In a message dated 11/13/05 10:18:26 AM, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:
> COMMUNICATIONS FORUM > > cell phone culture > > Thursday, November 17, 2005 > 5:00 - 7:00 p.m. > Bartos Theater > 20 Ames Street > Cambridge, MA > > Abstract > > No contemporary cultural artifact embodies the genius and the disruptive > excess > of capitalism as clearly as the cell phone. Ubiquitous in most developed > societies > in Europe, the Americas and Asia, the cell phone has become a laboratory > some would say an asylum for testing the limits of technological > convergence. > Less a telephone today than a multi-purpose computer, cell phones are game > consoles, still cameras, email systems, text messengers, carriers of > entertainment > and business data, nodes of commerce. Particular age cohorts and subcultures > have begun to appropriate cell phones for idiosyncratic uses that help to > define > their niche or social identity. This Forum will examine the cell phone as a > technological > object and as a cultural form whose uses and meaning are increasingly > various, an > artifact uniquely of our time that is enacting, to borrow the words of a > contemporary > novelist, "a ceaseless spectacle of transition." > > Speakers > > James Katz is professor of communication and director of Rutgers > University's > Center for Mobile Communications Studies, which he founded in 2004. Katz' > research focuses on how personal communication technologies, such as mobile > phones and the Internet, affect social relationships and how cultural values > influence usage patterns of these technologies. His books include Machines > That Become Us: The Social Context of Personal Communication Technology > (Transaction, 2003, editor) and Perpetual Contact: Mobile Communication, > Private Talk and Public Performance (Cambridge, 2002, co-edited with Mark > Aakhus). He is also the author of Social Consequences of Internet Use: > Access, > Involvement and Expression (MIT Press, 2002, with Ron Rice). > > Jing Wang is professor of Chinese cultural studies, and the head of Foreign > Languages & Literatures at MIT. Her research interests are focused on > contemporary > Chinese popular culture and its relationship to marketing and advertising. > She worked > at Ogilvy in Beijing for two summers as a consultant for the planning > department, > and is currently finishing up a book manuscript [Brand New China: > Advertising, Media > and Commercial Culture]. Wang's presentation on cell phone branding and > youth > culture in China is based on some of her work at Ogilvy. > > Moderator: Henry Jenkins is the Peter de Florez Professor of Humanities and > director > of Comparative Media Studies at MIT. He is the author of a forthcoming book > on > convergence culture. > > Free and open to the public. > > See http://web.mit.edu/comm-forum > > > > > Brad Seawell, program coordinator > MIT Communications Forum > http://web.mit.edu/comm-forum > 14N-430 > Massachusetts Institute of Technology > Cambridge, MA 02139 > voice 617-253-3521 > fax 617-253-6105 > > _______________________________________________ DIGITALDIVIDE mailing list DIGITALDIVIDE@mailman.edc.org http://mailman.edc.org/mailman/listinfo/digitaldivide To unsubscribe, send a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the word UNSUBSCRIBE in the body of the message.
