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Mobile Media & Communication

Journal Description

Mobile Media & Communication

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Mobile Media & Communication is a peer-reviewed forum for international, interdisciplinary academic research on the dynamic field of mobile media and communication. Mobile Media & Communication draws on a wide and continually renewed range of disciplines, engaging broadly in the concept of mobility itself.

The journal embraces both quantitative and qualitative approaches to the study of mobility in communication, but above all aims toward state-of-the-art methodology. While the center of gravity lies in social sciences and humanities, the journal is open to research with technical, economic, and design aspects, provided they help to enlighten the social dimensions of mobile communication.

Mobile Media & Communication examines the phenomenon of mobility in communication – that is, what is understood as mobile media and communication, but also emerging phenomena such as mobile and ubiquitous computing. Contributions may include, but are certainly not limited to, explorations of the following topics:

  • Mobile communication as an innovation, including the emergence of new usage forms, the negotiation of norms, and symbolic representation by producers and users
  • The interrelationship of this nearly ubiquitous technology and the users’ everyday lives
  • The embeddedness of mobile communication within social networks, and the mutual shaping of technology and social structure
  • Local cultures and forms of use of mobile communication
  • Mobile communication in developing countries
  • Cultural differences in mobile communication
  • Mobile communication and gender
  • Specific methodologies that address the mobile character of the phenomenon: ethnography, observation, network analysis, experience sampling, and other still emerging methods
  • Mobile learning and education.
  • Persuasion through mobile media in various domains
  • History of mobile media
  • Journalism and mobile media
  • Specific methodologies that address the mobile character of the phenomenon: ethnography, observation, network analysis, experience sampling, and other still emerging methods

This journal is a member of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE).

Journal Feed

  • Can mothers avoid guilt about their smartphone usage behavior? Effects of the availability norm and goal conflict on guilt, recovery, and accomplishment experiences
    by Annabell Halfmann
    Mobile Media & Communication, Ahead of Print. Balancing everyday tasks with the expectations of others regarding one's availability via smartphone is a challenge, especially for mothers. This research replicated and further developed studies by Halfmann and colleagues in 2021 and 2024 that yielded contradictory results regarding the conditions of feelings of guilt about (not) using the smartphone. More specifically, we investigated how smartphone-related goal conflict, the availability norm, and the parental phone use norm are related to mothers’ feelings of guilt when completing non-stressful everyday tasks. In addition, we researched how smartphone-related goal conflict and guilt are linked with experiences […]
  • Affordances-driven ethics for research on mobile instant messaging: Notes from the Global South
    by Nadia Herrada Hidalgo
    Mobile Media & Communication, Ahead of Print. Mobile instant messaging (MIM) applications have received increasing attention from social science researchers lately. Despite the high frequency of its use for multiple purposes, research in such environments entails specific ethical challenges, more familiar for researchers from the Global South, where MIMs have become an important part of the media landscape for a decade or so. This article discusses the ethical dilemmas that emerged in two distinct cases where authors were part of the research teams, concluding that current frameworks fall short in the sociotechnical dimension. To address this, we complement the casuistic-heuristic […]
  • Returning to and continuing the traditional Chinese family system via WeChat: Digitally mediated families in liquid China
    by Yutian Xiong
    Mobile Media & Communication, Ahead of Print. This article rethinks digitally mediated family, contending that WeChat facilitates the integration of digitally mediated Chinese family units and family practices into an entire system within traditional patterns. WeChat can serve as the hub for this kind of family mediation, since it is the dominant mega-platform in the smartphone-based Chinese polymedia environment, possessing superior technological convergence and sociocultural affordances. Based on qualitative data from 48 Chinese internal migrants, this article characterizes the entire system of the traditional Chinese family mediated by WeChat. First, the static Chinese family units converged on WeChat inherit spatial […]
  • Introducing the FROG tool for gathering Telegram data
    by Florian Primig
    Mobile Media & Communication, Ahead of Print.
  • Domesticating technology: Learning from the use of mobile phone of small women rural entrepreneurs in India during COVID-19
    by Debjani Chakraborty
    Mobile Media & Communication, Ahead of Print. The COVID-19 pandemic and the worldwide lockdowns that followed the same have led to drastic changes in our lifestyles. While the lockdowns marked a global transition to a world of online services and products, the change was neither easy nor smooth for many. From lack of access to technology to the absence of skills to use it, the act of “going digital” was littered with challenges for people across the world. In the South-Asian country of India, this lack of access was further amplified by the presence of a gender digital divide. Among […]
  • Review of F-R-O-G telegram scraper
    by Christoph Rosa
    Mobile Media & Communication, Ahead of Print.
  • The self-reinforcing effect of device and usage digital divides: A longitudinal panel study from China
    by Lian Wang
    Mobile Media & Communication, Ahead of Print. There is a growing body of literature on the demographic and socioeconomic distinctions between mobile-only and hybrid Internet users and how the two groups use the Internet differently. However, little is known about why people change their type of Internet access and the impact of this change. Relying on data from two waves of a nationally representative survey conducted in China, this study demonstrates that capital-enhancing Internet activities are positively correlated with the likelihood of switching from mobile-only access to hybrid access and negatively correlated with the likelihood of switching from hybrid access […]
  • Life fits home: Exploring people's experience with a COVID-19 tracing app in Turkey through a qualitative study
    by Alper Alan
    Mobile Media & Communication, Ahead of Print. Mobile apps have been developed to manage COVID-19 in many countries. However, for these apps to be truly effective, they need to be widely adopted by society. To date, there has been less qualitative research on user experiences and perspectives on these apps. The goal of this study was to explore how users perceive and use different features of a COVID-19 tracing app provided in Turkey. Semi-structured interviews (n = 15) were conducted over the phone, audio recorded, and then transcribed verbatim. The transcriptions were analyzed through thematic analysis. The analysis began by categorizing each […]
  • Escaping the rough life of the street: Roofless people and mobile social media
    by Vojtěch Dvořák
    Mobile Media & Communication, Ahead of Print. Roofless people are among the most vulnerable, marginalized, and silenced societal groups. However, access to social media through mobile devices may provide opportunities for battling their stigmatization, social exclusion, low self-esteem, and self-acceptance. This study aims to explore how people who are experiencing rooflessness use and represent themselves on social media. This qualitative study, using thematic analysis of 16 in-depth interviews, reveals that roofless people may use social media to increase their social capital, advocate for other homeless people, and, most importantly, escape or reconstruct the reality of life on the street through […]
  • Software review: What kind of music are you into? Collecting behavioral music consumption data in online surveys with Spotivey
    Mobile Media & Communication, Ahead of Print.
  • The effect of “Housing First” on mobile and digital media usage by people experiencing homelessness: A program evaluation based on a randomized controlled trial in Spain
    by José-Luis Martínez-Cantos
    Mobile Media & Communication, Ahead of Print. In 2014, a non-governmental organization called HOGAR SÍ initiated the Hábitat program as a pioneer attempt to implement the Housing First model in Spain. The present study is part of the evaluation of this program, which was carried out from May 2015 to February 2020 using a form of a randomized controlled trial. The treatment group was compared with a control group (people experiencing homelessness but not selected as Hábitat users), keeping track of their evolution over 18 months. Among the many dimensions that were evaluated (coverage of basic needs, life satisfaction, victimization, […]
  • Spotivey: A web application for simplified use of the Spotify application programming interface in online questionnaire studies
    by Markus Radke
    Mobile Media & Communication, Ahead of Print. Everyday music listening has become an important research topic during the last decades. However, self-reporting through questionnaire surveys, the received approach for studying individual music consumption, presents methodological challenges. The rise of mobile music streaming and open application programming interfaces introduces new opportunities to address these productively. Spotivey is a free research software that integrates music streaming provider API functionalities into online surveys and in this way allows to connect digital behavioral traces with self-reported questionnaire data. The current version effortlessly retrieves comprehensive information about respondents’ past music listening on Spotify while they […]
  • Book Review: Left to our own devices: Coping with insecure work in a digital age by Ticona Julia
    by Guanqin He
    Mobile Media & Communication, Volume 12, Issue 1, Page 218-219, January 2024.
  • Book Review: Qualitative research using social media by Bouvier Gwen & Rasmussen Joel
    by Deyi Kong
    Mobile Media & Communication, Volume 12, Issue 1, Page 221-222, January 2024.
  • Book Review: Homelessness and mobile communication: Precariously connected by Humphry Justine
    by Tom De Leyn
    Mobile Media & Communication, Volume 12, Issue 1, Page 219-220, January 2024.
  • The association between mobile dating app use and relationship status satisfaction: A survey study
    by Daniëlle N. M. Bleize
    Mobile Media & Communication, Ahead of Print. Connecting with others through mobile dating apps has become one of the most popular ways for people to meet. These apps might help people find a suitable partner and, thus, achieve a satisfactory love life. To examine whether mobile dating apps deliver on their potential for positive relationship outcomes, this study investigates if and how the use of these apps is related to satisfaction with one's relationship status. In a survey study, we compared previous and current users of mobile dating apps with people who have never used such apps (n= 1,054, from the […]
  • Context matters: Exploring the mediated nature of digital service provision within homelessness organizations
    by Jennifer Harris
    Mobile Media & Communication, Ahead of Print. A wide body of research has demonstrated the importance of mobile media in the lives of people experiencing homelessness. However, there is a need to understand digital access, uses, and needs within wider organizational and technological contexts. Informed by a social construction of technology theoretical perspective, this article explores how different homelessness organizations in England appropriate technology within their support services. Drawing on findings from three case studies, it demonstrates how provision is shaped by interpretive, cultural, and material factors that operate to facilitate or inhibit use. Given the significance of technology within […]
  • The origins of mobile communication research
    by Rich Ling
    Mobile Media & Communication, Ahead of Print.
  • The rise of chronic reachability and the accelerated, flexible society: The social construction of the pager, 1987–1999
    by Jesper Verhoef
    Mobile Media & Communication, Ahead of Print. Despite having been extremely popular in the 1980s and 1990s, the pager has received scant academic attention. Drawing on speed theory, this article provides a discourse analysis of popular representations of the beeper in the Netherlands between 1987 and 1999. It shows that it was first merely “emergency professionals” who were expected to be reachable whenever, wherever. However, the 1990s saw a growing number of occupations adopt the pager, which, additionally, was deployed to speed up tasks. Pagers enabled but also required people to work more efficiently and be more flexible. Articles and […]
  • Nationwide research on the uses and motivations of dating apps by young adults in the cultural environment of Turkey
    by Aylin Sunam Audry
    Mobile Media & Communication, Ahead of Print. Since Tinder's worldwide popularity, location-based dating apps have become widespread. The existing literature mainly focuses on a single app in European and US contexts and pays little attention to other cultural contexts. This paper addresses this gap by examining dating app choices and motivations of young adults (18–29 years old) in Turkey. It examines the intersectionality of socio-demographic variables in a cultural setting that is quite different not only from European and US contexts but also from other Muslim-majority contexts. Deriving from the nationally representative survey (n = 1,498), our research finds statistically significant differences […]