Mobile media: Coming of age with a big splash

Abstract

In a very short period of time, mobile telephony, tablets, and other hand-held devices swept the world. The world’s first cellular network was created in 1977, but the mobile phone has made history as one of the fastest diffusing communication technologies, reaching nearly six billion subscribers by 2011. The time is right to define mobile media in an effort to better understand mobile communication technologies and their broad implications for the fundamental meanings of media, communication, community, social institutions, and especially society. In this article, I argue that the advent of mobile telephony as a wireless telecommunication system and portable platform for human communication has seemingly transformed the classical definition of mass communication. In fact, mobile media-supported communication, such as mobile news and mobile tweets, has accelerated what communication scholars have described as “the end of mass communication.” The article ends with a call for a holistic view of mobile communication research.