered a great deal of attention from the U.S. press. In December 2010, Time named Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg its Person of the Year – a title the magazine bestows on the most influential newsmaker for the year, according to Time’s website. Furthermore, journalists covering the Tunisian and Egyptian uprisings followed the events via social media. CNN.com explains that reporters cannot always make it to foreign countries where news is happening but, in the case of the Egyptian Revolution, “social media can help tip off journalists about developments in places they can’t get to” (Lister & Smith, par. 5). The U.S. news media’s familiarity with social media and their reliance on it as a source may have primed journalists to the role of social media in political events. As a result they focused on the accessible and familiar new media while ignoring other technology.
The nature of mobile media and technology in general may also have contributed to the news media’s downplay of mobile technology. According to the most recent data available from the Pew Internet & American Life Project (2010), 85 percent of adults in the U.S. own a cell phone, making the cell phone the most ubiquitous mobile device in the nation. In his book about ubiquitous computing, Everyware, Greenfield (2006) states that well-designed digital devices reach a state where they become such a part of people’s lives that they “abscond from awareness” (p. 26). Given the ubiquitous nature of the cell phone, journalists working for CNN.com and FoxNews.com may have overlooked contributions to the revolution by cell phones because mobile technology is such a pervasive part of the American lifestyle that people forget the importance and consequences of mobile technology.
At this point, explanations for why CNN.com and FoxNews.com focused on social media over other technology, namely mobile media, are conjecture. And so, further research is needed regarding why social media is portrayed more prominently in news coverage of the Tunisian and Egyptian revolutions. If scholars uncover that social media received a disproportionate amount of coverage when compared to their actual contribution to the revolutions, then additional studies exploring why this occurred are warranted.
New media frames
Four prominent media frames regarding the role of new media during the Tunisian and Egyptian revolutions were identified: new media as generation shaper; new media as weapon; new media as revolutionary force; and new media as tool. Of the four, new media as tool was the most pervasive frame and the only frame applied to the use of new media by both the protesters calling for reform and the governments trying to keep control of their countries.
The press’s framing of new media can best be explained by two divergent theories regarding the integration, use, and impact of technology: technological determinism versus social constructivism. Technological determinism can be defined as the theoretical position “that certain technologies are bound to produce certain social, cultural, and political effects” (Morozov, 2011, p. 289). Technology is “an autonomous object, not in itself subject to social forces” (Lax, 2009, p. 212) that shapes how people live (Perusco & Michael, 2007, p. 11). A technological determinist perspective can be found in the frames of new media as generation shaper and new media as revolutionary force. In both frames, the press give technology autonomy and position new media as the impetus behind the views of a particular generation and the spark and engine for political uprisings. A social constructivist viewpoint, however, holds that social forces shape technology and its uses (Lax, 2009, p. 212). The social constructivist perspective is reflected in the framing of new media as weapon and tool: In both frames, people and the capability of the technology determine how it is used.
Pertierra et al.’s (2002) research regarding the use of mobile phones during the Philippines People Power II movement found that the news media portrayed the ability of mobile media to promote democracy from a utopian perspective. Likewise, FoxNews.com and CNN.com both present the role of new media in the two revolutions in a predominantly positive light. The media frames of generation shaper and revolutionary force attribute the democratic gains made by the protesters to the technology. As a result, new media is portrayed as a force that spreads democracy to people who are oppressed. The frames of new media as weapon and as tool demonstrate how technology assisted the protesters in reaching their goals of freedom. True, part of the press’s coverage showed how the government can use technology to suppress opposition; however, the amount of coverage allotted to this negative consequence of technology was far surpassed by the number of stories and references to new media’s role in supporting the democratic revolution. More importantly, protesters in both Egypt and Tunisia defeated their governments. As a result, the positive uses of technology are seen as triumphing over any negative uses.
Limitations
This study’s main limitation is its focus on only two U.S. news websites. Although, many people obtain their news from CNN.com and FoxNews.com, numerous other news outlets covered both revolutions. This study only looked at text produced by each news organization, but each outlet’s website contains text, video, audio, and images. The argument could be made that when audiences visit the sites, they obtain their information from a multimedia blend of sources, and a research focus on written text alone is not representative of the user experience. As a result, further research is needed that includes written text along with sound and image. Because online news sites are themselves an example of new media content and are shaped by new media practices, the content produced by an Internet-based publication may be biased toward new media. Therefore, further research is needed regarding how traditional media such as newspapers, TV, and radio cover and frame new media.
Conclusion
The purpose of this study was to form a baseline of knowledge regarding U.S. news coverage of new media during the Tunisian and Egyptian revolutions. Discourse analysis was used to examine the written texts on CNN.com and FoxNews.com and revealed that the news outlets gave the greatest coverage to social media while downplaying the role of other technology, like mobile media, during the revolutions. The role of new media in the revolutions was framed as generation shaper, weapon, revolutionary force, and tool. The framing of new media reveals the perpetuation of the technological determinism versus social constructivism perspectives of technology and the utopian view of new media as a facilitator of democracy. When the research project began, several North African and Middle Eastern countries were paralyzed by popular political revolts, and as the project came to a close, those conflicts remain unresolved. The additional research questions raised by this research as well as the ongoing political struggles of this portion of the world should serve as an impetus for new media scholars to continue investigating the roles of new media in these conflicts and their portrayal within the press.
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revolution.
CNN.com. Retrieved from LexisNexis Academic database.

update 4/17. Steve, I added a response to your edit.
Portrayal of new media in mainstream media coverage of revolution in the Middle East
Author: Andrea L. Guzman
Introduction
As the year 2010 gave way to 2011, U.S. journalists headed to Tunisia and Egypt to document efforts by each country’s citizens to overthrow their corrupt political leaders. One of the many story angles explored by U.S. news organizations was the role of new media in the political uprisings. Photojournalists working in Egypt captured images of the word “Facebook” scrawled onto structures and images of cell phones recharging at protest sites. MSNBC.com investigated the role of Egypt’s blogging community in the revolution in “Egyptian Bloggers Brave Police Intimidation” (27 Jan. 2011), and a CNN.com headline declared “Tunisian Protests Fueled by Social Media Networks” (12 Jan. 2011). News coverage overall was extensive: the Egyptian revolution was the biggest international news event covered by U.S. news organizations since 2007, according to the Project for Excellence in Journalism (2011).
Mass media messages have been the subject of scholarly inquiry for nearly a century because they are the main sources through which most people acquire knowledge about their environment (Lippmann, 1922), and, in particular, information about countries outside their own (Rosengren, 2000). News stories are not objective accounts of events; they are messages created by journalists (Schudson, 1997). According to framing theory, journalists present a story in a way that promotes a particular explanation of an event and makes certain details more salient than others to the media audience (Entman, 1993). The way in which U.S. news outlets framed the role of new media in the Tunisian and Egyptian uprisings has the potential to affect how news consumers perceive technology in the context of political uprising. Although it is common knowledge that U.S. journalists reported about new media’s connection to the successful Egyptian and Tunisian revolutions, the extent of this coverage is unknown. This study draws on framing theory to guide a discourse analysis that explores how CNN.com, MSNBC.com, and FoxNews.com portrayed new media’s role in the Tunisian and Egyptian political uprisings.
You should have a statement in the first paragraph, preferably the first sentence, that tells what this study is about. You sort of say it in the last sentence of the last paragraph, but it's buried since you make the purpose of that sentence seem like it is to note the theory in which the paper is grounded. In other words, come right out right away with what this is about.
Literature Review
The uprisings in Tunisia and Egypt are a manifestation of "living information" (Licklider & Taylor, 1968). This is too declarative. The citation isn't proof that it is, and if you want to prove it you need to do some work beyond what you're doing in this paper. I'd suggest just cutting this first sentence. In their seminal work, The Computer as a Communication Device, Licklider and Taylor (1968) predicted that "we are entering a technological age in which we will be able to interact with the richness of living information - not merely in the passive way that we have become accustomed to using books and libraries, but as active participants in an ongoing process, bringing something to it through our interaction with it, and not simply receiving something from it by our connection to it" (p. 21). Although made at a time when computers still occupied rooms instead of backpacks and the Internet was still being conceptualized and not a household word, Licklider and Taylor's glimpse into the future remains an accurate description of networked communication in the twenty-first century. Today, living information pervades all aspects of everyday life. Cooking a meal now entails going online with a list of ingredients to find the corresponding recipe, sifting through reviews by other users, and posting feedback. Waiting for the bus no longer involves staring down the road; instead, riders stare at the screens of their cell phones as little markers signifying buses make their way in real-time across a digital map. Information is in a state of motion as it is passed from one user to the next and a state of reconfiguration as each user deletes, adds, or alters the information. At best this is unnecessary hyperbole, at worst.... Isn't there a better way to illustrate it, perhaps by using examples that are more general, or is there a way to note that these are not yet widespread activities but representative in some way? Steve, are you saying the whole "living information" thing is hyperbole or just the sentence that precedes your comment? I'm thinking maybe I should just nix the entire paragraph and start with paragraph two... I'm saying just the sentence is, but whether you keep it or not depends on whether you'll do anything with it in the paper. Is it going to serve a purpose, will it be a theory underpinning your argument(s), will you be theorizing from it, etc.?
The media that people use and the culture they inhabit are intertwined: "Media are not fixed natural objects; They are constructed complexes of habits, beliefs, and procedures embedded in elaborate cultural codes of communication" (Marvin, 1988, p. 8). And so the movement from the static information of books to the living information of new media within the past forty years has been both a product of and a force in the evolution of technology and culture. This, too, veers closer to being a claim that's not supported, than to being based on previous citations. As technology and culture have changed, so have communication practices, including the way in which people come together to act for a common cause: “The Internet is both the result of and the enabling infrastructure for new ways of organizing collective action via communication technology” (Rheingold, 2002, p. 47). The smart mob is a communication phenomenon that has emerged out of the coupling of technology and community (Rheingold, 2002). Smart mobs form when people who have a common goal coordinate their actions using mobile media and social networks (Rheingold, 2002). To be honest, I'm not sure Rheingold is that great of a source for a scholarly paper, especially not this book. You also drop in smart mobs without setting them up. What's the connection to what you've previously written in this paper? The start of the next paragraph seems more like an introduction to them than anything in this paragraph, which precedes it.
The mobility of information and communication technologies is a key component in the formation and actions of the smart mob (Rheingold, 2002). Portable ICTs provide the infrastructure for the "ad hoc" nature of the smart mob in which people can organize and reorganize their actions anywhere they can access a wifi-network or cellular signal (Rheingold, 2002). Is this a claim you're making or one from Rheingold? If it's from Rheingold, you should include page numbers. Before phones shrunk to the size of a deck of cards and computers slipped easily into a carrying case, social action had to be coordinated from fixed locations with wall-mounted phones or desktop computers. Now, however, interaction can occur regardless of the communicators' locations: "Mobile technologies can be seen as new resources for accomplishing various everyday activities that are carried out on the move. People have tremendous capabilities for utilizing mobile devices in various innovative ways for social and cognitive activities" (Tamminen et al., 2004, p. 135). As a result, groups can come together more quickly and mobilize resources and, if necessary, react to changes on-location or disperse and reorganize at a new location (Qiu, 2008; Rheingold, 2002).
Mobile ICTs provide the technological infrastructure for smart mobs while social networks provide the human infrastructure (Rheingold, 2002). Same comment as above. The actions and dissemination of smart mobs can be explained through the theory of the strength of weak ties (Rheingold, 2002) I don't think Rheingold is appropriate to cite here, because, first, you need to explain what weak ties are, via Granovetter and others. Then if Rheingold has something to say about them that you want to incorporate, you should then cite him. that claims social action can be coordinated and knowledge disseminated more efficiently on a large scale among people who have weak social ties with one another (Granovetter, 1978). Today, these weak ties can be established via social networking sites like Facebook or Twitter (do i need a citation here?). Ideally, yes, assuming you can find someone who has done some research on it (which, by now, I expect has been done, try in particular boyd's work or Ellison's). Information originates with one person or one group and then is passed down among links in the social network enabling everyone involved to share the knowledge or participate in the collective action. I'm not sure what you're saying here... how does this relate to the notion of weak ties? It seems more like a trickle-down theory of information? Rheingold (2002) explains, "Nodes and links, the elements of social networks made by humans, are also the fundamental elements of communication networks constructed from optical cables and wireless devices - one reason why new communication technologies make possible profound social changes" (p. 170).
The coupling of mobile media and social networks has created a "new form of public space" that can be used for multiple purposes including the facilitation of political change (Castells et al., 2007, pg #?). Smart mobs (need to add note that Castells uses a different term)have played a role in political protests and revolutions with mixed results (Castells et al., 2007) but are credited with the overthrow of the Philippine president during the People Power II movement (Rheingold, 2002) and an election upset in South Korea (Qiu, 2008). Mobility is important in political movements because it allows for participants to quickly gather, adjust to the changing political situation, and document and disseminate the events taking place (Castells et al., 2007). Social networks also are crucial because the interpersonal, horizontal flow of information is able to motivate members of the smart mob while a top-down flow of information originating from elites, like the government, creates distrust (Castells et al., 2007 ). Put together, mobile media and social networks allow smart mob members to bypass traditional media channels, and thus control the messages being sent and the recipients (Castells et al., 2007). "Wireless communication provides a powerful platform for political autonomy on the basis of independent channels of autonomous communication from person to person" (Castells et al., 2007, p. 200).
Although scholars have yet to fully investigate the causes of the Egyptian and Tunisian Revolutions and the various factors that affected and sustained them, current evidence in the form of news accounts and public records indicates that the protesters who helped to force the rulers in each country from power can be considered smart mobs. Because the Tunisian government heavily censored access to the Internet and hacked protesters Facebook and blogging accounts (Miladi, 2011), Tunisian protesters relied on mobile technology to document the events occurring in their country and on social networks to share the images with fellow protesters and news sources outside Tunisia (BBC Worldwide Monitoring, 2011). As a result, Tunisians were able to bipass the state controlled media to access information about the revolution (BBC Worldwide Monitoring, 2011), and when the government tried to interfere with these efforts, hacker groups like Anonymous stepped in to keep information flowing (Ryan, 2011). This, however, does not sound like a smart mob in the sense it seems to involve only sharing of information and not also gathering? Or perhaps to put it another way: It's smart, but is it a mob? The reliance on mobile technology and social networks also can be seen in the videos and still images (See Figure 1) captured of the uprising and assembled by journalists like Andy Carvin on a website he created about the Tunisian uprising.
{tunisiacellphoto.jpg} Photo of Tunisian protester using cell phone. This picture was circulated by Andy Carvin, but is credited to kaïs miled.
In Egypt, the use of mobile technology and Internet-based social networking sites, like Facebook, was so pervasive during the revolution that the government temporarily shut down access to the Internet and to mobile phone service (Office of the Press Secretary, 2011). The Mubarak government also tried to use SMS to its advantage by directing cell phone providers to send out pro-government messages (Vodafone, 2011), but that action was met with criticism. During the week prior to Jan. 25, the "official" start of Egypt's revolution, 122,319 tweets contained the words Tunisia, Egypt or Yemen, according to the social media tracking company Sysomos (Evans, 2011). During the first week of the Egyptian revolution, more than 1.3 million tweets were disseminated containing the same keywords. Videos and pictures of the Egyptian protests also document the use of mobile technology (Figure 2) and social networking sites (Figure 3).
{egypt-night-laptop_1824631i.jpg} Figure 2: Egyptian protesters. Credit: Reuters, telegraph.co.uk

{Egyptfacebook.jpg} Figure 3: Egyptian protester. Credit: Huffingtonpost.com
Castells et al. (2007) caution that although mobile technology and social networks have been integral in some recent political uprisings, technology should not been seen as the sole cause of these events and the only factor in their success or failure. The political context in which the protests are taking place, the presence or absence of other interfering institutions like the church or the military, the position of the state media system, access to unbiased media, and the level of trust among the people sharing political messages are some of the factors other than technology that influence the formation and effectiveness of political movements (Castells et al., 2007). In Tunisia, the self-immolation of a street vendor, who had been mistreated by the government, was the tipping point that started mass demonstrations in a country with high unemployment (Rifai, 2011) and the government's brutality against protesters helped maintain the revolution (Ryan, 2011). Egypt's revolution followed on the heels of Tunisia's uprising but also was spawned by a distrust of the government and anger that had been building for several decades (Bayoumi, 2011).
As revolution spread across Northern Africa and the Middle East, the Western media began to report on the events in increasing numbers. Seventy-six percent of the newshole (that's not likely a common enough term to be used on its own with no explanation) on cable news networks was devoted to covering the Egyptian uprising during the week of Jan. 31, and online, 51 percent of news coverage focused on the events in the Middle East (Project for Excellence, 2011). A prominent theme in these news stories was the role of technology -- laptops, social networking sites, and the Internet -- in the region's uprisings. Newsweek referred to the Tunisian protesters as "cyberactivists" (Giglio, 2011) and prominent media outlets like the Huffingtonpost.com, Time.com, VanityFair.com, and many others used the label the "Facebook Revolution" at some point during their coverage. From the evidence presented, smart mobs, which used mobile technologies and social networks, did play a role in each revolution, but technology was not the only factor causing or sustaining the uprisings.
Because of the recency of the revolutions, which occurred less than two months before the formation of this project, no scholarly literature exists offering detailed analysis of the various factors that sparked and maintained each uprising. What scholars do have, right now, at least, is the same information that is available to the general public: media reports. And so, it is possible to start examining news coverage to better understand how news organizations attempted to explain the role of technology during the Tunisian and Egyptian political protests. The concept of the smart mob provides a theoretical background against which the results can be compared. Framing theory is used to guide the exploration of the different ways in which journalists can portray technology and new media in their reports.
The creation of news is not an objective process in which detached journalists observe the world and pass unbiased information along to the public; rather, news is created through subjective journalistic practices affected by multiple influences including a society's dominant ideology and media routines (Gitlin, 1980; Shoemaker & Reese, 1996; Schudson, 1997). According to framing theory, these influences manifest themselves in media content through the elevated presentation of particular aspects of the subject of the news report and suppression of other factors (Gitlin, 1980; Entman, 1993; Reese, 2001). "Frames are principles of selection, emphasis, and presentation composed of little tacit theories about what exists, what happens, and what matters" (Gitlin, 1980, p. 6). The media frames found in news content, then, provide a limited view of a phenomena, like the role of new media in a political uprising.
Media framing of a particular subject is important because researchers have established that framing affects consumers' perceptions of the person, place, issue, or phenomena ( Druckman, 2001; Entman, 1993; Entman & Rojecki, 1993; Evans, 2010). "Upon finishing a clear, well-constructed article, readers form opinions on the causes, actors and significance of the events reported. However, the apparently factual news items presented to the public often lead the public to understand events from a particular perspective, or frame, advanced by the media" (Evans, 2010, p. 210). And so, the study of media frames used to describe the role of new media in political uprisings is important because these frames have the potential to influence how the public may view new media within the context of revolution.
Since the writing of the Phaedrus, and possibly even prior, discourse regarding communication technology has reflected a "binary logic": technology can improve life or destroy it (Gunkel, 2007). Should I include something here about the Dewey/Lippmann debates regarding media and democracy, or is that going too off track? It's not off track, but it ought to be short, unless you're really going to make hay with it in your argument(s). This dialectic has been applied to the discussion of the impact new media has had and will continue to have on politics, particularly democracy (Papacharissi, 2010). Scholars and activists who argue new media has the power to improve the political system think that technology can create new space for civic discourse (Blumler & Gurevitch, 2001; Feenberg, 2009); increase dialogue between citizens and their leaders (Blumler & Gurevitch, 2001; Tambini, 1999); enable direct democracy to replace representative democracy (Westen, 2000); provide citizens with the ability to obtain news from sources other than corporate or state media (Tambini, 1999); and empower citizens to hold people in power responsible for their actions (Kann, Berry, Gant, & Zanter, 2007). Social media has been framed as having the potential "for enhancing democracy on the one hand by providing new ways of inclusion and direct citizen participation and spreading democracy on the other by means of inhibiting secrecy by repressive governments and providing unprecedented possibilities to self-organize" (Hoffmann & Kornweitz, 2011, p. 7).
But other researchers have argued that new media will not lead to a revolution in the political process and, instead, will maintain the status quo (Davis, 1999). These scholars frame the Internet as crowded, imperfect place with a "cacophony of voices" (Sunstein, 2001, p. 56) in which no one's opinion can be heard or people only listen to opinions similar to their own. New media also are framed as a threat to the autonomy in the political process: “Democracy is threatened above all by new technologies of surveillance that employ the network to concentrate information from many sources, exposing deviations from the norm through tracking and data mining” (Feenberg, 2009, p. 78).
Very little research exists regarding how news organizations have framed new media technologies like the Internet (Cornish, 2008). Newspaper coverage of the Internet from 1988 through 1995 portrayed the emerging technology in a predominately negative manner (Cornish, 2008). As with scholarly literature regarding new media, news stories framed the Internet as as an equalizer that could provide a path to democracy or a hurdle to the reasoned debate needed to sustain democracy (Cornish, 2008). But no recent research exists regarding how news outlets portray new media, smart mobs, or the role that technology plays in political uprisings, including the recent revolutions in Tunisia and Egypt. (For the life of me, I can't find any. I would be open to suggestions on new places to look.) Furthermore, because of the recency of the Tunisian and Egyptian revolutions, no scholarly investigation of the extent of news coverage dedicated to technology's role in the uprisings and the way in which technology is framed.
The goal of this study is to provide a baseline of knowledge regarding how news outlets framed the role of technology during the Egyptian and Tunisian revolutions. This study comes at a critical time in the Middle East. Following the uprisings in Tunisia and Egypt, citizens in other Middle Eastern countries began protesting for government reform. As of the writing of this research, NATO was using force to protect Libyan rebels from acts of violence from their own government. U.S. President Barack Obama's handling of the Tunisian and Egyptian revolutions and his decisions to order the U.S. armed forces to take part in attacks on the Libyan government and military have become political hot buttons that may affect the upcoming presidential race. And so, the events in Northern Africa and the Middle East have had an impact throughout the world. Given the extensive media coverage of the uprisings, the ability of media frames to affect consumers' understand and perceptions of a topic, the political context of the region and the world, and the lack of research regarding how news organizations frame new media during revolution, the exploration of media frames of new media's role in the Tunisian and Egyptian uprisings is warranted.
Analysis
Discourse analysis is used to identify and explore the media frames of new media and their use during the Tunisian and Egyptian revolutions. Do I need to explain why I'm using discourse analysis instead of using another method? Discourse analysis involves the study of texts that can be written, spoken, or visual (Fairclough, 1995). For this study, texts are written news stories regarding the Tunisian and Egyptian revolutions that include references to or are about new media and are produced by journalists working for the study publications. Opinion pieces are excluded from the research texts. In 2010, approximately 6 out of every 10 news consumers obtained their news from an online source, according to the Project for Excellence in Journalism, and the study sample is drawn from three prominent U.S. news websites: CNN.com, MSNBC.com, and FoxNews.com. The time period for sample collection is from the beginning of the organized protests that brought down the ruling leaders until the time the leaders stepped down or removed from power. Articles from each source were read until saturation of media frames was reached.
This is all I have for now.
Orientist - reason why have to say technology is involved???????
Smart mobs have been effective forces in politics (Rheingold, 2002).
First smart mob to bring down an entire government - with People Power II in the Philippines (Qiu, 2008; Rheingold, 2002). People formed together in smart mobs - cause circulated via online applications i.e. forums and message groups and via text message (Qiu, 2008)
"Although Internet communication was a channel for the expressin of discontent, it was texting that made possible the swift gathering of tens of thousands, almost instantly after the voting result of January 16th" (Qiu, 2008, p. 45)
texting allowed people to quickly assemble in the People Power II movement (Castells et al, 2007)
see castells for detailed information from People Power II
People Power II movement in which president Joseph Estrada was forced from power (Rheingold, 2002;
also used in spain: "Armed with their cell phones, and able to connect to the world wide web, individuals and grassroots activists are able to set up powerful, broad, personalized, instant networks of communication" (Castells et al., 2007, p. 202)
Used for political demonstrations throughout the world (Rheingold, 2002).
two examples of how social networks and mobile come together are People Power II and the Nosamo Movement (Qiu, 2008)
Nosamo Movement: "And the mobile phone -- the grassroots communication device that is always on, anywhere, anytime -- turned out to be the best medium for mobilisation" (Qiu, 2008, p. 47)
Nosamo Movement is first incidence of cell phone directly affecting a political movement
"...mobile communication can be a key catalyst to political activism at times of emeregency with its unique advantages in speed and scalability" (Qiu, 2008, p. 54)
Three distinct features provided through mobile technology and networking: speed, motivated large amounts of people, and garnered international attention (Qiu, 2008, p. 47)
mobile aspect - why it works in political communication - allows for spontaneity, allows for "person-to-person" contact, because it can record and transmit sound and image, both way of recording and disseminating what is occurring (Castells, et al., 2007, p. 211)
other media - i.e. static media - can peform political functions but not in the same ways and not necessarily to the same effect (Castells et al., 2007, p. 212)
"Still it cannot be denied, based on the observation of recent processes, of sociopolitical change, that access to and use of wireless communication technology adds a fundamental tool to the arsenal of those who seek to influence politics and the political process without being constrained by the powers that be" (Castells et al., 2007, p. 212).
Mobile technology in politics also is "instrumental to resource mobilisation, message dissemination, and the coordination of logistics" (Qiu, 2008, p. 51).
see page 198/213 for quotes regarding how mobility is not only source but is a key source in political mobilization (Castells et al., 2007)
"Wireless communication does not replace but adds to, and even changes, the media ecology, expanding the information networks available to individuals and social groups to emphasize the interpersonal level and to enhance the efficacy of autonomous communication oriented toward political change" (Castells et al., 2007, p. 213).
networks = personal and interactive (Castells et al., 2007)
Should i put something here of how they work together or use politics as an example...
"Control of information and communication has been a major source of power throughout history. The advent of the Internet and of wireless communication allows the development of many-to-many and one-to-one horizontal communication channels that bypass political or business control of communication" (Castells et al., 2007, p. 209).
"It is person-to-person, horizontal, mass communication, rather than a new technology for top-down mass communication, that accounts for the mobilizing impact of a given message. Thus the context in which the message circulates, its resonance with each person who receives it, and the origin of the message (which provides its credibility) are critical ingredients of the political power embedded in wireless communication technology" (Castells et al., 2007, p. 211).
"Wireless communication provides a powerful platform for political autonomy on the basis of independent channels of autonomous communication from person to person" (Castells, 2007, p. 200)
mobile and personal network structure allows users to bypass government controlled media and information campaigns (Castells, 2007; Moyo, 2010)
Qiu - the key is not only quickness of organization but the fact that information was moving among people who knew and trusted one another; also has to do with other players, i.e. in philippines was military and the catholic church; also new and old media teamed up i.e. seeing bombings on old media, then reacting via new media; and according to Castells et al., 2007, weakened state of government also a factor; also important as to who is doing the texting (Castells et al., 2007)
"It is thus erroneous to give all the credit to texting since mobile phones had to function in a particular media environment, which represented the middle-class dominated power structure at the time" (Castells et al., 2007, p. 207) also, context of political movement is important - depends on who is doing the organizing (Castells et al., 2007)
overall, mobile phones played a role in People Power II, but role is limited (Castells et al., 2007)
framing
framing of technology and politcis
People Power II seen as positive & democratic (Castells et al., 2007)
New stories regarding People Power II framed technology as having a positive role (Castells et al., 2007)
The movement from static information and communications technologies, or ICTs, to mobile media has facilitated changes within society
"Smart mobs are an unpredictable but at least partially describable emergent property that I see surfacing as more people use mobile telephones, more chips communicate with each other, more computers know where they are located, more technology becomes wearable, more people start using these new media to invent new forms of sex, commerce, entertainment, communication, and, as always, conflict," (Rheingold, 2002, p. 182)
Cooperation in loose networks equals more productivity (Rheingold, 2002, p. 45)
“The Internet is both the result of and the enabling infrastructure for new ways of organizing collective action via communication technology” (Rheingold, 2002, p. 47)
smart mobs similar to the openness of the foundations of the Internet?
Talk about connection between tunisia/egypt and living information here.
Talk about press coverage here.
start with talking about licklider & taylor prediction; then segway into how communication tech, has the potential to change society
talk about smart mobs
talk about mobile - politics etc.
talk about sns
Start back further - start with discussion of how technology and its use alter communication?
"In a few years, men will be able to communicate more effectively through a machine than face to face" (Licklider & Taylor, 1968, p. 21)
"Creative, interactive communication requires a plastic or moldable medium that can be modeled, a dynamic medium in which premises will flow into consequences, and above all, a common medium that can be contributed to and experimented with by all" (Licklider & Taylor, 1968, p. 22)
"Experience has shown the importance of making the response time short and the conversation free and easy. We think those attributes will be almost as important for a network of computers as for a single computer" (Licklider & Taylor, 1968, p. 31)
Cultural implications of movement from fixed to mobile technology
Before delving into an analysis of new media's role in recent revolutions, it is important to understand the characteristics of new media technologies in modern societies and how these features affect their roles during political uprisings. For many modern technology consumers, size matters. Laptop reviews assess not only a device's computing power but also its dimensions and weight. The advertising tag for Apple's iPad 2, a tablet that weighs 1.3 pounds and is less than 9 mm thick (Apple, 2011b), emphasizes its slimmed-down size over its speed: "Thinner, lighter, faster," (Apple, 2011a). By comparison, the first generation iPad was 1.5 pounds and 13.4mm thick (Apple, 2010) - hardly a machine of unwieldy proportions. Both devices, and any personal computer and laptop used today, would seem like miniature toys if placed next to, or even within, their early predecessors. Developed during World War II, ENIAC, or the Electronic Numerical Integrator And Computer, occupied an entire room and consisted of 18,000 vacuum tubes and 1,500 relays (Goldstine & Goldstine, 1996). Music devices also have slimmed down from turn-table units that were large furniture to MP3 players that clip onto a person's clothing. And the telephone, which was once mounted to the wall or restricted to the desktop, now slips easily into a person's jean pocket, even if the owner is wearing en vogue skinny jeans.
{eniac1.gif} ENIAC, U.S. Army Photo, retrieved http://ftp.arl.army.mil/ftp/historic-computers/
{0524-sci-ipad_full_600.jpg} Apple iPad, ChristianScienceMonitor.com
Clearly, many advantages exist to having a computer that fits in your hand instead of a computational machine that would occupy the greater portion of most American homes, but one of the key lures of the compact size of modern information communication technologies, or ICTs, is mobility.
The Oxford English Dictionary (2011) defines mobility as "the ability to move or to be moved; capacity for movement or change of place; movableness, portability." (I always cringe a bit when I see a dictionary definition in a scholarly paper.) The significance of the mobility of ICTs is not that these devices can merely be carried from one spot to the next but lies in the way in which people choose to use them in this mobile context. The shrinking sizes of computers, phones, and music players are not just part of a technological change: they are part of a cultural shift (Goggin, 2006; Matsuda, 2006; Niknam, 2010; Tamminen, Oulasvirta, Toiskallio, & Kankainen, 2004).
(Some of these sources, and others, could probably provide a better grounding of the term "mobility" than the OED.) The ways in which media consumers move with their technology also have created a "change of place" within these societies.
The media that people use and the culture they inhabit are intertwined: "Media are not fixed natural objects; They are constructed complexes of habits, beliefs, and procedures embedded in elaborate cultural codes of communication" (Marvin, 1988, p. 8). In what Jenkins (2006) calls "convergence culture," ICTs, their design, and their uses are shaped, reshaped and then shaped again through an ongoing circular process in which a company produces a technology, a consumer individualizes it, and the company creates a new product based on this individualization. (NOTE to self: check to see if Deuze talks about this). (Although Jenkins is probably more oriented toward content than might be useful here. He doesn't much get into hardware, does he? That is, how relevant is it to him that a device is mobile or not? Should that at least be acknowledged in your use of his work?) He gives the example of the cell phone that as its size shrank and data technology improved went from being a phone to being anything but a device for making voice calls: "I didn't want the electronic equivalent of a Swiss army knife. When the phone rings, I don't want to have to figure out which button to push. I just wanted a phone. The sales clerks sneered at me; they laughed at me behind my back. I was told by company after mobile company that they don't make single-function phones anymore. Nobody wants them" (2006, p. 5). Use Rheingold instead of Jenkins here? "Anybody who remembers what mobile telephones looked like five years ago has a sense of the pace at which handlehld technology is evolving. Today's mobile devices are not only smaller and lighter than the arliest cell phones, they have become tiny multimedia Internet terminals" (Rheingold, 2002, p. xiv ) also, texting is just an example of people using ICT for social use (Rheingold, 2002, p. 15)
The connection between culture and media lies not only in the way technology develops but also in the societal changes that occur as a result of the assimilation of a technology into a culture (Goggin, 2006; Matsuda, 2006; Niknam, 2010). In the stationary world of the land-line telephone and bulky desktop computer, people had to be home or in an office to talk with one another via voice or e-mail. Now, interaction can occur regardless of location: "Mobile technologies can be seen as new resources for accomplishing various everyday activities that are carried out on the move. People have tremendous capabilities for utilizing mobile devices in various innovative ways for social and cognitive activities" (Tamminen et al., 2004, p. 135). Technology researchers have documented how the use of mobile devices has changed numerous facets of society from the way a particular age group communicates (Niknam, 2010; Rheingold, 2002) to the meaning of fashion (Katz & Sugiyama, 2006). "Cell phones have come to be associated with qualities of mobility, portability, and customisation. They fit into new ways of being oneself (or constructing and belonging to a group); new ways of organising and conducting one's life; new ways of keeping in touch with friends romantic intimates, and family; new ways of conducting business; new ways of accessing services or education" (Goggin, 2006, p. 2).
Rheingold (2002):
text messaging has affected aspects of life including politics (p. xi)
helped to bring down a government (p. xi)
mobile tech bring down the cost of people connecting - and so, more people can participate (qting micro researcher, p. 31) Also look at stuff from last semester
forwarding is easy via cell phone (Rheingold, 2002, p. 159)
Note to Steve: This is where I'm stuck. Should I talk about how mobility is important in organizing political uprisings, or should I wait until later when I discuss the use of mobile devices in other political uprisings? Or, and this is what I'm starting to lean toward, should I incorporate information from the previous political uprisings in Zimbabwe and the Philippines both here and in the section on social networking sites and nix the entire section on Zimbabwe and the Philippines altogether?
(I would do the latter, as you say you are starting to "lean toward." It would suffice at this point to note that political knowledge, action and communication are equally a part "of organizing and conducting one's life," wouldn't it? Then you can later make specific claims based on evidence about how that particular realm may be evolving via mobile media.)
Social networking sites
This section talks about how specific applications and uses of new media, not just the hardware, has brought about cultural change. Topics covered will include SNS like Twitter, Facebook, the strength of weak ties, and the hardware and software will be brought together in a discussion of Rheingold's smart mobs. Also, I uncovered one of Rheingold's writings about the importance of the Internet to democracy so I may insert it here.
Read Wellman regarding SNS (per Rheingold?); Reed's law (Rheingold)
SNS part of smart mobs: People are a connection point (node) but also have connections to other people (or links) Rheingold.: "Nodes and links, the elements of social networks made by humans, are also the fundamental elements of communication networks constructed from optical cables and wireless devices - one reason why new communication technologies make possible profound social changes" (Rheingold, 2002, p. 170)
Smart mobs (use as its own section?)
The "killer apps" of tomorrow's mobile infocom industry won't be hardware devices or software programs but social practices" (Rheingold, 2002, p. xii)
Smart mobs = people who can carry out same function because have software and hardware to do so (Rheingold, 2002, p. xii)
"Groups of people using these tools will gain new forms of social power, new ways to organize their interactions and exchanges just in time and just in place" (Rheingold, 2002, pp. xii - xiii).
"Location-sensing wireless organizers, wireless networks, and community supercomputing collectives all have one thing in common: They enable people to act together in new ways and in situations where collective action was not possible before" (Rheingold, 2002, p. xviii)
"smart mob" = "mobile ad hoc social network"(Rheingold, 2002, p. 169)
"Both terms describe the new social form made possible by the combination of computation, communication, reputation, and location awareness" (Rheingold, 2002, pp. 169 - 170); "ad hoc" component refers to organization that is done "one the fly" (Rheingold, 2002, p. 170)
"Smart mobs are an unpredictable but at least partially describable emergent property that I see surfacing as more people use mobile telephones, more chips communicate with each other, more computers know where they are located, more technology becomes wearable, more people start using these new media to invent new forms of sex, commerce, entertainment, communication, and, as always, conflict," (Rheingold, 2002, p. 182)
Cooperation in loose networks equals more productivity (Rheingold, 2002, p. 45)
“The Internet is both the result of and the enabling infrastructure for new ways of organizing collective action via communication technology” (Rheingold, 2002, p. 47)
smart mobs similar to the openness of the foundations of the Internet?
Use of new media in other political uprisings
Zimbabwe and the Philippines - may integrate into the two preceding sections
Background information on Internet use and mobile media use in Egypt and Tunisia
Role of Egyptian bloggers in fighting Mubarak's regime (before revolution) and data regarding ICT use.
Framing theory
The creation of news is not an objective process in which detached journalists observe the world and pass unbiased information along to the public; rather, news is created through subjective journalistic practices affected by multiple influences including a society's dominant ideology and media routines (Gitlin, 1980; Shoemaker & Reese, 1996; Schudson, 1997). According to framing theory, these influences manifest themselves in media content through the elevated presentation of particular aspects of the subject of the news report and suppression of other factors (Gitlin, 1980; Entman, 1993; Reese, 2001). "Frames are principles of selection, emphasis, and presentation composed of little tacit theories about what exists, what happens, and what matters" (Gitlin, 1980, p. 6). The media frames found in news content, then, provide a limited view of a phenomena, like the role of new media in a political uprising.Media framing of a particular subject is important because researchers have established that framing affects consumers' perceptions of the person, place, issue, or phenomena ( Druckman, 2001; Entman, 1993; Entman & Rojecki, 1993; Evans, 2010). "Upon finishing a clear, well-constructed article, readers form opinions on the causes, actors and significance of the events reported. However, the apparently factual news items presented to the public often lead the public to understand events from a particular perspective, or frame, advanced by the media" (Evans, 2010, p. 210). And so, the study of media frames used to describe the role of new media in political uprisings is important because these frames have the potential to influence how the public may view new media within the context of revolution.Will look for specific research regarding the framing of new media, but I haven't stumbled upon any, yet.
Method
Sample
Discourse analysis
Results
Discussion
U.S. was late to adopt texting, different type of communication patterns (Rheingold, 2002, p. 23)
Conclusion
References (Note: I typically fill all my references in at the end. For now, I'm mostly supplying in-text citation).
Entman, R.M. (1993). Framing: Toward clarification of a fractured paradigm. Journal ofCommunication, 43, 51 – 58.
Farley, T. (2005). Mobile telephone history. Telektronikk, 22 - 34.Lippmann, W. (1922). Public opinion. BN Publishing.

Author: Meghan Grosse
Personalizing Mobile Consumption: A History of Smartphone Applications
mobile consumption.
Acting almost more like a computer than a phone, smartphones that feature flexible application downloads speak to the increased expectation for customization in our media consumption. Digital video recorders have allowed television viewers to record multiple simultaneously running programs and time shift their viewing. Podcasting has offered similar advantages to radio and audio consumption, and mobile phones and MP3 players have allowed individuals to reshape their participation in public spaces. Smartphones extend this tailoring of media consumption even further, offering a place for individuals to aggregate applications that serve their social lives, work lives, and private lives all in one place and available all at the same time.
customizable device.
The
The application based 2006, 208).
Before
Before the advent mobile applications.
Early
Early versions of 2010, 115). Even Even before the were not.
As
As smartphones and 2003, 170).
The
The increasing adoption private spaces.
The
The idea of own use.
User
User experiences and own choosing.
The
The preloaded applications and interests.
Built-in
Built-in applications now the listings.
Pew
Pew also identified distraction” (37).
While
While the motivation for apps.
-
- What are these stores?
-
- How much between stores?
-
- How do control content?
-
- How do apps look?
-
- When there between them?
-
- How do purchases made?
V. Trends in Application Development
1. Trends related to app category
always popular?
-
- What is do not?
-
- Does the made available?
-
- What do does not?
Smartphones offers users applications as well as web browsing. With the expense of developing on app for multiple platforms, developers have to make choices about where to spend their money and on what device. For this reason, some commentators have suggested that mobile technology is moving away form the app towards mobile websites. However, at this point, apps have been able to offer several advantages over mobile web browsing. Not only do apps typically offer more rich visuals and functionality than mobile sites, but they are also able to access Apps are able to utilize “hardware features on the phone, like its camera or compass” where websites can only gather location information. Additionally, apps are often able to run offline, helping users access the app’s function even where this is “a slow or spotty network connection” (Patel, 2010, ¶ 9)
VI. Future of Application
1. Pricing model
app development.
3. How about social norms influencing app development?
2003, 10). Still, as companies and organization consider the development of their own mobile app, there are some financial limitations. On the one hand, users of mobile technology have grown to expect apps from their favorite companies, but the process of development is expensive and mass circulation in such a crowded marketplace becomes difficult. The cost to research and staff the development of an app can be prohibitive (Lucia, 2010). App development is “expensive and time-intensive to get apps on different phones” and the “fragmentation of the market” will require app developers to closely examine where they spend their resources (Patel, 2010, ¶ 12).
The future of the app is not set in stone. While certainly all media are flexible, the apps flexible past and present makes it particularly unpredictable. Likely to remain stable in app consumption are the changes in social ritual built around the increasingly present mobile device. When thinking about the idea of personalization, apps push beyond simply looking at individual consumption or use of an app or collection of apps. Because of its portability, the mobile device is affecting change in the way individuals function in private and in public and as an individual, interpersonally, and on a large group scale. Mobile devices, and particularly smartphones, keep users in constant connection -- connection to the technology itself, connection to their social circle, and connection to a larger social network of acquaintances and sometimes strangers. It is easier than ever to coordinate social activities and to coordinate oneself in a particular geographic location. The ease with which people can now do this has set up a new set of social norms for how we expect people in public to act with their smartphones and how we expect our friends and families to stay in touch. In public, even applications that highlight local geographic space, can absorb users into a bubble of private space. An app can often shift users’ attention elsewhere causing people to find new ways to move about and exist in public. The integration of mobile devices (especially smartphones and aps) into all areas of life changes the way we think about the telephone as a device for interpersonal communication. The mobile devices has gone beyond that function to become a “security device,” a device to “coordinate everyday events spontaneously,” and a device “used for a range of interaction” both private and social (Ling & Yttri, 2002, 139).
2005, 97).
Smartphones
Smartphones are not 2009, 143-144).
References:
Agar, J. (2003). Constant touch: a global history of the mobile phone. Cambridge, UK: Icon Books
Aguado, J.M. & Martinez, I.J. (2008). The construction of the mobile experience: the role of advertising campaigns in the appropriation of mobile phone technologies. In G. Goggin (Ed.), Mobile phone culture. (pp. 1-12). London: Routledge.
Brodsky, I. (2008). The history of wireless: how creative minds produced technology for the masses. Telescope Books: St. Louis, MO.
3: 96-103.
Clark,
Clark, J. (2010). Beijing: O’Reilly.
daSilva, J.S., Nieold, R., Fernandez, B., Beijer, T. and Huber, J. (2001) The UMTS related work of the European Commission, UMTS task force, UMTS forum and GSM association in F.
Hillebrand (ed.), GSM and UMTS: the creation of global mobile communication, New York: John Wiley, pp. 115-46
Ling, R. & Donner, J. (2009). Mobile communication: digital media and society series. Cambridge, UK: Polity.
Ling, R. & Yttri, B. (2002). “Hyper-coordination via mobile phones in Norway. “ in Katz, J.E. and Aukhus, M. (Eds.) Perpetual Contact. pp. 139-169. Port Chester, NY: Cambridge University Press
Manovich,Lucia M. (2010). Apps as money pit. MediaWeek.
Manovich, L. (2008). at http://lab.softwarestudies.com/2008/11/softbook.html
Marvin, C. (1988). When old technologies were new. New York: Oxford University Press.
Purcell,Patel, K. (2010). Little love for the mobile web in app-adoring world. Advertising Age.
Purcell, K., Entner, Life Project.
Tuttlebee, W., Babb, D., Irvine, J., Martinez, G. and Worall, K. (2003). Broadcasting and mobile telecommunications: internetworking not convergence, EBU Review, 293, http://www.ebu.ch/en/technical/trev/trev_293-tuttlebee.pdf.
Other info from previous outline:
the smartphone
1. IBM’s Simon (1992)
2. Nokia’s 9110 Communiator (1998)
- Quick Search Box
- Gmail
- Latitude
- Goggles
- Google Talk
f. Windows Phone
-- App Store Hall of Fame (see via iTunes; view: Featured): Apple’s own list of top Apps sorted here by category and frequency
2 Universal
- Photography (5): Color Splash, Hipstamatic, Pano, Photogene, TrueHDR
- News (4): CNN App for iPhone (U.S.), Instapaper, Pulse News Mini, Reeder

Author: Meghan Grosse
Personalizing Mobile Consumption: A History of Smartphone Applications
mobile consumption.
Acting almost more like a computer than a phone, smartphones that feature flexible application downloads speak to the increased expectation for customization in our media consumption. Digital video recorders have allowed television viewers to record multiple simultaneously running programs and time shift their viewing. Podcasting has offered similar advantages to radio and audio consumption, and mobile phones and MP3 players have allowed individuals to reshape their participation in public spaces. Smartphones extend this tailoring of media consumption even further, offering a place for individuals to aggregate applications that serve their social lives, work lives, and private lives all in one place and available all at the same time.
customizable device.
The
The application based 2006, 208).
Before
Before the advent mobile applications.
Early
Early versions of 2010, 115). EvenEven before the were not.
As
As smartphones and 2003, 170).
The
The increasing adoption private spaces.
The
The idea of own use.
User
User experiences and own choosing.
The
The preloaded applications and interests.
Built-in
Built-in applications now the listings.
Pew
Pew also identified distraction” (37).
While
While the motivation for apps.
-
- What are these stores?
-
- How much between stores?
-
- How do control content?
-
- How do apps look?
-
- When there between them?
-
- How do purchases made?
V. Trends in Application Development
1. Trends related to app category
always popular?
-
- What is do not?
-
- Does the made available?
-
- What do does not?
VI. Future of Application
1. Pricing model
app development.
3. How about social norms influencing app development?
2003, 10).
The future of the app is not set in stone. While certainly all media are flexible, the apps flexible past and present makes it particularly unpredictable. Likely to remain stable in app consumption are the changes in social ritual built around the increasingly present mobile device. When thinking about the idea of personalization, apps push beyond simply looking at individual consumption or use of an app or collection of apps. Because of its portability, the mobile device is affecting change in the way individuals function in private and in public and as an individual, interpersonally, and on a large group scale. Mobile devices, and particularly smartphones, keep users in constant connection -- connection to the technology itself, connection to their social circle, and connection to a larger social network of acquaintances and sometimes strangers. It is easier than ever to coordinate social activities and to coordinate oneself in a particular geographic location. The ease with which people can now do this has set up a new set of social norms for how we expect people in public to act with their smartphones and how we expect our friends and families to stay in touch. In public, even applications that highlight local geographic space, can absorb users into a bubble of private space. An app can often shift users’ attention elsewhere causing people to find new ways to move about and exist in public. The integration of mobile devices (especially smartphones and aps) into all areas of life changes the way we think about the telephone as a device for interpersonal communication. The mobile devices has gone beyond that function to become a “security device,” a device to “coordinate everyday events spontaneously,” and a device “used for a range of interaction” both private and social (Ling & Yttri, 2002, 139).
2005, 97).
Smartphones
Smartphones are not 2009, 143-144).
References:
Agar, J. (2003). Constant touch: a global history of the mobile phone. Cambridge, UK: Icon Books
Aguado, J.M. & Martinez, I.J. (2008). The construction of the mobile experience: the role of advertising campaigns in the appropriation of mobile phone technologies. In G. Goggin (Ed.), Mobile phone culture. (pp. 1-12). London: Routledge.
Brodsky, I. (2008). The history of wireless: how creative minds produced technology for the masses. Telescope Books: St. Louis, MO.
3: 96-103.
Clark,
Clark, J. (2010). Beijing: O’Reilly.
daSilva, J.S., Nieold, R., Fernandez, B., Beijer, T. and Huber, J. (2001) The UMTS related work of the European Commission, UMTS task force, UMTS forum and GSM association in F.
Hillebrand (ed.), GSM and UMTS: the creation of global mobile communication, New York: John Wiley, pp. 115-46
Ling, R. & Donner, J. (2009). Mobile communication: digital media and society series. Cambridge, UK: Polity.
Ling, R. & Yttri, B. (2002). “Hyper-coordination via mobile phones in Norway. “ in Katz, J.E. and Aukhus, M. (Eds.) Perpetual Contact. pp. 139-169. Port Chester, NY: Cambridge University Press
at http://lab.softwarestudies.com/2008/11/softbook.html
Marvin, C. (1988). When old technologies were new. New York: Oxford University Press.
Life Project.
Tuttlebee, W., Babb, D., Irvine, J., Martinez, G. and Worall, K. (2003). Broadcasting and mobile telecommunications: internetworking not convergence, EBU Review, 293, http://www.ebu.ch/en/technical/trev/trev_293-tuttlebee.pdf.
Other info from previous outline:
the smartphone
1. IBM’s Simon (1992)
2. Nokia’s 9110 Communiator (1998)
- Quick Search Box
- Gmail
- Latitude
- Goggles
- Google Talk
f. Windows Phone
-- App Store Hall of Fame (see via iTunes; view: Featured): Apple’s own list of top Apps sorted here by category and frequency
2 Universal
- Photography (5): Color Splash, Hipstamatic, Pano, Photogene, TrueHDR
- News (4): CNN App for iPhone (U.S.), Instapaper, Pulse News Mini, Reeder

Author: Meghan Grosse
Personalizing Mobile Consumption: A History of Smartphone Applications
mobile consumption.
Acting
Acting almost more same time.
The
The use of customizable device.
The
The application based 2006, 208).
Before
Before the advent mobile applications.
Early
Early versions of were not.
As
As smartphones and 2003, 170).
The
The increasing adoption private spaces.
The
The idea of own use.
User
User experiences and own choosing.
The
The preloaded applications and interests.
Built-in
Built-in applications now the listings.
Pew
Pew also identified distraction” (37).
While the motivation for app use may be shared across different smartphones, users must head to different digital stores to download applications. Mobile applications can be purchased through stores linked directly to the native operating systems of smartphones or through third party platforms. While there seems to be a growing number of these third party platforms, stores tied directly to specific smartphone systems remain central to application development and purchasing at this time. For iPhone users there is the App Store in Apple’s iTunes, for Android users there is Google’s Android, for Palm users there is the Software Store, for Blackberry users there is App World, for HP users there is App Catalog, for Nokia users there is the Ovi Store, and for Windows users there is Windows Marketplace. Recently, Amazon launched its own Appstore for Android, arguably becoming the most well known third party distribution platform for apps.
- What are the differences between applications in these stores?
3. How about social norms influencing app development?
Mobile devices and applications allow for users to act simultaneously as consumers as producers of content. The economic function of application development is becoming increasingly personalized as “the mobile network’s abilities to communicate with, and bill, individual customers” is able to recognize habits of use (Tuttlebee et al, 2003, 10).
VII. How doesThe future of the app use relateis not set in stone. While certainly all media are flexible, the apps flexible past and present makes it particularly unpredictable. Likely to remain stable in app consumption are the way we personalized older technology? BASICALLY WHAT DOES THIS MEAN?
WHAT ELSE DOES THIS MEAN?
- buildchanges in social ritual built around the increasingly present mobile device. When thinking about the idea of connectedness (humanpersonalization, apps push beyond simply looking at individual consumption or use of an app or collection of apps. Because of its portability, the mobile device is affecting change in the way individuals function in private and in public and as an individual, interpersonally, and on a large group scale. Mobile devices, and particularly smartphones, keep users in constant connection -- connection to human, humanthe technology itself, connection to machine, machinetheir social circle, and connection to machine)
- how does this change oura larger social ritual,network of acquaintances and howsometimes strangers. It is easier than ever to coordinate social activities and to coordinate oneself in a particular geographic location. The ease with which people can now do these changes question ritual’s roots?
- coordination (of social activities,this has set up a new set of geographic location, creates its ownsocial norms aroundfor how we function, it’s not only what you say butexpect people in public to act with their smartphones and how you say it)
Ling, R. & Yttri, B. (2002). “Hyper-coordination via mobile phoneswe expect our friends and families to stay in Norway. “touch. In public, even applications that highlight local geographic space, can absorb users into a bubble of private space. An app can often shift users’ attention elsewhere causing people to find new ways to move about and exist in Katz, J.E.public. The integration of mobile devices (especially smartphones and Aukhus, M. (Eds.) Perpetual Contact. pp. 139-169. Port Chester, NY: Cambridge University Press
- 139 “What is surprising isaps) into all areas of life changes the degree to whichway we think about the telephone as a device for interpersonal communication. The mobile telephonedevices has been integrated into their lives. It is not simplygone beyond that function to become a security device, nor is it used only“security device,” a device to coordinate“coordinate everyday events spontaneously. It is usedspontaneously,” and a device “used for a range of interactioninteraction” both private and is also important as a symbol”
- 158 “Althoughsocial (Ling & Yttri, 2002, 139).
Arguably, this shift in the mobile telephone hasway an undeniable instrumental function, one thing that sets apart use amongindividual functions in public spaces changes the teens is its expressive function, that is, as a device to communication emotional preferences as opposed to more task-oriented information.”
Coronia, L. (2005). Mobile culture:way we think about these previously ‘dead’ spaces -- spaces where an ethnographyindividual may have been cut of cellular phone uses in teenagers’ everyday life. Convergence, 11, 3: 96-103.
- 97 “ ‘No-where-places’ are crossing places devoid of any culturalfrom their social circle, from entertainment, or individual specific meanings, places that seem to exist only to be crossed, to allow you to get to a more meaningful ‘where.’ ‘No-when times’ could be defined as ‘stand by’ moments that cannot be defined through references to any specific activity, times during the day when the actor is simply ‘waiting for someone who is coming’ or for ‘something to happen.’ It is fascinating to notice how some communication technologiesfrom acting productively. These previously “No-where-paces” and “No-when-times” have given sense to these unmeaningful times and places.”
- 97 “In so doing he transforms these times andbeen transformed from places previously devoid“devoid of meanings and functions intoin social situations empowerment of his… interpersonal relationships.”
- 99 “Home for a teenager is a public sphere, a place where one needs to construct a personal space, an intimate oasis away from the gaze and the ears of the other members of the family. Them mobile phone allows one to mark the boundaries of such an otherwise invisible place and its use accomplishes a reversal of meaning”
-- extrapolate this to mobile media
- totally absorbing individual user into private space
- our attention is available only in certain discrete amounts
- to use mobile media attention has to be directed away from elsewhere
No matter where an individual uses a mobile device, they become absorbed into a bubble of private space.
VIII. Conclusion
- what does this mean for the way we organize our lives?relationships” (Coronia, 2005, 97).
Smartphones are not a technology existing in isolation. The development of customizable applications on smartphones draws on the increased expectation for personalized media consumption while also pointing to the expectation that individuals remain connected and available at all times. No longer just available by call or text, a growing population of smartphone users has access to email, social networks, or work material -- even when they might not want it. This constant connectivity “resurrect[s] ‘dead time’” and rationalizes the “squeeze” towards “ever higher levels of productive work” (Agar, 2003, 83). This notion, a “mobile logic,” suggests that “we arrange our daily affairs with the assumption that one and all are available via mobile communication” (Ling & Donner, 2009, 143-144).
References:
UK: Icon Books.Books
Aguado, J.M. & Martinez, I.J. (2008). The construction of the mobile experience: the role of advertising campaigns in the appropriation of mobile phone technologies. In G. Goggin (Ed.), Mobile phone culture. (pp. 1-12). London: Routledge.
Brodsky, I. (2008). The history of wireless: how creative minds produced technology for the masses. Telescope Books: St. Louis, MO.
Coronia, L. (2005). Mobile culture: an ethnography of cellular phone uses in teenagers’ everyday life. Convergence, 11, 3: 96-103.
Clark, J. (2010). Tapworthy: designing great iphone apps. Beijing: O’Reilly.
in F. Hillebrand
Hillebrand (ed.), GSM
Goggin, G. (2006). Cell phone culture: mobile technology in everyday life. London: Routledge.
Greenfield, A. (2006). Everyware: the dawning age of ubiquitous computing. Berkeley, CA: Peachpit Press.
Klemens, G. (2010). The cellphone: the history and technology of the gadget that changed the world. McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers: Jefferson, NC.
Ling, R. & Donner, J. (2009). Mobile communication: digital media and society series. Cambridge, UK: Polity.
Ling, R. & Yttri, B. (2002). “Hyper-coordination via mobile phones in Norway. “ in Katz, J.E. and Aukhus, M. (Eds.) Perpetual Contact. pp. 139-169. Port Chester, NY: Cambridge University Press
Manovich, L. (2008). Software takes command. Available at http://lab.softwarestudies.com/2008/11/softbook.html
Marvin, C. (1988). When old technologies were new. New York: Oxford University Press.

Author: Meghan Grosse
Personalizing Mobile Consumption: A History of Smartphone Applications
mobile consumption.
Acting almost more like a computer than a phone, smartphones that feature flexible application downloads speak to the increased expectation for customization in our media consumption. Digital video recorders have allowed television viewers to record multiple simultaneously running programs and time shift their viewing. Podcasting has offered similar advantages to radio and audio consumption, and mobile phones and MP3 players have allowed individuals to reshape their participation in public spaces. Smartphones extend this tailoring of media consumption even further, offering a place for individuals to aggregate applications that serve their social lives, work lives, and private lives all in one place and available all at the same time.
The use customizable device.
The
The application based 2006, 208).
Before the advent of the smartphone, users were accustomed to thinking of the mobile phone as a tool primarily for one-on-one communication. As the voice/telephone function of the mobile device got “as good as it needed to be,” network providers looked to expand, “developing better and faster data networks over cellular radio became the priority” (Farley, 2005, 32). This expanding data network made room for the increasingly popular smartphone and lead to “a bewildering and proliferating range of cultural activities” that “revolve around cell phones” (Goggin, 2006, 2). With these devices, users can are “saying in constant contact, text messaging” and using phones as a cultural tool for “fashion, identity-construction, music, mundane work routines, remote parenting, interacting with television programs, watching video, surfing the internet, meeting new people, dating, flirting, loving, bullying mobile commerce, and locating people” (2). With this range of uses, individuals are able to pick and choose the most useful tools to accommodate the way they use cell phones as mobile, customizable devices. Acting in some ways more like a computer than a phone, smartphones allow for software development in the form of mobile applications.
2010, 115). Even Even before the 2003, 170).
The
The increasing adoption private spaces.
The
The idea of own use.
User
User experiences and own choosing.
The preloaded applications that arrive with the smartphone point to the intended or imagined use envisioned by the developers of a mobile device. Like with any technology, “someone has to determine who needs it and what they’re going to do with it” (Brodsky, 2008, 1). However, application based smartphones are unusual in that the goal is to remain flexible, even leaving the field open to third-parties to create options for personalization. Information about the built-in applications for any number of smartphones is not put at the forefront. Instead, information about application based smartphones highlight what is possible with the addition of apps suited to individual needs and interests.
the listings.
Pew also identified a number of spaces or situations where apps are most widely used. The following ten scenarios were identified: while alone (71%), waiting for something/someone (53%), at work (47%), while commuting (36%), to improve what I’m currently doing (29%), while socializing (27%), while finding a place to eat (24%), while shopping (23%), at school (13%), and other (2%). The situations that encourage mobile app use are, for Clark, “boil[ed] down to one of three mindsets: ‘I’m microtasking,’ ‘I’m local,’” and “’I’m bored’.” (Clark, 2010, 32). As smartphones increasingly act more like computers and less like phones, it is not surprising that users are “leaving [their] laptops behind, leaning instead on [their] trusty phones” to stay productive with they are moving about (32). Additionally, because of its portability, the smartphone is even better at “know[ing] tons about you and your surroundings” than a computer (34). Finally, with the popularity of gaming apps and the tendency to use an app while alone or while trying to kill, it is not a far reach to think of apps as a way to stay entertained. After all, for most people, a mobile device is “always with [them], at the ready to fill downtime with easy distraction” (37).
IV. Application Stores
1.While the motivation for app use may be shared across different smartphones, users must head to different digital stores to download applications. Mobile applications can be purchased through stores linked directly to the native operating systems of smartphones or through third party platforms. While there seems to be a growing number of these third party platforms, stores tied directly to specific smartphone systems remain central to application development and purchasing at this time. For iPhone users there is the App Store (Apple)
2.in Apple’s iTunes, for Android Market (Google)
3.users there is Google’s Android, for Palm users there is the Software Store (Palm)
4.Store, for Blackberry users there is App World (Blackberry)
5.World, for HP users there is App Catalog (HP)
6.Catalog, for Nokia users there is the Ovi Store, and for Windows Marketplace (Windows)
-users there is Windows Marketplace. Recently, Amazon launched its own Appstore for Android, arguably becoming the most well known third party distribution platform for apps.
- What are these stores?
-
- How much between stores?
-
- How do control content?
-
- How do apps look?
-
- When there between them?
-
- How do purchases made?
Mobile applications can be purchased through stores linked directly to the native operating systems of smartphones or through third party platforms. While there seems to be a growing number of these third party platforms, stores tied directly to specific smartphone systems remain central to application development and purchasing at this time. The App Store for Apple’s iPhone is available through the iPhone and through iTunes, Apple’s media player a store.
The Android Market
V. Trends in Application Development
1. Trends related to app category
always popular?
-
- What is do not?
-
- Does the made available?
-
- What do does not?
VI. Future of Application
1. Pricing model
app development.
3. How about social norms influencing app development?
2003, 10).
VII.
VII. How does THIS MEAN? (When answering this question can you look back to the beginning of this paper and see whether you're asking it there? In other words... this is a great question, but is it one to which the answer flows from the beginning?)
Acting almost more like a computer than a phone, smartphones that feature flexible application downloads speak to the increased expectation for customization in our media consumption. Digital video recorders have allowed television viewers to record multiple simultaneously running programs and time shift their viewing. Podcasting has offered similar advantages to radio and audio consumption, and mobile phones and MP3 players have allowed individuals to reshape their participation in public spaces. Smartphones extend this tailoring of media consumption even further, offering a place for individuals to aggregate applications that serve their social lives, work lives, and private lives all in one place and available all at the same time.
WHAT ELSE DOES THIS MEAN?
- build in idea of connectedness (human to human, human to machine, machine to machine)
our social ritual?ritual, and how do these changes question ritual’s roots?
- coordination (of social activities, of geographic location, creates its own norms around how we function, it’s not only what you say but how you say it)
Ling, R. & Yttri, B. (2002). “Hyper-coordination via mobile phones in Norway. “ in Katz, J.E. and Aukhus, M. (Eds.) Perpetual Contact. pp. 139-169. Port Chester, NY: Cambridge University Press
- 139 “What is surprising is the degree to which the mobile telephone has been integrated into their lives. It is not simply a security device, nor is it used only to coordinate everyday events spontaneously. It is used for a range of interaction and is also important as a symbol”
task-oriented information.”
Coronia,
Coronia, L. (2005). 3: 96-103.
-
- 97 “ and places.”
-
- 97 “In interpersonal relationships.”
-
- 99 “Home of meaning”
-- extrapolate this to mobile media
- totally absorbing individual user into private space
- our attention is available only in certain discrete amounts
- to use mobile media attention has to be directed away from elsewhere
private space.
VIII. Conclusion
our lives?
Smartphones
Smartphones are not 2009, 143-144).
References:
Agar, J. (2003). Constant touch: a global history of the mobile phone. Cambridge, UK: Icon Books.
Aguado, J.M. & Martinez, I.J. (2008). The construction of the mobile experience: the role of advertising campaigns in the appropriation of mobile phone technologies. In G. Goggin (Ed.), Mobile phone culture. (pp. 1-12). London: Routledge.
Brodsky, I. (2008). The history of wireless: how creative minds produced technology for the masses. Telescope Books: St. Louis, MO.
Beijing: O’Reilly.
daSilva, J.S., Nieold, R., Fernandez, B., Beijer, T. and Huber, J. (2001) The UMTS related work of the European Commission, UMTS task force, UMTS forum and GSM association in F. Hillebrand (ed.), GSM and UMTS: the creation of global mobile communication, New York: John Wiley, pp. 115-46
Goggin, G. (2006). Cell phone culture: mobile technology in everyday life. London: Routledge.
Klemens, G. (2010). The cellphone: the history and technology of the gadget that changed the world. McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers: Jefferson, NC.
Ling, R. & Donner, J. (2009). Mobile communication: digital media and society series. Cambridge, UK: Polity.
at http://lab.softwarestudies.com/2008/11/softbook.html
Marvin, C. (1988). When old technologies were new. New York: Oxford University Press.
Life Project.
Tuttlebee, W., Babb, D., Irvine, J., Martinez, G. and Worall, K. (2003). Broadcasting and mobile telecommunications: internetworking not convergence, EBU Review, 293, http://www.ebu.ch/en/technical/trev/trev_293-tuttlebee.pdf.
Other info from previous outline:
the smartphone
1. IBM’s Simon (1992)
2. Nokia’s 9110 Communiator (1998)
- Quick Search Box
- Gmail
- Latitude
- Goggles
- Google Talk
f. Windows Phone
-- App Store Hall of Fame (see via iTunes; view: Featured): Apple’s own list of top Apps sorted here by category and frequency
2 Universal
- Photography (5): Color Splash, Hipstamatic, Pano, Photogene, TrueHDR
- News (4): CNN App for iPhone (U.S.), Instapaper, Pulse News Mini, Reeder
- Social Networking (1): Facebook
- Healthcare & Fitness (1): Nike + GPS
-- Application Stores
1. App Store (Apple)
2. Android Market (Google)
3. Software Store (Palm)
4. App World (Blackberry)
5. App Catalog (HP)
6. Windows Marketplace (Windows)
7. Amazon Appstore for Android

Author: Meghan Grosse
Personalizing Mobile Consumption: A History of Smartphone Applications
mobile consumption.
The
The use of customizable device.
The
The application based 2006, 208).
Before
Before the advent mobile applications.
Early
Early versions of 2010, 115). EvenEven before the were not.
As
As smartphones and 2003, 170).
The
The increasing adoption private spaces.
The
The idea of own use.
User
User experiences and own choosing.
The
The preloaded applications and interests.
Built-in
Built-in applications now the listings.
Pew
Pew also identified distraction” (37).
IV. Application Stores
1. App Store (Apple)
5. App Catalog (HP)
6. Windows Marketplace (Windows)
these stores?
-
- How much between stores?
-
- How do control content?
-
- How do apps look?
-
- When there between them?
-
- How do purchases made?
Mobile
Mobile applications can a store.
The
The Android Market
V. Trends in Application Development
1. Trends related to app category
always popular?
-
- What is do not?
-
- Does the made available?
-
- What do does not?
VI. Future of Application
1. Pricing model
app development.
3. How about social norms influencing app development?
2003, 10).
VII. How does app use relate to the way we personalized older technology? BASICALLY WHAT DOES THIS MEAN? (When answering this question can you look back to the beginning of this paper and see whether you're asking it there? In other words... this is a great question, but is it one to which the answer flows from the beginning?)
same time.
WHAT ELSE DOES THIS MEAN?
- build in idea of connectedness (human to human, human to machine, machine to machine)
Ling, R. & Yttri, B. (2002). “Hyper-coordination via mobile phones in Norway. “ in Katz, J.E. and Aukhus, M. (Eds.) Perpetual Contact. pp. 139-169. Port Chester, NY: Cambridge University Press
- 139 “What is surprising is the degree to which the mobile telephone has been integrated into their lives. It is not simply a security device, nor is it used only to coordinate everyday events spontaneously. It is used for a range of interaction and is also important as a symbol”
task-oriented information.”
Coronia,
Coronia, L. (2005). 3: 96-103.
-
- 97 “ and places.”
-
- 97 “In interpersonal relationships.”
-
- 99 “Home of meaning”
-- extrapolate this to mobile media
- totally absorbing individual user into private space
- our attention is available only in certain discrete amounts
- to use mobile media attention has to be directed away from elsewhere
private space.
VIII. Conclusion
our lives?
Smartphones
Smartphones are not 2009, 143-144).
References:
Agar, J. (2003). Constant touch: a global history of the mobile phone. Cambridge, UK: Icon Books.
Aguado, J.M. & Martinez, I.J. (2008). The construction of the mobile experience: the role of advertising campaigns in the appropriation of mobile phone technologies. In G. Goggin (Ed.), Mobile phone culture. (pp. 1-12). London: Routledge.
Brodsky, I. (2008). The history of wireless: how creative minds produced technology for the masses. Telescope Books: St. Louis, MO.
Beijing: O’Reilly.
daSilva, J.S., Nieold, R., Fernandez, B., Beijer, T. and Huber, J. (2001) The UMTS related work of the European Commission, UMTS task force, UMTS forum and GSM association in F. Hillebrand (ed.), GSM and UMTS: the creation of global mobile communication, New York: John Wiley, pp. 115-46
Goggin, G. (2006). Cell phone culture: mobile technology in everyday life. London: Routledge.
Klemens, G. (2010). The cellphone: the history and technology of the gadget that changed the world. McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers: Jefferson, NC.
Ling, R. & Donner, J. (2009). Mobile communication: digital media and society series. Cambridge, UK: Polity.
at http://lab.softwarestudies.com/2008/11/softbook.html
Marvin, C. (1988). When old technologies were new. New York: Oxford University Press.
Life Project.
Tuttlebee, W., Babb, D., Irvine, J., Martinez, G. and Worall, K. (2003). Broadcasting and mobile telecommunications: internetworking not convergence, EBU Review, 293, http://www.ebu.ch/en/technical/trev/trev_293-tuttlebee.pdf.
Other info from previous outline:
the smartphone
1. IBM’s Simon (1992)
2. Nokia’s 9110 Communiator (1998)
- Quick Search Box
- Gmail
- Latitude
- Goggles
- Google Talk
f. Windows Phone
-- App Store Hall of Fame (see via iTunes; view: Featured): Apple’s own list of top Apps sorted here by category and frequency
2 Universal
- Photography (5): Color Splash, Hipstamatic, Pano, Photogene, TrueHDR
- News (4): CNN App for iPhone (U.S.), Instapaper, Pulse News Mini, Reeder