Call for papers: edited volume
Images in Mobile Communication
New content, new uses, new perspectives?
The mobile telephone holds a unique position among information and
communication technologies
(ICTs): in a decade, it has deeply been integrated into the users'
everyday lives. In France,
we count more than 57 million mobile lines for a rate of 89% of the
population; in Germany, the rate
has attained. 131%. Mobile phones have become personal, truly
incorporated and often trivial objects.
Nevertheless, they keep revealing new potentials.
After the success of voice and short messaging services, mobile
communication tends to become
more visual today. The screens are getting larger, and a growing
number of built-in functionalities
and applications permit to take pictures, record films and diffuse
and receive images. As for the
users, they appropriate the technology in often creative and
surprising ways, sometimes exceeding
and sometimes disappointing the providers' previsions.
Cultural studies apply the concept of domestication to describe this
process by which the ICTs
are incorporated into the users' everyday lives. Sociological
approaches on technology use as well as
other qualitative and quantitative schools of thought have largely
explored patterns of usage of various
mobile applications, starting with voice and short messaging services.
The advent of images
The volume provides a new and original perspective on the field of
mobile communication, as
it focuses on the advent of images in the emerging uses of the
mobile telephone: mobile television,
visual telephony, picture taking, video recording, mobile Internet, etc.
Economically, the offer of new services and functionalities involves
major stakes for the operators
who have been seeing their revenues stagnate in Europe. Furthermore,
the question of convergence
- with the mobile phone as the principal device for accessing mobile
multimedia - reveals the
hard competition which has installed itself in the content business.
On a cultural level, we may ask if and how today's mobile images
might resume the dominating
role which visual and audiovisual culture has been playing since the
1980s. Will the mobile telephone
turn into a new mass medium?
Finally, we pose the question of what is happening on the users'
side. How do they appropriate
the new services and contents, to what extend do they resist to the
technology or reinvent it? How do
the users make tradeoffs between the different functionalities on
their mobile phone and on other devices?
While prognoses are still a difficult task, the focus on early
adopters may permit to identify new
trends.
The new uses linked to images
The new uses linked to images employ technologies such as mobile
television (unicast and
broadcast), MMS, photos and videos, music and the mobile Internet.
As for mobile TV, the rollouts of
broadcast standards which keep being retarded in some countries
(France, Belgium) and have failed
in others (Germany) can be taken as a starting point for
interrogation. We also need to understand
how the mobility of the devices and users predetermine the actual
usage. How do the program choices
relate to and perhaps modify domestic television habits? How do the
image size and format affect
reception? In which ways does mobile TV viewing inscribe into
various forms of social interaction?
For the MMS, the photos and videos which are more and more popular
among users, the question
of user-generated content imposes itself. Which sense and status is
ascribed to the mobile images?
How do they circulate within the social networks, through the blogs,
messaging services (msn
etc.), social networks (Facebook etc.) and image hosting and sharing
websites (flickr, YouTube)? Ultimately,
how do they contribute to building and maintaining of social relations?
As for the mobile Internet, questions may be raised about the
conditions to participate in a
broadband society full of images (information research, access to
knowledge, entertainment, social
networks, etc.)? Further, how do the new practices integrate within
those already existing? Which are
the limitations linked to the technology, and which choices and
trade-offs do users realize given the
numerous technological alternatives (between a camera phone and a
digital camera, a mobile phone
screen and a computer or TV screen, etc.)?
The propositions may consist in theoretical reflexions, but also in
empirical analyses or case
studies of usage situations among various publics.
Editor
The volume is to be published by Frank & Timme, Berlin, a renowned
editor who has published
the proceedings of the mobile phone preconference to the 2006
convention of the International
Communication Association. The choice of the English language
assures the impact of the publication
in the international scientific community.
The propositions will be evaluated by the editors, assisted by an
international editorial board.
Authors are requested to have them checked for British English. The
contributions should not exceed
50.000 characters including spaces, notes and bibliography. (The
editorial norms will be sent after
acceptance). Extended abstracts of propositions are to be submitted
as Word documents by September
30, 2009. They should include a summary of no more than 6.000
characters covering the following
points: title of the proposition, authors' names, academic
affiliations, addresses (mail and phone), objectives
and principal questions, theoretical framework, method and expected results.
Submission modalities and deadlines
Submission of extended abstracts: September 30, 2009
Notification of acceptance: October 24, 2009
Submission of full text: January 8, 2010
Return of reviewers' remarks: February 21, 2010
Submission of final texts: April 30, 2010
Publication: End 2010
Please send the propositions to the two editors of the volume
Corinne Martin and Thilo von Pape
(corinne.martin /at/ univ-metz.fr), (thilo.vonpape /at/ uni-hohenheim.de)
Secretarial dept: Benjamin Champenois - (crem /at/ univ-metz.fr)
Director: Jacques Walter - (jacques.walter /at/ univ-metz.fr)
Scientific Journal: Questions de communication : ques2com.fr
(Communication Questions)
