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Ito 2002

• Mobile Phones allow you to be socially “co-present.” That is, you can interact with different friends in different locations at the same time. While members of older generations see using a cell phone amongst friends as distracting from the present social scene, it is, in reality, enhancing it–teens can use mobiles to bring in friends who were unable to make it to the day’s gathering. They can also use phones to access information to enhance their discussions.
• Instead on deciding on an exact time and place to meet, teens can pick more general times and locations and use messaging to find each other. Lateness is more acceptable, as long as you keep other informed. Older generations see this as an attack on manners–younger generations see it as flexibility.
• Mobile phones are seen as a social accessory, and can be used in the midst of other friends without being seen as rude.
• Phones help people who are just out of “visual range” find their companions–i.e. where a friend is sitting in a lecture hall.
• After they part, people can continue their discussions through mobile phone usage.
• The urban environment becomes more user friendly–people can be in contact with others, even when they are alone.

Ito 2005

• Since the invention of camera phones, users have been experimenting with different ways to share pictures and visual media. However, much of the social practice behind camera phones are still unknown.
• Camera phones are a new way to be socially co-present.
• People only e-mail pictures they take with their camera phones if they are “newsworthy.” The sender generally adds some of their own flair to make the image more appealing. Text messaging, another way to be socially co-present, does not need to be newsworthy to be interesting. Emailed pictures are more heavily scrutinized before their sending, and the recipients are generally only family and loved ones.
• By using online photo sharing sites, people can have others view their photos on their own times, which means the timeliness of the affair goes down. Photos uploaded to these sites don’t need to be newsworthy.
• However, these sites and other media spaces are tied to computers, which are better for optimal viewing and are sometimes mandatory. Media companies have begun trying to relay the internet experience into handheld devices
• In an experiment conducted by Ito, she found that couples uploaded more pictures to a personal “moblog” on their cell phones, which they then used for their own pleasure or for wider sharing. Couples were able to share in this co-presence, but there is rarely a sense of urgency. The newsworthiness goes down, as the pictures are more casual.
• The exchange of these pictures is intimate, even though they don’t take place in real time, and the couples may be miles apart.
• Visuals can lessen the need for text messages.
• As the technology for moblogs and camera phones expand, so too will the social uses of them, and eventually, they may revolutionize communication in the same way that text messaging once did.

Trinh

Trinh’s main point in her two chapters is that minorities, who are most open to oppression, must make attempts to use media to shed light to their situation and perhaps help it. Nearly everything in the media–visual, text, etc.–can be political. Thus, they can be used for resistance. Trinh identifies minority groups as “The Other,” saying that, because they are different, they are always oppressed in some way, even when they feel like they’re not. And so, “The Other” can use their own writings–she speaks a lot of autobiography–to help their cause. These texts are instruments of change. They can have an effect in various ways: they can displace old ideas, or simply drown them out. If they are constantly passed around, then their effect will be greater–television, for example, has the ability to completely brainwash its audience. And art, which previously just had artistic value, can now be used toward revolution. Trinh writes, “The questions of art continue to be called on to open up the boundaries of philosophy and politics.” Trinh also writes that the minority must watch all over media with a critical eye–they must be able to discern between that which will affect them negatively and that which will help them–”anti intellectualism” must not be allowed to reign. So in this way, through this form of positive censorship, the minority can have some dominance. And indeed, in order to improve their situation, the minority must be dominant in all facets of the media.

Commentary

I don’t really agree with Ito’s views on mobiles being an extension of social settings. To me, cell phones detract, not add, to the time I spend with friends. In fact, I find it quite annoying–some people have the habit of putting their phones on a table when we’re speaking. That’s one of my biggest pet peeves, and so I regularly take the phone and put it in my pocket, politely reminding my companion that I’m holding onto it for them so they don’t lose it. To me, you are social in the moment–it detracts from the atmosphere if you are texting friends while you’re with other peers.

I also find myself nostalgic for the days before cell phones. To me, they are a necessary nuisance, but a nuisance none the less. I hate the idea of being tied down, and that people can reach me no matter what. But, in our digital and fast-paced world, we have to be ready to communicate at a moment’s notice. However, when I travel out of cell phone range, it’s nice, because I feel free of my constraints. The teenagers Ito describes would never, ever be seen without their mobile. I find that I differ from this model. This is a present, and future of new media that I’m not particularly fond of.

I do agree with Ito re: camera phones. I find that the pictures I send via a photo message are only those which are most important, or will get a rise out of people immediately. If I need an opinion on something visual, I will photo message it to them. I will dump the rest of my photos onto Facebook or Photobucket, and then people can get to and comment on them on their own time. Of course, as time progresses, we will stop doing things on “our own time.” Our world is constantly getting faster, and the way in which we share visual aids will surely develop as well.

Trinh raises some interesting points, many of which I found similar to Friere’s. If media is already being used toward revolutions, then it surely will continue to. But unlike Friere, Trinh emphasizes a positive censorship, in that minority groups, in the process of improving their own way of life, will help weed out falsehoods in the media. However, I find it a bit unbelievable that minorities, or “The Other,” can ever get to a point where they truly dominate the media. Surely, through media like our New Media projects, they can find a niche where they can demonstrate influence. However, is this true dominance or merely a small cog of a larger media machine? At this point in time, I say the latter. But that’s not to say that it couldn’t change in the future–indeed, as we progress as a people and become less homogeneous, minority groups could have greater control over the content we see everyday. And if that is true, then they can in turn control political and societal discourse as well.

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