This article develops the concept of "glocal intimacies," capturing the role of mobile media in h... more This article develops the concept of "glocal intimacies," capturing the role of mobile media in how people enact and reconfigure their increasingly global experiences of social relationships. It establishes the two foundational assumptions of this concept: the interplay of local and global cultures and the transformative role of mobile media. It then identifies the three key dimensions that characterize glocal intimacies: digital access, contextual localities, and sociotechnical dynamics. To provide empirical flesh to how these dimensions intersect, it comparatively discusses two ethnographic projects on privileged Filipinos and their mediated familial and romantic relationships.
Continuum-Journal of Media & Cultural Studies, Jun 2007
Overseas Filipino Workers (OFWs) have been hailed by the Philippine government as ‘new heroes’. I... more Overseas Filipino Workers (OFWs) have been hailed by the Philippine government as ‘new heroes’. In 2005, over US$10 billion were sent home in remittances, contributing to 10 per cent of the gross national product (Banko Sentral ng Pilipinas, n.d.). According to the Philippine Overseas Employment Agency (POEA), 933,588 Filipinos left the country for employment overseas in 2004 (POEA, 2004). This number represents a 7.6 per cent increase from the previous year yet is only a count of those who have sought overseas employment legitimately. Filipinos who seek employment illegally are not accounted for and their numbers are also on the rise. Of the almost a million documented workers, 75 per cent are women (POEA, 2004), many of whom leave children behind to be cared for by husbands and the extended family. Much of the labour provided by Filipino women workers is in the care industry. They enter the global workforce as nurses, domestic helpers, and nightclub entertainers, filling in the gaps created by the privileged women of theWest. Many Filipino migrant mothers use cell phone technology to maintain relationships with their children: the technology impacts relationships and raises troubling implications. Cell phone technology has empowered these women, creating new ways to ‘mother’ their children across time and space. While allowing for deep-seated ideological beliefs of traditional mothering to continue, these mothers are also simultaneously reinventing transnational motherhood. Furthermore, this use of cell phone technology can be read as both a form of resistance against and repression from the political economic reality that has led these women to leave their families in the first place.
Digital inclusion should be understood in ways beyond access and must take into consideration cla... more Digital inclusion should be understood in ways beyond access and must take into consideration class formation, the stratification of information, and structural systems of power. Although Philippine telecoms have continually developed products and services for the working poor, the question of what kinds of access persists. This article examines the different ways Filipinos are able to be digitally connected through prepaid mobiles, inexpensive internet access such as Pisonet, and as labourers in information technology business process outsourcing (IT-BPO) companies. I argue that what is taking place is a ‘good enough’ access that reinforces existing class structures and raises new questions regarding inclusion. While there are increasingly new ways for Filipinos to be connected, digital inclusion also reveals new forms of social stratification, not simply between the ‘haves’ and ‘have nots’ but rather, from the uneven access that is dictated by one’s accumulation of economic and cultural capital.
This piece teases out the links between this special issue's key themes regarding performance and... more This piece teases out the links between this special issue's key themes regarding performance and citizenship and the distinct realities of transitional democracies. This article looks at mobile media access in the Philippines and the kind of social intimacies that have emerged from it. To frame our discussion, we use the concept of 'glocal intimacies'. This pertains to how mobile technologies have normalised and intensified the entanglement of people's relationships of closeness with the ever-shifting and constantly negotiated flows between global modernity and local everyday life. We show that the uneven access that Filipinos have has led to equally uneven ways in which they imagine and enact intimate relationships. Drawing on case studies emblematic of the country's key income clusters, we point out the emergence of a contradictory situation, wherein those with relatively high-quality access are those who are least dependent on mobile media for their glocal intimacies. Meanwhile, those with relatively low-quality access are those who are actually most dependent on mobile-mediated communication for such intimacies.
Although 'intimacy' has been often construed as the relationship between two individuals, we cont... more Although 'intimacy' has been often construed as the relationship between two individuals, we contend that these are also 'social' and are always imbricated in broader social dynamics. In Asia, the social dimension of intimacies, whether romantic, familial, or communal, is very much pronounced. Crucially, it is also increasingly enacted through mobile media. We argue that these ubiquitous mobile technologies have contributed to the transformation of intimate social relationships in the region. We underscore especially that they have become central to people's experiences of what we call 'glocal intimacies'. By this we mean that such technologies have both normalised and intensified how people's interpersonal relationships are entangled in the ever-shifting and constantly negotiated flows between global modernity and local everyday life. This is particularly evident when they seek to use mobile media to reconfigure their local ties and to enact global relationships. These experiences powerfully exemplify how their mediated intimacies are caught between the homogenising influence of the global and the persistent grounding of the local.
Rapidly evolving and ubiquitous digital communication technologies have played a crucial role in ... more Rapidly evolving and ubiquitous digital communication technologies have played a crucial role in shaping the quality and textures of mobile intimacy in transnational family life. In this chapter, we illuminate how transnational caregiving performed through mobile devices and online platforms engenders intimate care-giving from afar. Drawing on data from in-depth interviews, we investigate how elite Filipino migrants in the United States use mobile media and a diverse range of networked platforms to deliver and negotiate caregiving at a distance among their left-behind and aging parents in the Philippines. This study extends the care circulation approach in the context of transnational familial communication through mobile media. We critically examine the role of mobile media in facilitating mediation of everyday and routinized carework, microcoordination of care, the management of tensions and conflicts, and the performance of care. Signicantly, we propose the term 'mobile carework' to articulate the intimate, personalised, mobile, and negotiated care practices of transnational family members that are often shaped by the fusion of socio-cultural and technological forces. In sum, this study provides critical insights on how familial intimacies and relations are sustained through the provision of digitalised and differential care routines.
This study explores how communication platforms matter in how migrants navigate and negotiate the... more This study explores how communication platforms matter in how migrants navigate and negotiate the contradictory processes of connection and separation with distant others and the homeland. Focusing on “elite” Filipino migrants in the metropolitan Washington DC area, this study draws on the theory of polymedia to argue that users choose specific new media technologies based on social and emotional consequences to maintain ties with family and friends. It further extends the theory of polymedia to understand how migrants also use new media technologies to demonstrate a continued, albeit somewhat ambiguous, allegiance to the Philippines. Because cost and accessibility are not concerns, the choice of a specific medium is dependent on the needs and goals of the communicative act.
This article develops the concept of “glocal intimacies,” capturing the role of mobile media in h... more This article develops the concept of “glocal intimacies,” capturing the role of mobile media in how people enact and reconfigure their increasingly global experiences of social relationships. It establishes the two foundational assumptions of this concept: the interplay of local and global cultures and the transformative role of mobile media. It then identifies the three key dimensions that characterize glocal intimacies: digital access, contextual localities, and sociotechnical dynamics. To provide empirical flesh to how these dimensions intersect, it comparatively discusses two ethnographic projects on privileged Filipinos and their mediated familial and romantic relationships.
This study explores how communication platforms matter in how migrants navigate and negotiate the... more This study explores how communication platforms matter in how migrants navigate and negotiate the contradictory processes of connection and separation with distant others and the homeland. Focusing on “elite” Filipino migrants in the metropolitan Washington DC area, this study draws on the theory of polymedia to argue that users choose specific new media technologies based on social and emotional consequences to maintain ties with family and friends. It further extends the theory of polymedia to understand how migrants also use new media technologies to demonstrate a continued, albeit somewhat ambiguous, allegiance to the Philippines. Because cost and accessibility are not concerns, the choice of a specific medium is dependent on the needs and goals of the communicative act.
Although ‘intimacy’ has been often construed as the relationship between two individuals, we cont... more Although ‘intimacy’ has been often construed as the relationship between two individuals, we contend that these are also ‘social’ and are always imbricated in broader social dynamics. In Asia, the social dimension of intimacies, whether romantic, familial, or communal, is very much pronounced. Crucially, it is also increasingly enacted through mobile media. We argue that these ubiquitous mobile technologies have contributed to the transformation of intimate social relationships in the region. We underscore especially that they have become central to people’s experiences of what we call ‘glocal intimacies’. By this we mean that such technologies have both normalised and intensified how people’s interpersonal relationships are entangled in the ever-shifting and constantly negotiated flows between global modernity and local everyday life. This is particularly evident when they seek to use mobile media to reconfigure their local ties and to enact global relationships. These experiences powerfully exemplify how their mediated intimacies are caught between the homogenising influence of the global and the persistent grounding of the local.
Mobile Communication in Asia: Local Insights, Global Implications
Rapidly evolving and ubiquitous digital communication technologies have played a crucial role in ... more Rapidly evolving and ubiquitous digital communication technologies have played a crucial role in shaping the quality and textures of mobile intimacy in transnational family life. In this chapter, we illuminate how transnational caregiving performed through mobile devices and online platforms engenders intimate caregiving from afar. Drawing on data from in-depth interviews, we investigate how elite Filipino migrants in the United States use mobile media and a diverse range of networked platforms to deliver and negotiate caregiving at a distance among their left-behind and aging parents in the Philippines. This study extends the care circulation approach in the context of transnational familial communication through mobile media. We critically examine the role of mobile media in facilitating mediation of everyday and routinized carework, microcoordination of care, the management of tensions and conflicts, and the performance of care. Signicantly, we propose the term ‘mobile carework’ to articulate the intimate, personalised, mobile, and negotiated care practices of transnational family members that are often shaped by the fusion of socio-cultural and technological forces. In sum, this study provides critical insights on how familial intimacies and relations are sustained through the provision of digitalised and differential care routines.
This article looks at mobile media access in the Philippines and the kind of social intimacies th... more This article looks at mobile media access in the Philippines and the kind of social intimacies that have emerged from it. To frame our discussion, we use the concept of ‘glocal intimacies’. This pertains to how mobile technologies have normalised and intensified the entanglement of people’s relationships of closeness with the ever-shifting and constantly negotiated flows between global modernity and local everyday life. We show that the uneven access that Filipinos have has led to equally uneven ways in which they imagine and enact intimate relationships. Drawing on case studies emblematic of the country’s key income clusters, we point out the emergence of a contradictory situation, wherein those with relatively high-quality access are those who are least dependent on mobile media for their glocal intimacies. Meanwhile, those with relatively low-quality access are those who are actually most dependent on mobile-mediated communication for such intimacies.
The mobile phone has arguably become the most ubiquitous information communication technology (IC... more The mobile phone has arguably become the most ubiquitous information communication technology (ICT) in the world, including in the developing world. Introduced in the Philippines in the early 1990s, mobile phone penetration is expected to reach 100 percent in 2013, an interesting phenomenon since a third of the country lives below the poverty line. This dissertation examines the products and services offered by Philippine telecommunication companies that have led to the widespread use of mobile phones and the implications of this use on economic development and social relations. It investigates the adoption of the mobile phone against the backdrop of the Philippines as a postcolonial, developing nation within the larger context of globalization, modernization, and the development of a global network society. Because the mobile phone has been the most used ICT in the Philippines, telecom companies have seized on the opportunity to develop additional uses for the mobile phone beyond communication with another person, creating hybrid forms of technology use. Using three case studies, mobile commerce, mobile banking, and DIY mobile phone plans, this dissertation critically examines the positive and celebratory discourse put forward by telecommunication companies, the government, and international development organizations. Through an examination of these products and services, the dissertation investigates whether they indeed bridge the “digital divide” between the rich and poor within the Philippines as well as between the Philippines and more developed nations. I argue that the relationship between the adoption of mobile phones, social transformation, and modernity in the developing world is complex and ever-changing. While widespread access to ICTs is celebrated, access to banking services is measured as economic development, and interactivity and customization offers consumers choice, they also further reinforce existing class structures, cultivate neoliberal models of citizenship, and pave the way for heightened consumer surveillance. In the end, this examination of the exciting and innovative uses of mobile phones in a developing country such as the Philippines reveal a number of complex contradictions that are indisputably tied to the larger project of neoliberal globalization.
When Martial Law was lifted in January 1981, freedom of the press was supposed to have been resto... more When Martial Law was lifted in January 1981, freedom of the press was supposed to have been restored in the Philippines. However, when former Senator Benigno Aquino, Jr. was assassinated, in August 21, 1983, the press did not cover the thousands of Filipinos who flocked to his wake and funeral procession. That is until a weekly women’s entertainment magazine, Mr. & Ms. published two special editions on Aquino’s funeral and life. This led to the birth of the Mr. & Ms. Special Edition, which ran from September 9, 1983 to July 23, 1987 and became the major news source for the opposition. This thesis examines how the Mr. & Ms. Special Edition became the alternative form of news dissemination borne from the suppression of the press in the 1980s. By studying the historical (and political) conditions that led to its publication, this thesis demonstrates how the Mr. & Ms. Special Edition fulfilled the public’s need for information and led to the return of a free press in the Philippines.
This edited volume brings together cutting-edge studies from emerging scholars of East/Southeast ... more This edited volume brings together cutting-edge studies from emerging scholars of East/Southeast Asia who explore the role of mobile media in the contemporary transformation of the region’s social intimacies, from the romantic to the familial to the communal. By providing a regional and transnational overview of such studies, it affords new insights into how these mobile technologies have contributed to the rise of ‘glocal intimacies’. This pertains to the normalisation and intensification of how people’s relationships of closeness are entangled in the ever-shifting and constantly negotiated flows between global modernity and local everyday life. In providing case studies of mobile media and glocal intimacies, the chapters in the volume attend to a broad range of countries that include China, Korea, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Vietnam, and Taiwan. This illustrates the differing ways in which mobile media might be embedded in the region’s divergent articulations of social intimacies, which reflect the ongoing tensions between Western and Asian imaginaries of modernity. The chapters also discuss a wide array of mobile media that people use, from social media platforms like Facebook and Instagram, to messaging apps like KakaoTalk and WhatsApp, to dating apps like Tinder and Blued. This allows for a mapping out of the different levels of impact that mobile media might have on social intimacies in a region that contains some of the most technologically advanced as well as the most technologically behind societies in the world. In summary, this book allows readers to take a comparative approach to understanding the complexity of the glocal intimacies that are emerging from the ways people in Asia use mobile media to reconfigure their local ties and to enact global relationships. This volume will benefit students, academics, and researchers who are keen in media and communication, cultural studies, sociology, anthropology, and Asian studies.
“This exciting and much-needed book will greatly advance our efforts to decolonise media and communications research. The chapters offer empirically rich and nuanced accounts that challenge the dominant paradigms about mediated intimacy.”
Mirca Madianou, Goldsmiths, University of London
“This collection develops the original concept of ‘glocal intimacies’ to describe how mobile media have become a crucial site where new social intimacies are enacted, reinforced and transformed in Asia. It introduces fresh empirical research from emerging scholars to furnish deep theoretical insights into these imaginaries and practices.”
Audrey Yue, National University of Singapore
This article develops the concept of "glocal intimacies," capturing the role of mobile media in h... more This article develops the concept of "glocal intimacies," capturing the role of mobile media in how people enact and reconfigure their increasingly global experiences of social relationships. It establishes the two foundational assumptions of this concept: the interplay of local and global cultures and the transformative role of mobile media. It then identifies the three key dimensions that characterize glocal intimacies: digital access, contextual localities, and sociotechnical dynamics. To provide empirical flesh to how these dimensions intersect, it comparatively discusses two ethnographic projects on privileged Filipinos and their mediated familial and romantic relationships.
Continuum-Journal of Media & Cultural Studies, Jun 2007
Overseas Filipino Workers (OFWs) have been hailed by the Philippine government as ‘new heroes’. I... more Overseas Filipino Workers (OFWs) have been hailed by the Philippine government as ‘new heroes’. In 2005, over US$10 billion were sent home in remittances, contributing to 10 per cent of the gross national product (Banko Sentral ng Pilipinas, n.d.). According to the Philippine Overseas Employment Agency (POEA), 933,588 Filipinos left the country for employment overseas in 2004 (POEA, 2004). This number represents a 7.6 per cent increase from the previous year yet is only a count of those who have sought overseas employment legitimately. Filipinos who seek employment illegally are not accounted for and their numbers are also on the rise. Of the almost a million documented workers, 75 per cent are women (POEA, 2004), many of whom leave children behind to be cared for by husbands and the extended family. Much of the labour provided by Filipino women workers is in the care industry. They enter the global workforce as nurses, domestic helpers, and nightclub entertainers, filling in the gaps created by the privileged women of theWest. Many Filipino migrant mothers use cell phone technology to maintain relationships with their children: the technology impacts relationships and raises troubling implications. Cell phone technology has empowered these women, creating new ways to ‘mother’ their children across time and space. While allowing for deep-seated ideological beliefs of traditional mothering to continue, these mothers are also simultaneously reinventing transnational motherhood. Furthermore, this use of cell phone technology can be read as both a form of resistance against and repression from the political economic reality that has led these women to leave their families in the first place.
Digital inclusion should be understood in ways beyond access and must take into consideration cla... more Digital inclusion should be understood in ways beyond access and must take into consideration class formation, the stratification of information, and structural systems of power. Although Philippine telecoms have continually developed products and services for the working poor, the question of what kinds of access persists. This article examines the different ways Filipinos are able to be digitally connected through prepaid mobiles, inexpensive internet access such as Pisonet, and as labourers in information technology business process outsourcing (IT-BPO) companies. I argue that what is taking place is a ‘good enough’ access that reinforces existing class structures and raises new questions regarding inclusion. While there are increasingly new ways for Filipinos to be connected, digital inclusion also reveals new forms of social stratification, not simply between the ‘haves’ and ‘have nots’ but rather, from the uneven access that is dictated by one’s accumulation of economic and cultural capital.
This piece teases out the links between this special issue's key themes regarding performance and... more This piece teases out the links between this special issue's key themes regarding performance and citizenship and the distinct realities of transitional democracies. This article looks at mobile media access in the Philippines and the kind of social intimacies that have emerged from it. To frame our discussion, we use the concept of 'glocal intimacies'. This pertains to how mobile technologies have normalised and intensified the entanglement of people's relationships of closeness with the ever-shifting and constantly negotiated flows between global modernity and local everyday life. We show that the uneven access that Filipinos have has led to equally uneven ways in which they imagine and enact intimate relationships. Drawing on case studies emblematic of the country's key income clusters, we point out the emergence of a contradictory situation, wherein those with relatively high-quality access are those who are least dependent on mobile media for their glocal intimacies. Meanwhile, those with relatively low-quality access are those who are actually most dependent on mobile-mediated communication for such intimacies.
Although 'intimacy' has been often construed as the relationship between two individuals, we cont... more Although 'intimacy' has been often construed as the relationship between two individuals, we contend that these are also 'social' and are always imbricated in broader social dynamics. In Asia, the social dimension of intimacies, whether romantic, familial, or communal, is very much pronounced. Crucially, it is also increasingly enacted through mobile media. We argue that these ubiquitous mobile technologies have contributed to the transformation of intimate social relationships in the region. We underscore especially that they have become central to people's experiences of what we call 'glocal intimacies'. By this we mean that such technologies have both normalised and intensified how people's interpersonal relationships are entangled in the ever-shifting and constantly negotiated flows between global modernity and local everyday life. This is particularly evident when they seek to use mobile media to reconfigure their local ties and to enact global relationships. These experiences powerfully exemplify how their mediated intimacies are caught between the homogenising influence of the global and the persistent grounding of the local.
Rapidly evolving and ubiquitous digital communication technologies have played a crucial role in ... more Rapidly evolving and ubiquitous digital communication technologies have played a crucial role in shaping the quality and textures of mobile intimacy in transnational family life. In this chapter, we illuminate how transnational caregiving performed through mobile devices and online platforms engenders intimate care-giving from afar. Drawing on data from in-depth interviews, we investigate how elite Filipino migrants in the United States use mobile media and a diverse range of networked platforms to deliver and negotiate caregiving at a distance among their left-behind and aging parents in the Philippines. This study extends the care circulation approach in the context of transnational familial communication through mobile media. We critically examine the role of mobile media in facilitating mediation of everyday and routinized carework, microcoordination of care, the management of tensions and conflicts, and the performance of care. Signicantly, we propose the term 'mobile carework' to articulate the intimate, personalised, mobile, and negotiated care practices of transnational family members that are often shaped by the fusion of socio-cultural and technological forces. In sum, this study provides critical insights on how familial intimacies and relations are sustained through the provision of digitalised and differential care routines.
This study explores how communication platforms matter in how migrants navigate and negotiate the... more This study explores how communication platforms matter in how migrants navigate and negotiate the contradictory processes of connection and separation with distant others and the homeland. Focusing on “elite” Filipino migrants in the metropolitan Washington DC area, this study draws on the theory of polymedia to argue that users choose specific new media technologies based on social and emotional consequences to maintain ties with family and friends. It further extends the theory of polymedia to understand how migrants also use new media technologies to demonstrate a continued, albeit somewhat ambiguous, allegiance to the Philippines. Because cost and accessibility are not concerns, the choice of a specific medium is dependent on the needs and goals of the communicative act.
This article develops the concept of “glocal intimacies,” capturing the role of mobile media in h... more This article develops the concept of “glocal intimacies,” capturing the role of mobile media in how people enact and reconfigure their increasingly global experiences of social relationships. It establishes the two foundational assumptions of this concept: the interplay of local and global cultures and the transformative role of mobile media. It then identifies the three key dimensions that characterize glocal intimacies: digital access, contextual localities, and sociotechnical dynamics. To provide empirical flesh to how these dimensions intersect, it comparatively discusses two ethnographic projects on privileged Filipinos and their mediated familial and romantic relationships.
This study explores how communication platforms matter in how migrants navigate and negotiate the... more This study explores how communication platforms matter in how migrants navigate and negotiate the contradictory processes of connection and separation with distant others and the homeland. Focusing on “elite” Filipino migrants in the metropolitan Washington DC area, this study draws on the theory of polymedia to argue that users choose specific new media technologies based on social and emotional consequences to maintain ties with family and friends. It further extends the theory of polymedia to understand how migrants also use new media technologies to demonstrate a continued, albeit somewhat ambiguous, allegiance to the Philippines. Because cost and accessibility are not concerns, the choice of a specific medium is dependent on the needs and goals of the communicative act.
Although ‘intimacy’ has been often construed as the relationship between two individuals, we cont... more Although ‘intimacy’ has been often construed as the relationship between two individuals, we contend that these are also ‘social’ and are always imbricated in broader social dynamics. In Asia, the social dimension of intimacies, whether romantic, familial, or communal, is very much pronounced. Crucially, it is also increasingly enacted through mobile media. We argue that these ubiquitous mobile technologies have contributed to the transformation of intimate social relationships in the region. We underscore especially that they have become central to people’s experiences of what we call ‘glocal intimacies’. By this we mean that such technologies have both normalised and intensified how people’s interpersonal relationships are entangled in the ever-shifting and constantly negotiated flows between global modernity and local everyday life. This is particularly evident when they seek to use mobile media to reconfigure their local ties and to enact global relationships. These experiences powerfully exemplify how their mediated intimacies are caught between the homogenising influence of the global and the persistent grounding of the local.
Mobile Communication in Asia: Local Insights, Global Implications
Rapidly evolving and ubiquitous digital communication technologies have played a crucial role in ... more Rapidly evolving and ubiquitous digital communication technologies have played a crucial role in shaping the quality and textures of mobile intimacy in transnational family life. In this chapter, we illuminate how transnational caregiving performed through mobile devices and online platforms engenders intimate caregiving from afar. Drawing on data from in-depth interviews, we investigate how elite Filipino migrants in the United States use mobile media and a diverse range of networked platforms to deliver and negotiate caregiving at a distance among their left-behind and aging parents in the Philippines. This study extends the care circulation approach in the context of transnational familial communication through mobile media. We critically examine the role of mobile media in facilitating mediation of everyday and routinized carework, microcoordination of care, the management of tensions and conflicts, and the performance of care. Signicantly, we propose the term ‘mobile carework’ to articulate the intimate, personalised, mobile, and negotiated care practices of transnational family members that are often shaped by the fusion of socio-cultural and technological forces. In sum, this study provides critical insights on how familial intimacies and relations are sustained through the provision of digitalised and differential care routines.
This article looks at mobile media access in the Philippines and the kind of social intimacies th... more This article looks at mobile media access in the Philippines and the kind of social intimacies that have emerged from it. To frame our discussion, we use the concept of ‘glocal intimacies’. This pertains to how mobile technologies have normalised and intensified the entanglement of people’s relationships of closeness with the ever-shifting and constantly negotiated flows between global modernity and local everyday life. We show that the uneven access that Filipinos have has led to equally uneven ways in which they imagine and enact intimate relationships. Drawing on case studies emblematic of the country’s key income clusters, we point out the emergence of a contradictory situation, wherein those with relatively high-quality access are those who are least dependent on mobile media for their glocal intimacies. Meanwhile, those with relatively low-quality access are those who are actually most dependent on mobile-mediated communication for such intimacies.
The mobile phone has arguably become the most ubiquitous information communication technology (IC... more The mobile phone has arguably become the most ubiquitous information communication technology (ICT) in the world, including in the developing world. Introduced in the Philippines in the early 1990s, mobile phone penetration is expected to reach 100 percent in 2013, an interesting phenomenon since a third of the country lives below the poverty line. This dissertation examines the products and services offered by Philippine telecommunication companies that have led to the widespread use of mobile phones and the implications of this use on economic development and social relations. It investigates the adoption of the mobile phone against the backdrop of the Philippines as a postcolonial, developing nation within the larger context of globalization, modernization, and the development of a global network society. Because the mobile phone has been the most used ICT in the Philippines, telecom companies have seized on the opportunity to develop additional uses for the mobile phone beyond communication with another person, creating hybrid forms of technology use. Using three case studies, mobile commerce, mobile banking, and DIY mobile phone plans, this dissertation critically examines the positive and celebratory discourse put forward by telecommunication companies, the government, and international development organizations. Through an examination of these products and services, the dissertation investigates whether they indeed bridge the “digital divide” between the rich and poor within the Philippines as well as between the Philippines and more developed nations. I argue that the relationship between the adoption of mobile phones, social transformation, and modernity in the developing world is complex and ever-changing. While widespread access to ICTs is celebrated, access to banking services is measured as economic development, and interactivity and customization offers consumers choice, they also further reinforce existing class structures, cultivate neoliberal models of citizenship, and pave the way for heightened consumer surveillance. In the end, this examination of the exciting and innovative uses of mobile phones in a developing country such as the Philippines reveal a number of complex contradictions that are indisputably tied to the larger project of neoliberal globalization.
When Martial Law was lifted in January 1981, freedom of the press was supposed to have been resto... more When Martial Law was lifted in January 1981, freedom of the press was supposed to have been restored in the Philippines. However, when former Senator Benigno Aquino, Jr. was assassinated, in August 21, 1983, the press did not cover the thousands of Filipinos who flocked to his wake and funeral procession. That is until a weekly women’s entertainment magazine, Mr. & Ms. published two special editions on Aquino’s funeral and life. This led to the birth of the Mr. & Ms. Special Edition, which ran from September 9, 1983 to July 23, 1987 and became the major news source for the opposition. This thesis examines how the Mr. & Ms. Special Edition became the alternative form of news dissemination borne from the suppression of the press in the 1980s. By studying the historical (and political) conditions that led to its publication, this thesis demonstrates how the Mr. & Ms. Special Edition fulfilled the public’s need for information and led to the return of a free press in the Philippines.
This edited volume brings together cutting-edge studies from emerging scholars of East/Southeast ... more This edited volume brings together cutting-edge studies from emerging scholars of East/Southeast Asia who explore the role of mobile media in the contemporary transformation of the region’s social intimacies, from the romantic to the familial to the communal. By providing a regional and transnational overview of such studies, it affords new insights into how these mobile technologies have contributed to the rise of ‘glocal intimacies’. This pertains to the normalisation and intensification of how people’s relationships of closeness are entangled in the ever-shifting and constantly negotiated flows between global modernity and local everyday life. In providing case studies of mobile media and glocal intimacies, the chapters in the volume attend to a broad range of countries that include China, Korea, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Vietnam, and Taiwan. This illustrates the differing ways in which mobile media might be embedded in the region’s divergent articulations of social intimacies, which reflect the ongoing tensions between Western and Asian imaginaries of modernity. The chapters also discuss a wide array of mobile media that people use, from social media platforms like Facebook and Instagram, to messaging apps like KakaoTalk and WhatsApp, to dating apps like Tinder and Blued. This allows for a mapping out of the different levels of impact that mobile media might have on social intimacies in a region that contains some of the most technologically advanced as well as the most technologically behind societies in the world. In summary, this book allows readers to take a comparative approach to understanding the complexity of the glocal intimacies that are emerging from the ways people in Asia use mobile media to reconfigure their local ties and to enact global relationships. This volume will benefit students, academics, and researchers who are keen in media and communication, cultural studies, sociology, anthropology, and Asian studies.
“This exciting and much-needed book will greatly advance our efforts to decolonise media and communications research. The chapters offer empirically rich and nuanced accounts that challenge the dominant paradigms about mediated intimacy.”
Mirca Madianou, Goldsmiths, University of London
“This collection develops the original concept of ‘glocal intimacies’ to describe how mobile media have become a crucial site where new social intimacies are enacted, reinforced and transformed in Asia. It introduces fresh empirical research from emerging scholars to furnish deep theoretical insights into these imaginaries and practices.”
Audrey Yue, National University of Singapore
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“This exciting and much-needed book will greatly advance our efforts to decolonise media and communications research. The chapters offer empirically rich and nuanced accounts that challenge the dominant paradigms about mediated intimacy.”
Mirca Madianou, Goldsmiths, University of London
“This collection develops the original concept of ‘glocal intimacies’ to describe how mobile media have become a crucial site where new social intimacies are enacted, reinforced and transformed in Asia. It introduces fresh empirical research from emerging scholars to furnish deep theoretical insights into these imaginaries and practices.”
Audrey Yue, National University of Singapore
“This exciting and much-needed book will greatly advance our efforts to decolonise media and communications research. The chapters offer empirically rich and nuanced accounts that challenge the dominant paradigms about mediated intimacy.”
Mirca Madianou, Goldsmiths, University of London
“This collection develops the original concept of ‘glocal intimacies’ to describe how mobile media have become a crucial site where new social intimacies are enacted, reinforced and transformed in Asia. It introduces fresh empirical research from emerging scholars to furnish deep theoretical insights into these imaginaries and practices.”
Audrey Yue, National University of Singapore