The Cultural Appropriation of Smartphones in Korean Transnational Families

Abstract

Drawing on in-depth interviews with the young-adult children of South Korean transnational families in Canada, this chapter explores how the family is reimagined in the mediated, mobile, transnational communication between family members. In the chapter, the smartphone is examined as an assemblage involving earlier media forms and experiences and is thus contextualised in relation to other information communication technologies (ICTs). In addition, the present study addresses the popular use of the Korean-developed communication app, KakaoTalk, among the transnational family members. Furthermore, it explores how the smartphone engages with the preexisting norms of family communication. The research offers insight into how family interaction is technologically mediated across transnational contexts while questioning the technologically deterministic perspective that overestimates the role of mobile technologies in transnational virtual families.