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Being Real in the Mobile Reel

A Case Study on Convergent Mobile Media as Domesticated New Media in Seoul, South Korea

RMIT University, Melbourne, Australia, larissa.hjorth{at}rmit.edu.au

Convergence has become part of burgeoning mobile media. Whether we like it or not the mobile phone has become a vehicle for multimedia par excellence. Epitomising contemporary convergence by way of its smorgasbord of applications and multimedia possibilities, it seems almost impossible to get such a device just for voice calling without all the `extras'. But is mobile media a new emerging art form? Is it new media? Or is it a domestic technology? And in an age of convergent media can we distinguish the different media histories? As a symbol of convergent global media, mobile phone practices are also marked by divergence. This divergence is particularly the case in terms of the increasingly tenacious role of the local in informing and adapting the global. The history of the mobile phone as a communication device inflects the localized practices of mobile multimedia, fusing communication with new media discourses. This article will discuss the rise of mobile communication studies and the role of locality, then turn to one of the centres for mobile innovation, Seoul, to discuss the role of mobile media as a domestic new media.

Key Words: domestic technologies • locality • mobile media • new media • remediation • South Korea

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