Mobile communication and society: A global perspective.(Book review)

Castells, M., Fernandez-Ardevol, M., Qiu, J. L., & Sey, A. (2007). Mobile communication and society: A global perspective. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press.

This theoretically hybrid, statistically significant, and culturally sensitive book achieves an enviable goal: to provide a sustained sociological understanding of the cell phone in a global context. While it lacks the hype surrounding the Internet, the cell phone has emerged the world over as a powerful but quiet force for social change. This book does justice to this media technology through an important study spanning three continents, and asking fundamental questions about the social effects of wireless communication. It is recommended for classes in media industries, international communication, and media studies.

The first chapter provides a quantitative and contextual mapping of wireless communication in the world. This is undertaken through reliance on both original data and media reports outlining the factors that influence the distribution of cell phones--including those of economic development, infrastructure, pricing/billing systems, PC penetration, and transportation. What stood out in this chapter was the theorization of the impact of cell phones away from narrowly framed technological variables and towards wider sociological/geographical factors.

The second and third chapters focus on the "social logic embedded in wireless communication" (p. 4), across issues of gender, class, ethnicity and global location. The sustained treatment of gender and cell phone was especially revealing-the authors identified both universal patterns of use (women prioritize safety and security) and culturally specific norms of adaptation such as Japan's Kawaii or "cute culture" (where phones become part of an indigenous vocabulary for fashion and identity). Once again, what stood out was the author's reliance on broad theorization, focusing on issues of "work, family, sociability, consumption, health, social services, security, entertainment and the construction of meaning through perceptions of the socio-cultural environment" (p. 77).

Given the centrality of cell phones in the lives of young people, chapter four on "Mobile Youth Culture" took special relevance. The authors suggest that there are emergent patterns of global use along lines of consumption, entertainment, sociability and community. Equally interesting, they argue that the cell phone "does not lead to the weakening of the dependency relationship between young people and traditional social institutions, especially the family" (p. 168).

Other key chapters focused on "civil society" (social networks, political movements, terrorism, surveillance), and "global development" (issues of digital divide, economic development, appropriate technology). Both chapters provide a broad thematic analysis of the issues, but given the scope of the issues and the relative lack of data (as compared to the other chapters), the case studies stood out--the power of texting in the demonstrations against President Joseph Estrada in the Philippines; the "little smart" system in China which brought cell phones to the poor; the grass-root phone systems in Africa.

Given the broad range of topics and subjects engaged with, it is inevitable that one is left asking for more in each chapter--but as an introduction to the global cell phone use and culture, this book succeeds admirably.

Anandam Kavoori (Ph.D., University of Maryland) is an associate professor in the Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communication at the University of Georgia. He is the co-editor of The Cell Phone Reader: Essays in Social Transformation (Oxford: Peter Lang).

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