Mobile Phones as Fashion Statements: The Co-creation of Mobile Communication’s Public Meaning

Abstract

This chapter explores public mobile communication technology as front-stage and back-stage phenomena. We explore the design aesthetics of the mobile phone from the standpoint of its commercial origins and public re-interpretation, emphasizing fashion and identity in the co-creation and consumption of mobile communication technology. The mobile phone in this context is analyzed as both a physical icon and an item of decorative display related to fashion and design. We begin by noting how the early telephone, because it enabled people to communicate efficiently over distance, served as a status symbol. We then highlight the role of fashion and display to show how the symbolic meaning of telecommuni-cation has been evolving. In terms of fashion, we look at the way in which fashion and style have been used to promote the mobile phone by industry. In terms of display, we look at the collateral promotion of other products by reference to the mobile phone and body-technology relationship. Finally, we examine co-constructions that extend beyond the narrow, utilitarian purposes for which the mobile phone was originally designed to show how novel links are forged to deeper psychological and existential processes. That is, the mobile phone is strongly connected with ingrained human perceptions of distance, power, status and identity. A few words concerning formal theory may be in order. Among the most prominent and influential sub-perspectives of the functionalist school are the "domestication" and "uses and gratifications" perspectives. They have been frequently employed by earlier researchers on mobile 63 5