The Role of Mobile Telephony in Multicultural Australia: A Case Study of Thai, Hmong and Rohingya Communities
Author Krisneepaiboon, Natcha
Published 2017
Thesis Type Thesis (PhD Doctorate)
School School of Humanities, Languages and Social Science
DOI https://doi.org/10.25904/1912/1627
Copyright Statement The author owns the copyright in this thesis, unless stated otherwise.
Downloaded from http://hdl.handle.net/10072/367724
Griffith Research Online https://research-repository.griffith.edu.au
The role of mobile telephony in multicultural Australia: A case study of Thai, Hmong and Rohingya communities
NATCHA KRISNEEPAIBOON
M.A. (Hons)
A thesis submitted
in fulfilment
of the requirements of the degree of
Doctor of Philosophy
School of Humanities, Languages and Social Sciences
Griffith University, Australia
September 2016
ii
All yours
Sopis and Sopon Youkongpun
The role of mobile telephony in multicultural Australia: A case study of Thai, Hmong and Rohingya communities iii
ABSTRACT
Title of document: The role of mobile telephony in multicultural Australia:
A case study of Thai, Hmong and Rohingya communities Doctoral candidate: Natcha Krisneepaiboon
Supervisors: Assoc. Prof. Susan Forde Assoc. Prof. Halim Rane
This research analyses the role of mobile phones in advancing the quality of diasporic minorities’ lives in Australia. Three ethnic communities in Australia, namely Thai, Hmong and Rohingya, are chosen as case studies. In becoming a part of Australia’s multicultural society, members of ethnic minorities not only need to develop their social integration in their host country, they also need to sustain their cultural connections across boundaries as well as reinvent their social solidarity in the country of residence. In the digital era, the mobile phone has become one of the most common ways through which minority people are empowered to interact with others in their network, and to engage with wider social and global contexts. Therefore, I apply a ‘mixed method approach’ which sees the integration of qualitative and quantitative methodology to explore the ways in which ethnic minorities in the three communities use their phones. I also investigate the possible impact of cultural dimensions on mobile phone usage. The uses are categorised into eight uses and gratifications themes: social interaction, information seeking, pass time, entertainment, relaxation communicatory utility, convenient utility and fashion and social status. In analysing the results, this study demonstrates that the level of acknowledgment of the use of mobile phones based on these eight themes is noticeably different in the three communities due to the impact of particular cultural dimensions. This research suggests that mobile phones play three major roles in enhancing the lives of Australian migrant people. Those three roles are connecting with remembered and/or imagined homelands, places and communities; developing restoration of independence and integrating in the new country of residence; and constructing and managing their own identity. The findings also highlight the ways in which the three ethnic communities use mobile phones differently from settled Australian people.
Keywords: Mobile telephony, Multiculturalism, Minorities
The role of mobile telephony in multicultural Australia: A case study of Thai, Hmong and Rohingya communities iv
Project summary Ethnic minorities migrated to Australia for many different reasons. [Multicultural Australia]
Not just participating in the Australia sphere, they also want to create their own spaces and re-establish the atmosphere of their homeland in Australia. [The concept of the public sphere] [The concept of ‘imagined communities’]
A variety of media has been adopted in order to gratify needs. Even though mobile phones were not initially designed for personal use, the diasporic people are able to adjust the use of mobile phones to achieve gratification. [Mobile telephony] [The network technology and the network society] [Migrants and the network technology] [The uses and gratification theory]
Considering influential factors on mobile phone use — particularly cultural and historical factors — this research could identify eight uses and gratifications themes (Whiting & Williams 2013) that guide how Thai, Hmong and Rohingya people use their mobile phones. 1. Social interaction 2. Information seeking 3. Pass time 4. Entertainment 5. Relaxation 6. Communicatory utility 7. Convenient utility
8. Fashion and social status
By understanding the use of mobile phones within those eight uses and gratifications themes, I explore three important roles of mobile phones in advancing the lives of ethnic minority people. 1. Connecting with remembered and/or imagined homelands, places and communities
2. Developing restoration of independence and integrating in the new country of residence 3. Constructing and managing their own identity
The role of mobile telephony in multicultural Australia: A case study of Thai, Hmong and Rohingya communities v
STATEMENT OF ORIGINALITY
I, Natcha Krisneepaiboon acknowledge that the work contained in this thesis has never been previously submitted for a degree or diploma in any university. To the best of my knowledge and belief, this thesis contains no material previously published or written by another person except where due reference has been made within the body of the thesis.
Signed……………………………………………………………………………………..
Natcha KRISNEEPAIBOON
Griffith University,
Nathan, Australia
The role of mobile telephony in multicultural Australia: A case study of Thai, Hmong and Rohingya communities vi
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Abstract ...... iii
Project summary ...... iv
Statement of originality ...... v
Table of contents ...... vi
List of figures ...... xii
Acknowledgement ...... xiii
Chapter I ...... 1
Introduction
Importance of the study: why mobile phones and minorities ...... 1
The theme of the study ...... 5
Definitions of terms: mobile phones, cell phones, feature phones, smartphones ...... 8
Central research questions and objectives ...... 9
Theoretical and conceptual frameworks ...... 11
Scope of the thesis and research approach ...... 13
Organisation of the study ...... 17
Chapter II ...... 20
Establishing the focus of the thesis: understanding the Thai, Hmong and
Rohingya communities in Australia
Thai community
Historical background of Australian-Thai people ...... 21
Thai national culture and identity ...... 25
Hmong community
The role of mobile telephony in multicultural Australia: A case study of Thai, Hmong and Rohingya communities vii
Historical background of Australian-Hmong people ...... 30
The exodus of the Hmong to Thai refugee camps ...... 35
Hmong in Australia ...... 36
Hmong culture and identity ...... 38
Hmong social organisation ...... 40
Rohingya community
Historical background of Australian-Rohingya people ...... 43
The exodus of the Rohingya ...... 47
The presence of Rohingya people in Australia ...... 50
Rohingya culture and identity ...... 53
Language ...... 53
Islamic religious practice ...... 54
The narrative of being protractedly stateless ...... 55
Summary ...... 56
Chapter III ...... 59
Multiculturalism, mobile telephony and minorities
Multicultural Australia ...... 59
Experiences of discrimination and social marginalisation of Australian
minorities ...... 64
Mobile telephony ...... 67
The network technology and the network society ...... 71
Migrants and mobile phones ...... 79
Australian mobile phone use ...... 82
Mobile phones as a means to communicate ...... 82
The role of mobile telephony in multicultural Australia: A case study of Thai, Hmong and Rohingya communities viii
Mobile phones as a ‘personal remote for life’ ...... 86
Summary ...... 89
Chapter IV ...... 92
Diverse communities and the media: understanding the public sphere, minority
communities and media use
The concept of the public sphere ...... 93
Media and their role in the public sphere ...... 96
Community media and the public sphere ...... 98
Mobile phones as community media ...... 101
The concept of imagined communities ...... 105
Media and the concept of imagined communities ...... 109
Migration and the imagined communities ...... 111
Uses and gratifications theory ...... 116
Critiques of the uses and gratifications research approach...... 117
How uses and gratifications theory guides the assessment of consumer
motivations for media use and access...... 119
The application of the uses and gratifications model in this research ...... 121
The influential factors on mobile phone usage variety...... 123
Demographic factors...... 124
Motivational factors ...... 125
Cultural factors ...... 130
Summary ...... 133
The role of mobile telephony in multicultural Australia: A case study of Thai, Hmong and Rohingya communities ix
Chapter V ...... 136
Research design and methodology
Research design ...... 136
Research methods used in this study ...... 138
Combining qualitative and quantitative research approaches ...... 138
Case study ...... 140
Thai, Hmong and Rohingya communities as main objects of this study
...... 141
Data gathering ...... 145
Participant observation ...... 147
The use of participant observation in this research ...... 149
List of meeting and community events attended ...... 151
In-depth interview...... 153
The use of in-depth interview in this research ...... 154
Profile of in-depth interview research participants ...... 157
From Thai community ...... 158
From Hmong community ...... 159
From Rohingya community ...... 161
Survey ...... 162
The use of survey in this research ...... 163
Limitations of the methodology ...... 165
Summary ...... 167
Chapter VI ...... 170
Research findings
Measures of mobile phone adoption ...... 171
The role of mobile telephony in multicultural Australia: A case study of Thai, Hmong and Rohingya communities x
Research result structure ...... 174
Mobile phone uses and communication practices of Thai, Hmong and Rohingya:
similarities and differences ...... 176
Social interaction ...... 176
Connecting to their native homeland ...... 179
Connecting to host country’s population ...... 185
Connecting with their imagined community ...... 190
Information seeking ...... 193
Pass time ...... 196
Entertainment ...... 197
Relaxation ...... 199
Communicatory utility ...... 200
Convenience utility...... 201
Reachability ...... 203
Mobility ...... 206
Fashion and social status ...... 207
Summary ...... 209
Chapter VII ...... 212
Research analysis and discussion
Analysis of the influential factors on different mobile phone uses ...... 213
The Australian public sphere and the alternative public sphere ...... 221
Alternative public spheres: mobile phones as community media ...... 225
The roles of mobile phones in diasporic communities ...... 230
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Role 1: Connecting with remembered and/or imagined homelands, places and
communities ...... 231
Role 2: Developing restoration of independence and integrating in the new
country of residence ...... 234
Role 3: Constructing and managing their own identity ...... 235
Australian vs Thai, Hmong and Rohingya mobile phone use ...... 237
Summary ...... 241
Chapter VIII ...... 242
Conclusions and recommendations
Concluding thoughts ...... 242
Limitations of the study ...... 248
Theoretical implications ...... 249
Recommendations for future research ...... 252
Bibliography ...... 255
Appendices ...... 292
Appendix A: Ethical clearance certificate ...... 292
Appendix B: Research questionnaire ...... 293
Appendix C: Research study information sheet ...... 296
The role of mobile telephony in multicultural Australia: A case study of Thai, Hmong and Rohingya communities xii
LIST OF FIGURES
Figure Title Page 1 Geographic distribution of Thais at the 2011 Australian census 23 2 Anti-communist Hmong guerrilla troops in 1961 31 3 Hmong fighters training to throw grenades. 32
4 Hmong people air-lifted from Laos to safety 33
5 The reported experience of discrimination between 2007 and 2013 65
6 Martin Cooper with the first handheld mobile phone, ‘Brick’ 69
7 The increasing number of Australians using communication 84 applications via mobile phones 8 Internet activities undertaken by mobile phone users and general 87 internet users 9 Applications downloaded by Australian application users 88
10 An overview of some previous uses and gratifications studies 122
11 Maslow’s hierarchy of motivational needs 128
12 Research design notation 138
13 The cohorts of the survey research participants’ age 172
14 Distribution between mobile phone brands 173
15 Level of mobile phone use according to participants’ perception 173
16 Thai: The use of mobile phones for social interaction 177
17 Hmong: The use of mobile phones for social interaction 177
18 Rohingya: The use of mobile phones for social interaction 178
19 The use of mobile phones for information seeking 194
20 The use of mobile phones for entertainment purpose 197
21 The use of mobile phones as a communication facilitator 200
The role of mobile telephony in multicultural Australia: A case study of Thai, Hmong and Rohingya communities xiii
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
This thesis has been the result of the help and support of many individuals, to only some of whom it is possible to give particular mention here.
Firstly, I would like to express my sincere gratitude to my supervisors, Assoc. Prof. Susan Forde and Assoc. Prof. Halim Rane, for their generous support, guidance and encouragement throughout this project. Their insightful comments, constructive suggestions as well as hard questions at different stages of my research were thought- provoking. They helped immensely in enriching my ideas and developing my research.
I also need to acknowledge Prof. Michael Meadows, my former research supervisor, for his guidance and commitment. He has not only shared his passion but also cultivated my interest in cultural studies.
I would like to thank Dr. Lesley Podevin, for her professional guidance and the valuable time spent on reviewing my paper. Her encouragement and support have helped me to achieve my goal.
Special thanks should be given to Sopis and Sopon Youkongpun, for their unflagging love and unconditional support throughout my life and my study. Thank you so much for believing in me and listening supportively. You have made me more than I am.
I would like to thank Pisapat Youkongpun, for her friendship, encouragement and motivation. Thank you for always standing with me and for me. It means so much to me to have you in my corner. I would also like to congratulate you on the success of your PhD project. I am so happy for you. Cheers to you, my best friend!
I also need to thank my mum and my three sisters for their support and encouragement. You have been my constant source of love, concern and strength for my entire life.
Lastly, I wish to express my sincere thanks to my friends: Amonpan, Joel, Kun, Jutamas, Nannaphat, Karoon, Surachast, Thananon, Channarong, Tanita and Thanwarat, for filling my life and my heart with love and joy. Thank you for being
The role of mobile telephony in multicultural Australia: A case study of Thai, Hmong and Rohingya communities xiv
ready to laugh, cry and dance with me. I am so blessed to be surrounded by good friends like you.
The role of mobile telephony in multicultural Australia: A case study of Thai, Hmong and Rohingya communities 1
CHAPTER I
Introduction
Critical discourses about communication processes active in ethnic minority communities are now widespread, indicating the importance of media in enhancing and improving minorities’ lives. A number of studies such as Meadows et al. (2007) have identified community radio as one source that plays essential social, cultural and informational roles in marginalised communities. As communication technology advances, new media have become increasingly accessible and have also come to serve the needs of minorities. Anecdotal evidence from organisations such as the Ethnic
Communities Council of Queensland suggests that new communication technologies such as mobile telephony and the internet are playing a central communication role for such communities (Felton 2012). Of particular interest in this study is the use of mobile phones among minorities. This study examines whether in Australia, the country which predominantly recognises a co-existence of a plurality of cultures, minority residents are using mobile phones to help engage more fully in society or whether mobile phone use may, indeed, serve to isolate minority groups from broader society.
Importance of the study: why mobile phones and minorities?
Mobile phones have become an integral part of many people’s daily life. Every aspect of life is involved either directly or indirectly with mobile telephony (Goggin 2006), particularly since the advent of the smartphone. Arguably, mobile phones can be seen as one of the most important extensions of humans, which form and structure how people
The role of mobile telephony in multicultural Australia: A case study of Thai, Hmong and Rohingya communities 2
perceive and understand the world around them (Deuze 2007, 2011). These modern devices allow users to store important information including telephone numbers, addresses, photos, e-mails, notes, messages, call history, voice records and videos. As advances in mobile technology accelerated, mobile devices experienced a major technological breakthrough — access to the internet. As a result, mobile device users can access the online world, the world that Hardt and Negri (2000) identify as the contemporary human condition, much more conveniently and effectively than ever before (Papacharissi 2002). Alongside this, market competition generally drives a reduction in mobile phone prices, making mobile phone much more affordable for an increasing number of people. As a consequence, it is not surprising that mobile telephony has easily permeated across cultural groups, economic strata and age cohorts
(Grouplink 2012).
As is the case with the wider society, members of ethnic minority communities enjoy using their mobile phones as an important means of everyday communication and as a channel to know about and learn about the world around them. Interestingly, in the
United Kingdom the regulatory body Ofcom has conducted research (2013) that compares the love and dependence of mobile phones between ethnic minority groups and the mainstream population and reveals that mobile phones are generally more significant in ethnic minority people’s lives than the wider British population. The study suggests that a higher proportion (47%) of the Asian ethnic minority people agreed that
‘they love new gadgets and appliances’, while only thirty per cent of the UK mainstream population agreed with the statement. Moreover, Ofcom Research (2013) shows that more than a third (36%) of ethnic minority people made international calls every month, compared to only one in ten (13%) of the general Great Britain population. Pontes and Pontes (2015) also present that ethnic minority people in the US
The role of mobile telephony in multicultural Australia: A case study of Thai, Hmong and Rohingya communities 3
are significant more likely than the general population to use their smartphones to access online health information. The result of this research suggests that it is essential for health communicators to disseminate health information online and design their websites and other health information to be very accessible on mobile devices. The action would beneficially increase the quality of lives of ethnic migrants in society.
There are other studies that identify mobile phones’ impact on ethnic migrants’ communities and social relations, which importantly highlight the indispensability of the mobile phones in contemporary society. For example, Madianou and Miller (2011) highlight the role of mobile phones in the maintenance of relationships between mothers separated from their children due to work overseas. In their study, mobile phones were appreciatively welcomed by migrant mothers as an important means to reconstitute their role as an effective mother. The devices were employed to facilitate the mothers’ involvement in children’s lives as well as to manage their household. Madianou and
Miller (2011) conclude that mobile phones are empowering for migrant mothers and provide a numbers of opportunities for intimacy and care at a distance. Similarly,
Parrenas (2005) affirms the importance of mobile phones in enabling migrant mothers to nurture their children across great distances. At the same time, the research notes that the use of mobile phones for maintaining transnational relationships can somehow ironically amplify gender asymmetries. Browne (2005), Georgiou (2013) and Lopez
(2016) point out that ethnic minority people including migrants have considered the potential increasing benefits of using the mobile communication technology in ways that have allowed them to present themselves on their own terms and free from the constraints of dominant cultures or negative stereotypical images.
The role of mobile telephony in multicultural Australia: A case study of Thai, Hmong and Rohingya communities 4
Arguably, Australia is one of the most successful and well-functioning multicultural societies in the world (Koleth 2010). Living in Australia, a place where the national identity has long been created and defined based on the notion of a multicultural nation,
I acknowledge that it provides an excellent social context to study the issues of cultural diversity and differences. As I examine Australian history, I find that immigration of people from highly diverse cultural, religious and linguistic backgrounds is a vital feature of the nation’s history and development. Through a number of national policy documents, people are encouraged to see themselves as genuine sources of different cultures, languages and practices. Besides this, Australia provides opportunities for minorities to practice and share their cultural traditions in order to allow the country to build upon the richness and strength of many cultures (Australian Government n.d.;
Koleth 2010). Yet, questions regarding the minorities’ abilities to maintain their own cultural identity remain.
Studies concerning media and minorities demonstrate that media have become significant agents for diaspora, identity and community. Various technologies are widely and extensively used by Australia’s ethnic minority groups, for many reasons, and could be counted as part of migrant experience (Gordano 2013). Meadows et al.
(2007) acknowledge the critical importance of Australian community radio in enabling ethnic community members to maintain or create community connections and networks.
Glazebrook (2004) examines mobile phone use among refugees, finding that mobile phones allow the refugees to maintain transnational connections and mobilise their identities. Leung et al. (2009) look at how diverse technologies are used by asylum seekers and refugees in the context of detention or refugee camps. However, such studies have been carried out using a broad perspective rather than being specific to a demographic within particular ethnic minority communities. Moreover, what remains
The role of mobile telephony in multicultural Australia: A case study of Thai, Hmong and Rohingya communities 5
relatively undertheorised in media and minority research is the different cultural factors that could influence the use of communication technology. This research, therefore, aims to fill the gaps by examining the use of mobile phones, the most powerful communication technology of today’s world (Lee et al. 2017), by members of three specific ethnic minority communities in Australia: Thai, Hmong and Rohingya. This research also seeks to provide an understanding of cultural and historical diversity which could affect different mobile phone uses and different levels of recognition of the importance of the mobile phones. Mobile phone use and its roles in enhancing the lives of diasporic people in the three different Australian ethnic communities is also explored.
This research investigates the mobile phone as one of the most important media innovations of the twentieth century to find out the role it plays in supporting diasporic minority people to live and imagine their communities, and in enhancing their abilities to contribute to wider Australian multicultural society. Moreover, the research focuses on the different historical and cultural elements of different ethnic communities to explore whether the differences in the historical and cultural backgrounds have an effect on the use of mobile telephony. While this research emphasises that mediated communication does not replace the importance of face-to-face communication, it has a great capacity to advance lives of ethnic minorities in Australia. As mobile communication technologies continue to improve, and the context of diaspora appears more complex, research on the fast-emerging discipline and on the way in which the diasporic minorities use their mobile phones in their everyday lives is essential.
The theme of the study
The role of mobile telephony in multicultural Australia: A case study of Thai, Hmong and Rohingya communities 6
This research concentrates on mobile phone use among three selected ethnic communities in Australia. It explores how the mobile phones are used and the reasons behind the uses in order to understand the potential of mediated communication for assisting ethnic minority people to establish themselves as more engaged members of
Australian society. The three communities in Australia, Thai, Hmong and Rohingya, are chosen as case studies with the intention to emphasise that the current research is limited to Australian migrants of the South-East Asian region. Although in some cases the Rohingya people are identified more as South Asian than South-East Asian and their heritage is more in-line with a South Asian study (UNHCR 2015), the history of the
Rohingya shows that their ancestral roots could be traced back to the region of
Myanmar, a country that is geographically in mainland South-East Asia. In addition, more than eighty per cent of the Rohingya population are residing mainly in the northern Rakhine townships of Myanmar (Danish Immigration Service 2011). As a consequence, the inclusion of the Rohingya community fits well in terms of the context proposed. The details about the historical background of each community will be further detailed in the next chapter to set the scene for the entire study.
The reasonable familiarity with the cultural values and practices of the three ethnic communities are also another aspect that I am aware of when selecting the three communities as case studies of the research. I believe that as a person from the South-
East Asia region, the comprehensive knowledge and personal experience could allow me to understand, explore and reflect better when coming to the process of analysis and interpreting research findings. Factors such as accessibility and available resources also play an important role in choosing the thesis’s units of analysis: Thai, Hmong and
Rohingya communities. The three communities all present a certain level of
The role of mobile telephony in multicultural Australia: A case study of Thai, Hmong and Rohingya communities 7
accessibility and availability, which was essential for me to conduct the research project.
Apart from the cohesiveness of the three communities in terms of their historical roots, the relative dissimilarities in community backgrounds as well as the different duration of community residency in Australia are significant, and influence the case study selection. One of the underlying assumptions of this research is that cultural and historical diversity and differences could affect different mobile phone uses and/or different levels of recognition of the importance of the mobile phones. For example, people who have experienced physical and emotional traumas and hardships like the
Rohingya and Hmong can possibly express their high acknowledgment in the use of mobile phones in the rational pursuit of security objective. Furthermore, migrant groups who are more familiar with Australian culture and norms, and have no history of refugee affairs like the Thai community in Australia may not find the process of resettlement very challenging when compared to those with refugee backgrounds. As a consequence, they may use mobile phones differently in helping them re-establish their lives and community in Australia.
The Thai, Hmong and Rohingya communities have remarkable historical and cultural backgrounds and present some cultural similarities; however, the rationale of their migration to Australia varies considerably, and this impacts upon the different communities’ ‘place’ in their host country. In this research, I adopt three different terms
— “recently-arrived community”, “new and emerging community”, and “established community” — described and used by the Ethnic Communities’ Council of Victoria
(2012, p. 2) to classify the three communities in this research in relation to the length of their community residency in Australia. The definitions of the three aforementioned
The role of mobile telephony in multicultural Australia: A case study of Thai, Hmong and Rohingya communities 8
terms are fully described in the section entitled ‘Case study: Thai, Hmong and Rohingya communities as main objects of this study’ in Chapter V.
In accordance with the definitions, the Rohingya community falls into the categories of
‘recently-arrived community’ and ‘new and emerging community’, while the Thai and the Hmong are more suitable to be described by the term ‘established community’ due to the long history of settlement in Australia. Although both the Thai and Hmong have the mutual characteristic of ‘established community’, they portray different facets. In addition, the Thai people in Australia are generally voluntary immigrants who willingly moved to Australia. However, the Hmong people have primarily moved to, or sought asylum in, Australia due to fear of persecution for reasons of race, religion or membership of particular social groups. This is more similar to the historical background of the Rohingya community. The similarities and differences of the three communities inspire me to discover how people in the three diasporic communities use their mobile phones and to test my assumption that those likenesses and dissimilarities impact the use of the mobile phones. The ultimate objective is to investigate the role of mobile phones in shaping diasporic lives of minorities in multicultural Australia, contributing to understanding the significance of media and communication technologies in maintaining and negotiating social and cultural conditions for diasporic minorities (Cunningham 2010).
Definition of terms: mobile phones, cell phones, feature phones, smartphones
In this research, the terms ‘mobile phone’ and ‘cell phone’ are part of an umbrella term covering the basic phone, feature phone and smartphone which are used similarly in a wide area, wirelessly connected to the cellular radio system (Chang et al. 2009). Basic
The role of mobile telephony in multicultural Australia: A case study of Thai, Hmong and Rohingya communities 9
features of mobile phones are voice communication and other simple services such as
Short Message Service (SMS).
‘Feature phone’ is the term used in this thesis to describe a mobile telephone that provides fewer functions and has a smaller screen compared to a smartphone. Feature phones users are also able to connect to the internet as well as smartphone users but they are not able to download any applications or software (Bridges et al. 2010).
The term ‘smartphone’, in this research, is used to define a mobile device which allows users to wirelessly access the digitalised contents of the internet. Chae and Kim (2003) further explain that when the users access the internet via a smartphone, an internet browser will send a request to a Web server to display the information on the smartphone screen. The basic mobile phone features such as voice calls and SMS cannot respond Web servers. Generally, smartphones are adopted to perform four main mobile activities: sending and receiving emails, accessing general information, using instant messaging services and operating voice-over-internet-protocol. Prevalent examples of the smartphone are the Apple iPhone, Samsung Galaxy, Samsung Note, LG
Google Nexus and HTC.
Central research questions and objectives
This research attempts to answer the main research question:
How is mobile telephony used by selected Australian ethnic minority
communities in relation to their migrant experience?
Related to this, I also ask two sub-questions:
The role of mobile telephony in multicultural Australia: A case study of Thai, Hmong and Rohingya communities 10
What role does mobile telephony play in building community identity and
connections to the home country?; and
What role does mobile telephony play in connecting ethnic communities to their
host country and its people?
The research questions are underpinned by the importance of communication technology, particularly mobile phones, in helping migrants to resettle and integrate successfully in the new homeland. With the integration of the mobile phones into everyday life, this research suggests that the devices have the capacity to develop social participation, facilitate community and social cohesion and also reduce the feeling of isolation and alienation of ethnic minorities in Australia.
In order to answer the main research question, the diverse and complex ways in which
Thai, Hmong and Rohingya minorities communicate via mobile phones are examined and analysed. In addition, I also investigate the possible impact of different cultural attributes in mobile phone use and recognition of mobile phone capacities. Some questions related to this exploration and central in discussion contained in this research are included: In what ways are Thai, Rohingya and Hmong communities using communication via mobile phones?, How can mobile communication technology assist these ethnic community groups to live in Australia as well as to imagine their communities within and across the culturally diverse Australian society?, and Do the different cultural dimensions of the three selected communities have an effect on the use of mobile phones?
The answers to the aforementioned questions should help develop a better understanding about minorities and media by providing an insight on the actual and active mobile phone practices of ethnic minorities in Australia. In addition, in
The role of mobile telephony in multicultural Australia: A case study of Thai, Hmong and Rohingya communities 11
understanding the significance of communication technology, particularly mobile phones, the research has the potential to advance and assist diasporic minorities who are living in Australia and perhaps in other countries.
Theoretical and conceptual frameworks
This study examines Habermas’s notion of the public sphere (1989) as a basis for discussion. The theory is useful in explaining the importance of media in creating a public space for people in society to participate and engage in issues affecting those individuals and the society (Habermas 1989, 1996). Critique of the public sphere as a concept notes the absence of subordinated groups in the broad context of mass media and suggests the concept of multiple public spheres, which is a more realistic representation of the contemporary media environment. The idea of sub-alternate public spheres proposed by Fraser (1991) sits well in the multicultural environment, and is used to frame the specific needs for communication among minorities in Australia, especially Thai, Hmong and Rohingya communities, who are the case studies for this research project. Newer media and communication tools such as the internet and mobile phones are examined to see how those media can facilitate various minor spheres in society to serve the needs of minority people (Jakubowicz et al. 1994; Downing &
Husband 2005; Cottle 2007; Dreher 2010a).
The concept of imagined communities, introduced by Benedict Anderson (1983; 1991), is also utilised in this research to investigate whether the communication of ethnic
The role of mobile telephony in multicultural Australia: A case study of Thai, Hmong and Rohingya communities 12
minorities through mobile phones creates imagined communities while living away from their home country of origin. The theory is also employed to understand how people from the Thai, Hmong and Rohingya communities use the mobile phones to create a bond as national groups or ethnic groups with people from the same cultural background who they have never met. I acknowledge that before the invention of mobile telephony, ethnic migrants were able to mange to keep up contact and maintain strong links with their diaspora via newspapers and magazines and later through television and radio (Tsaliki 1995; Karim 2003; Qjo 2005). However, in the age of information explosion and advanced modern communication, I propose that communication via mobile phones is the most common and pivotal to diasporic communities in order to maintain strong links and identification with the traditions of their homeland. This research also explores the broader impact of new communication technologies on these three ethnic community groups, especially for the purpose of maintaining and creating community connections and networks among them.
Uses and gratifications theory (Blumler & McQuail 1969) is also employed in this study to explore how the three minority groups use mobile phones to satisfy their needs and why the people find this form of communication technology useful. Even though the uses and gratifications conceptual framework is criticised due to the fact that it relies immensely on participants’ self-reporting which makes it too simplistic to accurately present true findings (Severin & Tankard 1977; Mondi et al. 2008), I consider that this framework is useful and practical as it helps examine communication technology directly from the perspective of the media users. In this research, a uses and gratifications framework is utilised to explain how the notion of use facilitates the user- driven transformation. More explicitly, people have a great ability to find their own ways of using the communication tools — in this case, the mobile phone — to address
The role of mobile telephony in multicultural Australia: A case study of Thai, Hmong and Rohingya communities 13
their real needs. The literature will show that mobile phones were not originally invented for the purpose of private communication, but mainly for business users and disabled people (Law 2006). However, over time the purpose of the mobile phone essentially changed to permeate most aspects of people’s lives (Katz 1977; Feenberg
1999; Barney 2004; Ling 2004), and this extended to ethnic minority groups who adapted mobile phone use to create community in their new host country. Also, they can use the media to preserve and express their identities as well as to sustain and constitute their community connection while living away from their homeland. The widespread adoption and utilisation of mobile phones, therefore, demonstrates that people find the mobile phones can be constructively used to fulfil their gratifications, and the people are responsible for choosing and using media to meet their desires and needs (Lindholm et al. 2003).
Scope of the thesis and research approach
This research focuses on mobile phone use as related to user needs rather than on mobile phone features that are associated with the mobile phone marketing perspective.
The aim of this study is to explore the role mobile telephony plays in the diasporic environment in Australia. The process of collecting research data had a duration of approximately two years, started from November 2013 to November 2015. As I anticipated the ways the communities used mobile phones would be complex, and varied, I employed a mixed-method approach to gain a clear set of data. This included both qualitative and quantitative techniques, all carried out over a two-year period. The two key methods used to gather research data were in-depth interviews and a short questionnaire-based survey. Moreover, I conducted limited participant observations
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with all communities in order to better understand the local cultures as well as the use of mobile phones of the target groups in their natural environment.
The data-collecting method that I mostly conducted at the beginning of the data- gathering process was participant observations at the local meetings and community cultural events. It is an important approach that allows me to learn more about the people under study by observing them in the natural setting (Jorgensen 2014). By performing the participant observation, I could have a general idea about the cultural activities and community itself, and also be able to indicate community members who seem to be important and can possibly be the in-depth interview informants (DeWalt &
DeWalt 2002). At another period of the thesis, participant observation was performed with the main purpose to gain an understanding of the communication processes that operate at community level. The information gained from the process was noted and would be used as supplementary data in this research.
After having a general idea of the three selected communities in Australia, the next step of the process of data-gathering was to obtain in-depth information about mobile phone use of members of the three selected communities through in-depth interviews. In this research, seven research interviewees from each of the Thai, Hmong and Rohingya communities were recruited into the samples through the adoption of the purposive sampling technique (Bernard 2002; Tongco 2007). Not only ethnic community leaders but also community members were requested to participate in the in-depth interviews.
This is to ensure that this research does not obtain only opinions and information on mobile phone usage of any particular subgroup (Bernard 2002). The twenty-one interviewees — seven of each ethnic community group — were asked to reflect on their mobile phone experiences, opinions, attitudes, needs, perceptions and observations in
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the interview set, with each interview lasting around thirty minutes. Details about the rationale of methodology will be further discussed in Chapter V. The data from each interview group were then considered with the main research questions in mind to ascertain the influential factors that significantly encourage the mobile phone use in people’s everyday lives. Activities that the research participants perform via mobile phones, and the motivations behind each activity were analysed. Moreover, the similarities and differences in the motives of mobile phone use among the three communities were examined. The relevance of cultural dimensions for mobile phone usage was also determined and evaluated to find out whether the differences in traditional culture and background including the length of community residency in
Australia and the refugee narrative impact on the mobile phone use of members of the three selected communities.
The third method that I employed in the process of data-gathering was the survey. I distributed the short research questionnaires to the total of 150 people across Thai,
Hmong and Rohingya communities, fifty respondents from each ethnic minority community. Following the suggestion of Tacchi et al. (2003, 2012), the questionnaire distribution mainly occurred during ethnic community cultural events in which members of the three selected communities organise or take part. The research questionnaire contains demographic questions and also self-rated mobile phone use questions to explore how often the participants use their mobile phone to perform certain mobile phone activities. Examples of the self-rated questions include ‘I use my mobile phone for personal management’, ‘I use my mobile phone for entertainment’, ‘I use my mobile phone for safety’, and ‘Considering mobile phone usage, I would describe myself as a light/average light/moderate/heavy/very heavy user’. The data obtained from the survey is used to explain mobile phone uses according to the user
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needs and perceptions. At the same time, it is used to verify or dispute the information gathered from the qualitative research approach — the in-depth interview (Ostlund et al.
2011).
Although the three methods of data-gathering were carefully designed to be conducted in a particular order, I was not being too strict in following the set sequence. In addition,
I allowed myself the option of returning for further fieldwork or interviews. The time and dates of community events and local meeting influenced me to alter the designed plan. Besides this, by being flexible as suggested by Mack et al. (2005), and Reeves et al. (2008), I would be able to follow up issues and/or seek further clarification if needed by conducting more interviews or participation observations.
This research study is considered as a sample of the larger phenomenon. It should be noted that research data and information received from participants across the three community groups may not be generalised to all minorities in Australia. Various participants in this research are recruited through the employment of the non-probability method: from recommendations of knowledgeable people. As a consequence, I note the limitation of the method which may reflect selection bias or error. I did, however, attempt to ensure that both the surveys and interview were carried out with a cross- section of people from the communities involved, as much as possible reflecting age variations, recent and long-established arrivals and gender splits.
The in-depth interviewing was applied in order to extract detailed information from a very limited number of people, while the questionnaire completion was intended to obtain a larger number of responses, which are useful in quantifying users’ preferences regarding mobile phone adoption, features and services.
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To bring such telecommunication technology and a cultural study together, this research on mobile phones usage by minorities in Australia is focused on developing a better understanding of the different cultural dimensions of mobile phone behaviour of selected groups of Australian ethnic minorities. It will also provide an insight into how new communication technology assists those in the process of establishing their lives in multicultural Australia, and also in sustaining and constituting their community connections.
Organisation of the study
This thesis follows a conventional research format, with an additional need to provide background and context to the particular communities that have been selected for the research focus. While the Thai community is relatively well-established in Australia, both the Hmong and Rohingya communities contain relatively new arrivals and are also little-known cultural minorities. The standard thesis format is, therefore, departed from slightly to accommodate an historical and cultural overview of all three communities to enable a fuller appreciation of the particular issues at play.
Chapter I describes the purpose of the study and rationale for the thesis. The central research question How is mobile telephony used by selected Australian ethnic minority communities in relation to their migrant experience? as well as questions related to the exploration and central in discussion are also presented. Moreover, literature and
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theoretical frameworks are introduced before being analysed in detail in Chapter III and
Chapter IV.
Chapter II exclusively provides the background information of the three chosen communities: Thai, Hmong and Rohingya. The information includes content about their historic-political context, national culture and identity, and social issues such as factors affecting migrations and traditional gender roles which may affect the use of mobile phones. The narrative of each group is discussed separately to allow a better flow and understanding of historical circumstances without any interruptions.
Chapter III explores the general literature surrounding this sub-field of media studies, focusing on previous research and concepts relating to the multicultural atmosphere of
Australia, the development of mobile communication technology and media use of minority groups. Mobile phone use in the broader Australian society is also considered which enables the study to better contextualise mobile phone use in Australian ethnic minorities.
Chapter IV presents theoretical frameworks that frame this research study. I discuss the concept of the public sphere which was originally elaborated by Habermas (1989). This theory highlights the important of media in creating public spaces in society. The concept of imagined communities (Anderson 1983) is also studied to investigate the way in which people use communication technology to maintain their ties and create their imagined community. The theoretical considerations are enriched further with a consideration of uses and gratifications theory (Blumler & McQuail 1969). It is explored to find out how mobile phones can be constructively used to fulfil users’ gratifications, especially when they are in the condition of being diasporic ethnic people in Australia. Limitations and criticism of the theories are also acknowledged.
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Chapter V contains a review of research methodology. Under the application of case study methodology, three ethnic communities, Thai, Hmong and Rohingya, are chosen as units of research analysis to explore the use of mobile phones. In-depth interviews and a short survey are the main research data-gathering approaches to recruit essential information for this research. Participant observation is also conducted. The acknowledgement of the methodological limitations is presented.
Chapter VI offers key research findings. Mobile phone use and communication practices of the Thai, Hmong and Rohingya are considered within a uses and gratifications framework to understand how and why the communities use mobile telephony in particular ways. The eight themes of mobile phone use are introduced: social interaction, information seeking, pass time, entertainment, relaxation, communicatory utility, convenient utility and fashion and social status. Similarities and differences in the mobile phone use and the different levels of recognition of mobile phone capacity are also examined.
Chapter VII is a discussion of research results from Chapter VI placed in a framework provided by the three community historical backgrounds, the review of literature and the theoretical frameworks in Chapters II, III and IV. The analysis reinforces that mobile phones play an important role in constituting alternative public spheres in
Australian society. In addition, they importantly support the formation of imagined communities of the Thai, Hmong and Rohingya in Australia. Analysing the use of mobile phones, I discover three important roles mobile phones play in advancing the lives of the three diasporic communities in Australia: connecting with remembered and/or imagined homelands, places and communities; developing restoration of independence and integrating in the new country of residence; and constructing and managing their own identity.
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Chapter VIII, the final chapter, consists of conclusions of this study. Implications of the study as well as its limitations are acknowledge, and I also note research opportunities for future work which arise from this study.
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CHAPTER II
Establishing the focus of the thesis: understanding the Thai, Hmong and Rohingya communities in Australia
This chapter provides background information of Thai, Hmong and Rohingya communities in Australia. In each case, the historical context to each community’s settlement in Australia, and where relevant the political background of the various communities, is discussed. Social and cultural issues such as traditional gender roles, social organisation and intentions or motives of migration of each community are also presented. These communities’ narratives aim to develop a better understanding of the characteristic identity of each ethnic group and suggest possible factors affecting mobile phone usage.
The three selected communities in Australia, Thai, Hmong and Rohingya, are chosen to serve as main units of analysis of this study due to their cohesion as they all are ethnic communities of South-East Asia. I consider that the cohesiveness in this aspect may allow these three ethnic groups to share some sort of cultural background, values and practices. And as I am a Thai person, the knowledge and understanding of the cultural aspect that the three communities might share could possibly allow me to understand and analyse the research findings better. Not only the similarities of the three communities, the differences such as the length of community residency in Australia, the intention to migrate to Australia and the community refugee backgrounds are also taken into account when selecting the three communities. The dissimilarities in community backgrounds have made the Thai, Hmong and Rohingya become complex
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function units and be more likely to produce meaningful results (Rowley 2002;
Goodrick 2014).
Thai community
Historical background of Australian-Thai people
Australia is made up of an extensive immigrant community of people from many different countries, including Thailand. Thailand has not traditionally been one of the most significant sources of immigration for Australia. However, the increasing Thai population over time in Australia together with the cultural aspects they brought with them has awakened Australians to realise the necessity for co-existence with the Thai ethnic group (Beasley et al. 2014).
The first Thai immigration to Australia can be traced back to the 1860s but there is little evidence to illustrate their presence. That was because the Thai people were included with the group of Asian people who settled in Australia (Thompson 2006). The more vivid presence of Thai people in Australian society was found later in 1901 when three
Thai people were recorded in the Victorian census (Museum Victoria Australia, n.d.).
However, throughout the active period of the White Australia Policy, which excluded people on the basis of their race and ethnicity, the migration of Thai people as well as those of other Asian countries was restricted. It resulted in no significant change in the number of Thai people in Australia (Migration Heritage Centre, n.d.). Later, when
Australian immigration restrictions eased as a result of the new Immigration Restriction
Act in 1973, the number of Thai migrants in Australia increased substantially
(Australian Government, Department of Immigration and Citizenships 2011a;
Laorujijinda 2013). One of many supporting factors was the launching of the Colombo
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Plan, an aid programme for sponsoring Asian students to further their studies in quality
Australian institutions.
Before the 1980s, the majority of the Thai population in Australia were students attending short courses in English language training. Moreover, some moved to
Australia with their Australian spouses. By 1986, the Thai population living in Australia had reached almost 7,000 (Australian Government, Department of Immigration and
Citizenships 2011a). Until the present, studying and living with their Australia spouses continue to be the central reasons for immigration of people from Thailand (Australian
Government, Department of Immigration and Citizenships 2011a).
The Thai presence in Australia has significantly grown over time. According to the
2011 Australian census (Australian Government, Department of Immigration and
Citizenships 2011a), the Thai community is a well-established community with the number of Thai people living in Australia being 45,465. The number is an increase of almost 48.8 per cent from the 2006 census. The 2011 census also recorded the estimated number of Thai people distributed throughout the various states and territories of
Australia (see Figure 1). New South Wales had the greatest number of Thai people
(17,541), followed by Victoria (10,766), Queensland (7,022) and Western Australia
(5,662).
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Figure 1: Geographic distribution of Thais at the 2011Australian census (retrieved from Department of Immigration and Citizenships 2011a)
According to the 2011 census, more than half of the Australian Thai migrants arrived in
Australia in the past ten years. There were 23.1 per cent of Thailand-born people who arrived in Australia during 2001 to 2006, while 32.8 per cent arrived between 2007 and
2011.
More explicitly, the concentration of Thai people in Australia is distinctly concentrated in Sydney, especially in the suburb of Haymarket (Australian Government, Department of Immigration and Citizenships 2011a). This particular suburb is located at the southern end of the Sydney Central Business District (CBD) in the local government area of the City of Sydney. According to the 2011 Australian census, one in ten
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Australian residents living in the Sydney CBD was recorded as a Thailand-born resident. In addition, the Haymarket suburb is also an important commercial area where
Australian-Thai people tend to focus their businesses. As a consequence of the large residential concentration of Thai people and Thai businesses, some parts of this particular suburb were recognised by many Australian-Thai people, as well as Sydney dwellers, as ‘Thai town’. Later in September 2013, the Sydney City Council authoritatively agreed to install three ‘Thai Town’ street signs on the corners of George and Campbell Streets, Pitt and Campbell Streets, and Pitt and Goulburn Streets to officially mark ‘Thai Town’ on the Sydney city map (Beasley et al. 2014). According to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Kingdom of Thailand (2013), the installation of the three ‘Thai Town’ street signs was a meaningful signal for Thai people, especially for those who live in Australia, as the actions reflected the great awareness and recognition of the host country for the Thai demographic, economic and cultural presence.
One of the most influential factors leading to the growing awareness of the Thai community in Australia is believed to be the massive number of Thai restaurants across
Australian (Beasley et al. 2014). Taneerananon’s study (2001) of the history and culture of Thai people in Australia shows that in 1975 there were no Thai restaurants established in Sydney. However, by 1999, the number of Thai restaurants in Sydney alone grew to more than 400. More recently, Beasley et al. (2014) assert that there were more than 3,000 Thai restaurants operating Australia-wide. In addition, approximately
1,000 of those were in Sydney. The huge and growing number of Thai restaurants in
Australia importantly reflected how well Thai cuisine has been welcomed and embraced by many Australian people. The acceptance of Thai cuisine, therefore, has been used by
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the Australian-Thai community to pave the way to contribute to the multicultural atmosphere of Australia.
Thai national culture and identity
Thailand is located in the South-East Asia region, and bordered by Laos, Myanmar,
Cambodia and Malaysia. The location of the country is a long way from many Western countries, including Australia. However, it is surprising that Thailand has indicated long-adoption and assimilation of many Western cultural aspects into the construction of the Thai national identity (details will be discussed). This section of the study, therefore, examines the characteristics of the Thai identity regarding national character, behaviour, values and beliefs. It aims to identify the reasons behind the acceptance and incorporation of the Western aspects in the Thai way of life. The understanding of Thai identity and national tradition is helpful and relevant to developing a better understanding of how Thai people in Australia use their mobile phones to facilitate their needs and to suit their characteristic national identity.
Historically, Thailand was previously known as Siam and the people of Siam were recognised as Siamese. The identity of the Siamese people was deeply influenced by
Buddhism, which had long been practised by the kings of the nation and the majority of people. Almost every aspect of the Siamese people’s everyday lives revealed the intimate integration of religious beliefs, traditions and customs. Until the present day in
Thailand, no change is obvious in this way. Buddhism is recognised as the national religion, and continues to be one of the most influential factors that shape the essence of the national culture and tradition (Nimanandh & Andrews 2009).
The importance of the concept of seniority also assigns a spiritual identity for the Thai collectivist society (Nimanandh & Andrews 2009). Thailand is a country with a highly
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collectivist culture. From time to time, Thai people are taught not only to look after themselves and their immediate family but also others in their extended family and relationships. This is because in collectivist societies, people believe that they belong to
‘in-groups’, where taking care of others is needed in exchange for loyalty. Loyalty to the in-group in a collectivist culture is paramount, and overrides most other societal rules and regulations (Hofstede 2010; Streckfuss 2012).
Apart from Buddhism, the love and pride of the nation in terms of national independence is another aspect which influences Thai national identity. In the European colonial era between the sixteenth and the mid twentieth century, Siam, the former name of Thailand, was surprisingly the only country in the South-East Asian region that survived the colonial rules of Western countries (Satayanurak 2002). The legacy of unique independent status has continuously been one of the most crucial aspects of the society in which Thai people take pride. In addition, this matter has surrounded the national identity and ideology of the people of the country whose name was also changed from ‘Siam’ to ‘Thailand’. The name ‘Thailand’ has been continuously used until the present day in order to reflect the country’s pride because the country’s modern name means “Land of the Free” (Thai Government, Office of the National Culture
Commission 1986, p. 7).
To avoid Western domination during the European colonial era, it was essential for
Siam to reveal its own powerful position (Suwannathat-Pian 1982). King Rama IV
(King Mongkut) who was crowned king of the country during that period, therefore, applied a number of diplomatic approaches to negotiate the imperially assimilated attempts of the West. For example, King Rama IV signed various treaties with foreign powers, even though those treaties were considered as inequitable agreements.
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However, they could help to establish sincere friendships between those nations and
Siam (Sivaraksa 2002). Sivaraksa (2002, p. 34) demonstrates the defensive modernisation of Siam, indicating the great diplomatic skills of the king:
For King Mongkut, Siamese identity meant bending to Western demands in order to preserve our independence politically, culturally and spiritually ... losing some of our economic and judicial independence in order to be the masters of our own country, we had to exchange some aspects of our identity for more universal aspects of civilisation not only accepted by the West, but also for righteousness.
In the next reign, King Chulalongkorn (King Rama V), a son of King Rama IV, not only continued the country’s reformation, initiated by his father, but also expanded the modernisation in many other ways. In addition, King Rama V intelligently decided to take up a variety of Western-influenced cultural, economic and governmental ideas and integrated them into the original Thai identity and national culture. Everyday aspects like architecture, education, the parliamentary structure, fashion, and employment were influenced and/or reorganised to become more akin to Western culture
(Limapornwanich & Warren 2002). The adaptive actions were carried out to accommodate Western powers at a time of national crisis, illustrating the clever adaptation as well as the usual approaches of nonviolence and compromise common to the Siamese people.
One of the most remarkable actions carried out as part of the modernisation policy was the abolition of slavery. For Thailand to be accepted as a civilised and modernised nation, King Rama V considered the Western notion of a free peasantry, adhering to humanistic principles, and the rights of the citizens (Kesboonchoo 2004).
Between 1938 and 1957, Siam (the name was changed to Thailand in 1939) was in the position of transferring between an absolute monarchy and democracy. In other words,
Siam was in the difficult stage of establishing the nation. In order to accomplish such an
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ambition, Luang Pibulsongkram aimed to delete the unpleasant image of an undeveloped and barbaric Siam and mould a new and developed Thailand through the adoption of Western culture which was considered a more civilised and modern way of life (Winichakul 2008). He launched a campaign of cultural revolution, introducing a new national spirit and many new moral codes of practice known under the name
Cultural Mandates. They would act as a guideline to inform people of what were considered as the proper and correct practices. His campaign significantly affected many aspects of people’s everyday lives. In addition, some practices have been continually practised until the present day in Thailand and are recognised as part of Thai national identity (Numnonda 2011).
The cultural revolution programme was begun to increase the pace of modernisation of the country by urging people to acknowledge their sense of adaptability and openness for change in their lives. One of the significant changes imposed to create a psychological feeling of entering the new era was the changing of the country’s name from Siam to Thailand. By changing the name of the country, there were also many consequential modifications required such as the change to how people would be addressed as members of the country, the change to the royal anthem and the national anthem and the use of a new national flag (Numnonda 2011).
Thai people were also required to abandon some long-held traditions as they were considered a great embarrassment for a country and prevented the country from the way to national greatness. Meanwhile, they were required to be opened and adapt themselves to new ways of life in the new society of Thailand. The dress reform was one of examples. The Thai women and men in all classes were advised to adopt Western attires. Men had a dress code to wear a shirt, jacket, hat, long trousers, shoes and socks, while women were expected to wear a hat, skirt, blouse and shoes. There was also a
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colours guideline introduced (Numnonda 2011). Eating with hands, which had long been practiced, was considered an unacceptable behaviour as well as carrying a basket, chewing betel-nuts, and sitting on the ground. In the new Thai society, the Thai was expected to behave in the civilised ways; use eating utensils, sitting on chairs, and so on.
The modernising social and cultural adjustments were translated into a mission to build a better and more civilised nation.
As a consequence of the increasing modernisation and Westernisation, it was arguable that Thailand significantly enhanced its own standing in the eyes of the powerful.
Thailand was recognised as a member of the community of civilised nations, surviving political and cultural assimilation by imperial cultures (Numnon 2001). Although
Thailand has never been colonised by any Western power, many Thai and foreign scholars such as Winichakul (1998), Van Esterik (2000), Limapornwanich and Warren
(2002) and Reynolds (2002) argue that the process of the modernising reformation of the country and many encroachments and limitations imposed upon the country by powerful Western nations allowed Thailand to become ‘informally colonised’. The fear of foreign occupation by colonial powers drove the ruling elite of the country to homogenise Thai authentic culture and identity with a strong emphasis from the West.
The announcement of many Western influenced rules and regulations, which aimed at moulding a new and more powerful Thailand, arguably damaged the authentic essence of Thai culture (Jory 1999; Numnonda 2011; Sutton 2012). In this way, the defensive development made it difficult to independently define pure Thai national identity without the close relevance on Western influences (Reynolds 2002). Thailand’s history, therefore, provided concrete evidence of why Thai people and the nation seem to welcome Western influences into the Thai ways of life.
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Hmong community
Historical background of Australian-Hmong people
In order to understand the unique distinction of Australian-Hmong people in today’s world, it is necessary to understand the historical events and the historical cultural identity that significantly influenced the Hmong in adjusting and negotiating the way of being Hmong in a strange and alien environment. This section addresses the historical context of the Australian-Hmong people by looking at the literature which documents the history of Hmong in their original homeland, their involvement during wars in the region of South-East Asia, the mass migration from Laos and their lives in the refugee camps in Thailand and also the resettlement of the Hmong community in Australia.
The Hmong people form one of the largest ethnic minority groups of the mountainous regions of Laos. Their original homeland was in the high hills and mountains of the
Yellow River and Yangtze River regions in China. Due to Chinese oppression in the mid-nineteenth century, Hmong people were seen as rebellious, savage hordes who opposed the re-unification of the ancient kingdom of China. As a consequence, they fled from their homeland and migrated to the mountains of South-East Asia, including Laos,
Vietnam and Thailand. It was a mass migration of more than 10,000 Hmong families
(Falk 1994). A majority of Hmong people were seen in Laos but remained in the mountain areas. They were gathered together for their own safety and support from other people. During that time, they developed stable relations to a certain degree with
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other ethnic groups in Laos, and learned and adapted their traditional culture as the
Hmong. However, they were not politically recognised as part of the Laos nation
(Eldridge 2008).
The resettlement stage for Hmong people in Laos was not the last mass migration of them. The hills where the Hmong were concentrated were an important place where a clandestine conflict against communist forces took place during the ongoing wars in the region of South-East Asia. The Hmong found themselves struggling in this political situation. In the 1960s, the US became involved in the South-East Asia war to preserve a non-communist regime in South Vietnam and support anti-communist forces in the region. The US subscribed to the domino theory, which posited that a communist victory in Vietnam might lead to communist victories in other countries (Leary 2007;
Eldridge 2008). As the conflict in Vietnam escalated, the US deliberated the involvement and support from Hmong people (Duong 2008). The US sent in a cadre of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) to recruit and train a local guerrilla army (Figure
2).
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Figure 2: Anti-communist Hmong guerrilla troops in 1961 (retrieved from Conboy 1994)
Under the leadership of General Vang Pao, an anti-communist Hmong military leader, many of the Hmong warriors along with other ethnic minorities living in the mountains of Laos were recruited by the US government and CIA in the fighting in an attempt to overthrow the North Vietnamese-backed Pathet Lao communists in Laos. The warriors served in dangerous situations to defend American bases (Leary 2007; Settje 2011).
Their role in flighting was generally kept secret in the early stages of the conflict. The major military activity was what became known as the Secret War in Laos (Leary
2007).
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Figure 3: Hmong fighters training to throw grenades. (retrieved from Nyman 1999)
Initial military successes by the Hmong fighters led to more serious military counter- attacks. As the war progressed intensely, the communist forces advanced (Duong 2008).
After several attacks upon them, the US Air Force decided to pull out the bases due to the unsatisfactory outcomes (Settje 2011). At the end of the day, the Lao government was overthrown by communist troops (Eldridge 2008). Hmong forces suffered tremendous losses in their fight against the communists (Hwang 2002). Leary (2007) reveals that more than 35,000 Hmong people lost their lives during the war, which could account for a third of the total Hmong population. Many more were seriously injured and disabled (Leary 2007; Vang 2008).
In exchange for their loyal service and tremendous sacrifice, the Hmong people who had honourably served under American command were told to report to the US airfield
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to fly out to safety (Hwang 2002). Although there were thousands of Hmong soldiers reported, there were only two aircraft sent to rescue them, in total only about a thousand
Hmong people (see Figure 4). This evacuation could be described as the first and an important step of the Hmong diasporas from Laos (Hwang 2002; Leary 2007; Vang
2008). Due to the limited air support, more than 50,000 Hmong people, including many fighters and their families, were left behind in Laos and received no more coherent evacuation plans.
Figure 4: Hmong people air-lifted from Laos to safety. (retrieved from Nyman 1999)
The rise of communism in Vietnam and the removal of ministers in the Lao
Government in May 1975, following the Vietnam War and the Laotian Civil War have fiercely forced more than 44,000 Hmong people to hide from their persecutors (Leary
2007). Many of them illegally undertook the dangerous journey on foot over the border to Thailand (Weiner 2008).
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The communists established the new Laotian government known as the Lao People’s
Democratic Republic (LPDR). The LPDR new official Communist government declared that, because of the Hmong fighters or ‘secret army’, the process of the communist revolution in Laos had taken an unnecessarily long time and had caused significant political and social struggle (Perrin 2003). All Hmong were indicted as traitors to the nation. In addition, the victorious Communist leaders stated that peace in the country could be achieved only if the Hmong were eradicated to extinction (Perrin
2003; Vang 2008). As a result, the LPDR government launched a pacification campaign, calling for the total liquidation of the Hmong people. On 9 May 1975, the
Khao Xane Pathet Lao, the official newspaper of the Lao People’s Party (as cited in
Fadiman 1998, p. 138) reportedly announced that “the Meo (Hmong) must be exterminated down to the root of the tribe”. According to the campaign, entire Hmong villages were slaughtered, houses were burned, crops were destroyed, and men, women and children were killed (Vang 2008). A massive number of the Hmong were hunted down, attacked, raped, killed and tortured by various violent means (Perrin 2003). The action became known as the Hmong genocide. Furthermore, there were reports of chemical and biological warfare used against Hmong villages, causing thousands of deaths (Schiefer 1983; Watson 1984; Tucker 2001; Meselson & Robinson 2008).
Although the Lao Government and military acknowledged that the incident had occurred, they rejected the charge of using any biological weapons. The controversy of the outlawed toxic attacks is still around until today. Regardless of the confirmed closing statement, thousands of Hmong people and others still have their sincere belief that the chemical attacks against Hmong forces did in fact occur (Perrin 2003; Vang
2008).
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The exodus of the Hmong to Thai refugee camps
Since the Communist government of Laos came to power in 1975, the persecution of
Hmong people as retribution for the support they gave to the US during the Secret War generated daily struggles to survive, targeted attacks, and overwhelming stress to all the
Hmong. The circumstances of fleeing violent attacks and persecution, witnessing the murder of family members or their friends, suffering rapes, surviving bullet and shrapnel wounds have forced and pushed many Hmong people to take the treacherous journey across the Mekong River into Thailand, to seek political asylum (Hwang 2002;
Vang 2008).
To provide protection to refugees, the government of Thailand with the help of international organisations established rudimentary refugee camps as temporary homes for the Hmong people and other refugees (Medecins Sans Frontieres 2009). According to Ember et al. (2004), the first group of an estimated 25,000 Hmong refugees reached
Thailand in May 1975. After the first wave of Hmong refugees arrived, there were many more Hmong fleeing from Laos into Thailand. By the end of 1979, an estimated 60,000 refugees resided in the refugee camps in Thailand. The Hmong refugees in the camps were a mix of those who were terrified for their safety from their persecution in Laos and also those who arrived for their own economic reasons (Mydans 2009). The number of Hmong refugees in Thailand continuously increased over time, before starting to decline in 1983 due to the closure of the Thai camps (Ember et al. 2004).
Although Thai refugee camps could provide all Hmong refugees with the guaranteed safety from traumatic attacks, the camps could not offer a good quality of life for the residents (Lynellyn 1993; Cha 2003; Duffy et al. 2004). Despite all the difficulties,
Hmong refugees managed to live their lives as well as possible. According to Duffy et
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al. (2004), a large number of the Hmong people hoped to settle permanently in Thailand and call it their home. On the other hand, some of them preferred to stay in Thailand only until the day they could return to their motherland without fear of political reprisal.
Duffy et al. (2004), show that by 1986, the average length of stay in the camps for a
Hmong refugee was about seven years. Moreover, there were many Hmong refugees who spent years in Thailand waiting for subsequence settlement in a third country.
Hundreds of thousands of Hmong refugees have relocated in Western countries since the late 1970s, mostly to the US. In exchange for their military service in the war in
Laos, many Hmong people, who accounted for ninety per cent of Hmong refugees in
Thailand, received American government welfare to resettle in the US (Hwang 2002;
Duffy et al. 2004). In addition, there are other countries such as Australia, France,
Canada and South America where the Hmong people were admitted as refugees to seek protection against human rights abuses (Nibbs 2014).
Hmong in Australia
Currently, the published record of Hmong people in Australia is not very extensive. The work of Tapp and Lee entitled The Hmong of Australia: Culture and Diaspora could arguably be recognised as an important source to investigate the phenomenon of the
Hmong diaspora and the importance of sustaining and maintaining Hmong cultural identity in a globalised world. Lee (2008, 2010), a Hmong anthropologist in Australia, states that in the vanguard of Hmong people in Australia, a Hmong student had come to study under the Colombo Plan in 1963, followed by other students over the years. Lee
(2008) states that only seven Hmong students were in Australia before other Hmong joined and settled as refugees in March 1976. At the time of the early arrival, the
The role of mobile telephony in multicultural Australia: A case study of Thai, Hmong and Rohingya communities 39
Australian government under the United Nation Conventions accepted the early Hmong arrivals as genuine political refugees from the newly installed communist regimes in
Vietnam and Laos in 1975. However, due to the substantial growing number of Hmong refugees, the Australian bureaucratic requirements for refugees were modified and become more complicated and difficult for other Hmong people to be accepted as asylum seekers into Australia. Lee (2008) reveals that, as a consequence of the changes in requirements, in the 1980s, many Hmong people were accepted under the Family
Reunion Programme instead of as asylum seekers. The last Hmong people who were accepted as refugees were recorded in 1992.
The resettlement process for Hmong people who were accepted into Australia under the
Family Reunion Programme relied on a system of private sponsorships to welcome and guide the Hmong newcomers. During the early years of their settlement, the concentration of Hmong people in a particular area was easily seen because the people tended to stay among themselves and maintain strong community connections in their own small group. Tapp and Lee (2010) reveal that by 1984 there were 384 Hmong people living in Australia, predominantly in Sydney where they numbered 215, followed by Melbourne (112), Hobart (37), Adelaide (11) and Canberra (9) respectively.
However, the further intake of Hmong people from Thailand in 1992, the internal population movement of Australian-Hmong people, and their natural increase led to change within the Hmong demographic in Australia. The 1996 Australia census revealed that there were 1,420 Hmong speakers distributed throughout the country
(Tapp & Lee 2010). A huge decrease in the number of Hmong people in New South
Wales was reported while there was a significant increase in other states, particularly
Queensland. In 1996, the total number of Hmong people in Queensland was 603, meaning that Queensland became the state with the largest Hmong population.
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In the present day, according to the 2011 Australian Census (Australian Government,
Department of Immigration and Citizenships 2011b), there were 2,023 Hmong speakers living in Australia. Most of the Hmong census respondents were born in Australia which accounted for 44.9 per cent, followed by Laos (31.2%). In addition, 87.8 per cent of Hmong speakers were Australian citizens. Those who were long-term residents and not Australian citizens accounted for 9.4 per cent of Hmong speakers.
However, there is up-to-date Australian-Hmong census data which was community self- conducted in 2015 (Saykao 2015, pers. comm.). The information and data was obtained locally from many Hmong organisations and community groups. The census states the total number of Australian-Hmong people across Australia in 2015 at 3,517. According to the census, the distribution by state and territory showed Queensland had the largest number with 2,306, followed by Victoria (773), New South Wales (294), Tasmania
(73), The Australian Capital Territory (28), South Australia (7), and Western Australia
(1). In addition, there were thirty-five Hmong people unable to verify place of living.
Hmong culture and identity
In the context of the Secret War and the exodus of the Hmong to Thai refugee camps before transferring to third countries, the place of Hmong people in history had a great potential influence on the process of identity construction and continuation. Under different conditions and times, the cultural identity of Hmong has been contested and negotiated. It could be argued that Hmong culture is dynamic and presented in various ways, based on an individual’s life experience and personality. Some may have been more or less acculturated to another particular identity narrative of the country in which they live.
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In terms of multiculturalism, the Australian government actively supports the idea of a multicultural nation aimed at preserving ethnic diversity. However, the Hmong obviously experience intrusion into Hmong traditions by incompatible external forces.
To survive in a foreign culture, the Hmong people need to negotiate and reconstruct their new identity in a wide range of social contexts. Negotiations over the meaning of
‘Hmongness’ involve the adoption of competing Australian expectations in order to construct positive images of Hmong that are psychologically acceptable for both the
Hmong community and the wider Australian society (Julian 2007, 2010; Ngo 2008).
The need to select foreign expressions that will convey specific connections with the
Hmong historic past remains problematic for many Hmong people in Australia (Lee
2008, 2010).
Lee (2010) demonstrates that the lack of older people who have well-developed and accurate understanding of Hmong culture and tradition is one of the main problems.
Most Hmong people in Australia were young and inexperienced in Hmong cultural practices at the time of resetting in Australia. Therefore, it is difficult for the Hmong to maintain and transmit authentic Hmong culture to future generations. Ignorance of some traditional religious values and practices is also observed. Moreover, the lack of suitable texts about Hmong culture in Australia has made it even more difficult to fully understand Hmong cultural knowledge (Julian 2010). At the same time, the diasporic
Hmong experience the resistance and negotiation undertaken by the new generations of
Hmong (Downman 2006). The development of extensive social ties outside the Hmong community to which the Australian-Hmong have adapted in order to respond to the demands and needs of the Western environment of the host community has generated the erosion of Hmong social values and norms (Lee 1986). However, the important and unique distinction of the Hmong traditional customs and culture has been continuously
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shared in varying degrees among the Hmong people. One of the most important Hmong cultures is the Hmong social organisation, which is explained below.
Hmong social organisation
The essential characteristic which distinguishes the Hmong from other people is their distinctive Hmong way of life (Lee 2008; 2010). The long history of the Hmong community is built on their involvement in global conflicts and wars in a long tradition of being stateless and in their tragic plight as refugees settling in many foreign countries. As a result, the continuing material and spiritual support from the group is directly related to their survival as individuals. The nature of Hmong community life is generally group-oriented. The principal aspect of socialisation, therefore, is in the interests of the group rather than the interests of individuals. The Hmong way of life is centred around the dominant, organising force of the patriarchal clan structure (Duffy et al. 2004; Lee 2010). As defined by Barney (1967, p. 275), an anthropologist who studied the Hmong in South-East Asia, the clan refers to the “descent form of a mythical ancestor, and common relationship in a clan serves as a bond of kinship and friendship between people who would otherwise be strangers”. Members of a clan share the same surname such as Lee, Thao, Vang, Vue and Yang. Culturally, clan membership is not a strict blood relationship. It is a lifetime membership and relationship inherited by birth, by adoption, or by marriage for women. Children are members of the father’s clan through which they will trace their ancestors. Women will become members of their husband’s family upon marriage. However, women may retain the clan name of their father by identifying themselves with both their birth family’s clan name and their husband’s clan (Barney 1967; Duffy et al. 2004). In case
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of divorce, women are still members of the clan of their ex-husband’s family. Hmong culture emphasises strong relationships between relatives and clan members including respect for elders. Within a clan, members of the same clan consider each other as brothers, sisters, or siblings because they can trace their ancestors to a common person or share a common tradition of ancestral worship and ritual practices. As a consequence, the Hmong may not marry people from the same clan, no matter how distantly related
(Liamputtong 2002; Duffy et al. 2004).
On the basis of the clan relationship, they are obligated to help and support each other.
In other words, clans are socially bonded people who ensure Hmong people across generations will continually receive and provide lifelong mutual assistances (Saykao
2002). Vang (2014, pers. comm.), a research participant, states the importance of the clan to Hmong culture:
We value the Hmong family and clan system. For me, Hmong people are really close to each other like a family. I’ve lots of families that may not share blood ties. But I still call them brothers, sisters, aunties and uncles. The elders help and support the young as they grow. And the young’ll take care of and respect the elders. When something happens, everyone will come and support each other and be there for each other. That’s the best thing of being Hmong.
The clan not only socially links Hmong people together but is also the basis of the traditional Hmong social unit which serves as a primary focus for their culture as a whole. It plays an important role in influencing aspects of Hmong behaviour. In order to support the clan structure and to receive the support of the clan, the Hmong people tend to stay connected by concentrating in particular geographic locations within countries.
Hmong people believe that living in a close proximity to each other is important to promote solidarity among their clan. In addition, the solidarity of the clan could provide the greatest security for the clan’s members (Barney 1967). Saykao (2002), one of the first eight Hmong people in Australia, states that the Hmong kinship ties through the
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patriarchal clan system have significantly helped the Hmong to survive in circumstances of fleeing violent attacks and persecution in Laos and also residing as refugees seeking asylum in Thailand and other countries.
As well as the strong kinship ties within the same clan, Hmong people also consider the importance of the social ties to other Hmong clans (Duffy et al. 2004). More explicitly,
Hmong marriage not only unites a man and a woman into a social unit for the purpose of procreation, it also establishes the relationships to other clans. These kinds of relationships are considered as the second kinship network to which everyone in the
Hmong community correlates (Lee et al. 2007). The social network based on kinship ties through the clan system connects the Hmong people into a big family on the basis of kinship, ethnicity, friendship, religion and also nationality. Besides this, the tradition of the living arrangement in which multiple Hmong generations commonly reside in the same village creates what Lee et al. (2007, p. 27) define as “a village family”. In addition, the strong mapping of the Hmong connections in the “village family” is fundamental as it ensured the preservation of culture, the security of political and economic resources, and the promotion of Hmong cultural and ethnic identities (Lee et al. 2007; Tapp & Lee 2010).
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Rohingya community
Historical background of Australian-Rohingya people
This section presents the historical background of the Australian-Rohingya Muslim ethnic minority. The Rohingya is one of the smallest refugee and asylum seeker communities in Australia. The Rohingya mainly migrate to Australia as refugees as they encounter increasing levels of oppression in their native homeland, Myanmar (formerly known as Burma). A brief historical and social background of the Rohingya people, their legal status in their native homeland, why they are fleeing from Myanmar, and why they are migrating to Australia is explored. The overview not only serves to reveal the origin of the Rohingya’s ethnic and religious conflicts, which have caused the long and ongoing history of Rohingya refugee flows, but also presents the difficulties the
Rohingya people experience while resettling their lives in the new and sophisticated environment of Australia.
The Rohingya is a Muslim minority population from, and native to, the Northern
Rakhine state, an area encompassed within the borders of Myanmar and adjacent to
Bangladesh. An estimated population of the Rohingya people within Myanmar, according to the Danish Immigration Service (2011), is believed to be around 750,000.
However, a report done by the Equal Rights Trust and Institute of Human Rights and
Peace Studies, Mahidol University (2014) reveals that there are approximately one to
1.5 million Rohingya living mainly in the Rakhine state while only a small minority is scattered throughout the country of Myanmar.
The ancestral roots of the Rohingya in the Northern Rakhine region could be traced back long before Myanmar came into existence as a today nation. Yegar (2002) states
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that the Rohingya people are Indian migrants from Bengal, who migrated to Rakhine
State around the ninth century as a result of the development of trade routes through the
Bay of Bengal and the Andaman Sea. During those periods, the Rakhine State of
Myanmar was formerly known as Arakan Kingdom, which was standing independently from Burma (former name of Myanmar) and Bengal. However, the Kingdom indicated a similar cultural and societal environment to its Muslim Bengali neighbouring countries (Human Rights Watch 2000; Yegar 2002). During the fourteenth century, according to Human Rights Watch (2000), when Arakan Kingdom was invaded by
Burma, the Arakan King Narmeikhla sought help from Muslim Bengal to expel the attacker. The king took a massive number of people from Bengal (approximately 1,600 people) to join the Arakan army.
In 1784, Arakan Kingdom was invaded again by Burma. The invasion caused a huge number of massacres of the Arakanese population (Uddin 2015). The Burmese King
Bodawpaya finally conquered the Arakan region and incorporated the Arakan into his
Kingdom of Ava in central Burma. The ruthlessness of the invasion forced many
Rohingya to migrate to the Cox’s Bazar area of southern Chittagong, a place organised by the British colonial government to provide relief for refugees (Human Rights Watch
2000).
Burma’s defeat of the Kingdom of Arakan moved its frontier closer to the British controlled Chittagong. The imprecise borders, as well as the offensive challenges from both sides generated conflicts, and eventually precipitated the first fight between the
British and Burmese empires in 1824 to 1825 (Danish Immigration Service 2011). The first war ended with the victory of the British. The British administered Burma as part of British India, giving rights to domestic people of British India to move in and out of
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Burma and Arakan as they were within the empire. Many Rohingya people who fled during the period did not return to their native lands, but instead settled and developed some certain levels of integration with the local community (Leider 2014).
In 1942, Japanese forces invaded and occupied Burma which caused the retreat of
British forces, leaving the region in the state of a power vacuum. Prior to the Japanese invasion, the British asked the Rohingya to bolster support in terms of armed forces, promising them their own independent Muslim State in return (Silverstein 1980). The
Rohingya, therefore, sided with the British against the Japanese in World War II. On the other hand, the Rakhine Burmese supported the Japanese which precipitated retributive violence at a more village level. As the Japanese succeeded in controlling the region, the promised independent Muslim State could not be created. According to Human Rights
Watch (2000), more than 500,000 Indians and Muslims in which 22,000 people believed to be Rohingya, fled Burma across the border to Bangladesh (formerly called
East Pakistan) for relative safety.
After World War II, the Rohingya organised an armed rebellion, demanding a Muslim independent state (Human Rights Watch 1996). The movements of the Rohingya were considered by Burma as rebellious actions aimed at jeopardising the integrity of Burma
(Crisis Group 2013). In 1948, just as Burma gained its own independence, the government contributed to the increased violence against the Rohingya ethnic minority groups. The Union Citizenship Act which defined Burmese citizenship and identified the indigenous races of Burma was introduced without including the Rohingya. As a result, the Rohingya became illegal immigrants, losing cultural, civil and political rights
(Human Rights Watch 2000).
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In 1962, when the Burmese government was taken over by the military coup under the command of General Ne Win, the Rohingya people and other ethnic minorities encountered poorer conditions (Jonassohn & Bjornson 1999). The attempt to strip citizenship from the Rohingya people occurred continually and strategically. In 1974, the Emergency Immigration Act was endorsed. It required all citizens to obtain a
National Registration Certificate (NRC). However, due to many conditions and restrictions, the Rohingya were ineligible for obtaining the card. Instead, they were offered only a Foreign Registration Certificate (FRC), which limited many opportunities
(Human Rights Watch 2000). This particular attempt culminated with the enforcement of the 1982 Burmese Citizenship Act which distinguished three tiers of Burmese citizenship, and the Rohingya were completely excluded from those three tiers
(Lindblom et al. 2015). The government justified its action by claiming that the
Rohingya was nothing but a large-scale Indian Bengali holdover from the colonial time, having no differences from illegal immigrants. Furthermore, the government asserts that the Rohingya migration in the past “changed the ethnic and religious mix, created socio- economic problems, and led to considerable resentment from the Rakhine Buddhist community” (Crisis Group 2013, p. 4).
The discrimination against the Rohingya has arguably been well-established in the social, political and economic system of Burma. Systematic and endemic practices effectively placed the Rohingya people in a state of statelessness and uncertainty. Up until the present day, Myanmar has continually expressed its commitment to limiting the rights of the Rohingya. Many repressive laws and regulations have been a lunched over the years, unleashing a frightening level of hatred against the Rohingya (Lindblom et al. 2015). For example, the Rohingya are subjected to restrictions on their freedom of movement. The people are also limited when seeking permission to marry. Moreover,
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many more discriminatory obstacles such as restrictions on education, work opportunities, medical care and sanitation are severely imposed against them, preventing them from improving their quality of life (Lindblom et al. 2015). In addition, the term ‘Rohingya’ was also rejected by the Myanmar authorities. Instead, the term
‘Indian Bengali’ was imposed to be used when referring to those people because it implicitly connects the Rohingya people to their historically non-Myanmar origin
(Leider 2014).
The exodus of the Rohingya
The erosion of rights of the Rohingya people by the state authorities has forced an enormous number of the Rohingya people to flee their native homeland into neighbouring countries such as Bangladesh, Thailand, Indonesia and Malaysia. Some took the long and dangerous journey to Australia. The two major exoduses of the
Rohingya into neighbouring Bangladesh took place in various circumstances.
The first important exodus of the Rohingya people took place in 1978 as a consequence of the enforcement of the 1974 Emergency Immigration Act and the instigation of a large-scale military operation called Naga Min or Dragon King in 1977 (Lindblom et al.
2015). The Naga Min operation organised a national census and aimed to register and classify all individuals living in the state according to whether they were designated citizens, legally residing foreigners in accordance with the Burmese law, or foreigners who filtered into the country illegally. However, some claim that the operation was fundamentally a move to intimidate the Rohingya into leaving Arakan and Burma
(Nemoto 2005; Danish Immigration Service 2011; Crisis Group 2013; Leider 2014).
Unsurprisingly, the operation was carried out with the implementation of violence.
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Besides this, violence was believed to intensify when it came to the Arakan region where a majority of Rohingya people were living (Irish Centre for Human Rights 2010;
Crisis Group 2013). Widespread killing, rape,torture, and the destruction of property were reported (Smith 1995; Danish Immigration Service 2011; Crisis Group 2013). Due to the lack of formal immigration documents and the fear of aggressive violence, many
Rohingya people took journeys in fear for their lives to seek refuge from the
Bangladesh Government (Nemoto 2005). The action of fleeing Burma was deemed by the Burmese authorities as an important signifier of the illegal status of the Rohingya.
The massive influx of the Rohingya drove the Bangladesh Government to appeal to the
United Nations (UN) for assistance. As a consequence, a large relief programme was organised (Human Rights Watch 2000). Soon after the crisis ceased, the Bangladeshi
Government together with the Burmese military sought a durable solution to the problem, presenting a programme of repatriation of the Rohingya people to Burma
(Pittaway 2008). The Burmese Government eventually agreed to the repatriation of the
200,000 Rohingya in July 1979. However, many Rohingya people did not wish to return to Burma and preferred to stay continually in the camps in Bangladesh. The refusal to return to Burma was countered by the multiplying pressures from the Bangladesh authorities. Food, water and humanitarian aid were withheld, leading to dramatically poor living conditions. According to Lindblom et al. (2015), more than 12,000 refugees starved to death in deliberately under-supplied refugee camps. Furthermore, there were reports of mental and physical violence including rape, beating and killing (Human
Rights Watch 2000; Pittaway 2008). The pressures and forces, again, were imposed to ensure that the Rohingya people returned to Burma.
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Even though the Rohingya people were allowed to return to their homeland, their situation and living conditions in Burma revealed no positive changes. The people were continually denied their citizenship. Furthermore, political and social issues within the country problematised the issues of the troubled Rohingya, leading again to their second mass exodus to Bangladesh in the early 1990s.
The second mass Rohingya exodus occurred between April 1991 and May 1992
(Nemoto 2005). The movement was triggered by the failure of the democracy uprising within the country in 1988. More explicitly, the nationwide democracy movement brought the State Law and Order Restoration Council or SLORC to power. SLORC expressed its intention to prepare Burma to get ready for the democratic elections in
1990 (Ragland 1994). In the election, the Rohingya people, who were not recognised as
Burmese citizens, were interestingly permitted to participate. The result of the election was a win of the opposition National League for Democracy (NLD) party. However,
SLORC refused to recognise the result, declining to relinquish its power. The refusal provoked nationwide protests. Subsequently, the Rohingya people again continued to be a target of a campaign of genocide which was claimed by the SLORC-dominated government to quell democracy activists who fled into Rakhine, and to defeat the
Rohingya insurgent movement (Human Rights Watch 1996). However, according to the
Irish Centre for Human Rights (2010), the attack on the Rohingya people was believed to be a tactic used to unite the people of the country against one common enemy and to distract attention from the unwillingness of SLORC to hand over power to the democratically elected NLD government (Smith 1995).
The situation of the Rohingya became even worse after the establishment of the Na Sa
Ka in 1992, a combined force of police, military, internal security, customs officials,
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and the Immigration and Manpower Department, engaged in a campaign of ethnic cleansing against the Rohingya. Due to the substantial increase in military presence in the Arakan region, the Rohingya people were under the intensification of human rights violations and brutal persecution. Rape and forced prostitution of Rohingya women were widespread. Moreover, killings, mass arrests, torture, confiscation and destruction of homes and property, destruction of mosques, physical abuse, and religious persecution were reported at a much higher level than in the situation of 1978 (Human
Rights Watch 2000). The re-exposed cycle of sexual and physical violence, again, caused a mass exodus of more than 250,000 Rohingya people to cross the border to refugee camps in Bangladesh, where the living conditions of the camps were far below minimum standards of living (Human Rights Watch 1996, 2000; Feeny 2001).
As it encountered economic and social development challenges, Bangladesh subsequently declared the strong need for repatriation programmes. The repatriation process has experienced trouble over the years (Jonassohn & Bjornson 1999).
According to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees or UNHCR (2007), there were approximately 26,000 registered Rohingya refugees in the two remaining official refugee camps, Kutupalong and Nayapara in Bangladesh. In addition, the vast majority of the Rohingya, estimated to be between 200,000 and 300,000, live illegally outside the camps among the host population.
The presence of Rohingya people in Australia
The Rohingya refugee crisis has actually been ongoing in South-East Asia for a long period of time, but has only received the world’s attention in recent years. Photos of several thousands of Rohingya people on overcrowded boats floating desperately on the
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sea, seeking a country to take them in, have prompted the world to aware of the critical ordeal of this desperately stateless, ethnic minority group (UNHCR 2015).
As well as many other countries, Australia is aware of and concerned about the
Rohingya’s circumstance. In response to the crisis, resettlement opportunities under the
Australian humanitarian programme have been offered but are limited to a certain number of Rohingya refugees for the purpose of protection and resolving the refugee situation. According to the Department of Immigration and Border Protection (2017), between 2014 and 2015, Australia received a total of 62,709 lodged applications under the offshore programme. However, only a total of 13,756 permanent visas were provided under the humanitarian programme, of which 11,009 were under the offshore function and 2,747 under the onshore programme. Additionally, in the 2014 and 2015 programmes, Myanmar ranked second among the top countries of birth for persons granted offshore visas with a total number of 2,029.
Upon their arrival, the newly arrived refugee people are warmly welcomed with an introduction to the Australian lifestyle and culture. Moreover, they are offered a wide range of services (Department of Immigration and Border Protection 2015). As a consequence of the good quality of the country’s refugee support services and assistance, it is not surprising that Australia was one of the preferred destination countries of many Rohingya and other asylum seekers and refugees (Every 2015).
However, no single factor could explain totally the destination choice. The study of
McAuliffe and Jayasuriya (2016, p. 50) reveals that apart from countries’ refugee support services and assistance, the asylum seeker policy of one country also plays a vital role in influencing the preferred destination country of refugees. The research indicates that approximately sixty-five per cent of the participants, including the
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Rohingya, specifically considered Australia as their dream destination country. The given reason included “Australia was not returning refugees” and “Australia was accepting refugees” (McAuliffe & Jayasuriya 2016). Therefore, many asylum seekers and refugees including the Rohingya risked their lives, travelling unlawfully via maritime means to Australia. Statistically, in 2013 only, Australia saw the arrival of an unauthorised 20,000 maritime asylum seekers of which the Rohingya occupied a substantial number (McAuliffe & Jayasuriya 2016).
Due to the substantial number of maritime asylum seekers, Australia revised the country’s policy and operations with respect to asylum seeking via irregular migration.
In July 2013, Australia signed the regional resettlement arrangement between Australia and Papua New Guinea. The arrangement imposed that all people arriving by boats needed to be detained in detention centres in Papua New Guinea and Nauru in order to have their refugee status determined before settlement in Australia. By doing so, the refugees are restrained in their opportunities to enter and stay in Australia either for a short or long period (Iltis 2015). As a result, McAuliffe and Jayasuriya (2016) reveal that there was a dramatic decrease in the irregular maritime migration to Australia.
Between November 2013 and January 2015, only 157 maritime asylum seekers reached
Australia, and all were transferred to the Nauru detention centre.
The Rohingya community in Australia is amongst one of the newest and smallest ethnic communities in Australia (Department of Immigration and Border Protection 2015).
Therefore, there is little evidence of the total population of this recently-arrived community in Australia. They are frequently included within groups of people who have Myanmar and/or Bangladeshi background which makes the number of Rohingya
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people residing in Australia much more difficult to quantify (McAuliffe & Jayasuriya
2016).
According to the Refugee Council of Australia (2015), between 2008 and 2010,
Australia settled 230 Rohingya refugees, most of whom were from Bangladesh, under the Australian humanitarian programme. Moreover, the Refugee Council of Australia reports that after that period of time, fewer than twenty Rohingya people were accepted to be settled in the country. In Queensland, the 2014 to 2015 annual report of the
Multicultural Development Association (MDA 2015) reveals that Brisbane first settled eight group arrivals of the Rohingya people in April 2009. In 2010, the Queensland
Rohingya community was formed by a small group of newly-arrived Rohingya men with an estimated number of around eighty people. The report also indicated that, since the first arrival of the Rohingya refugees in Brisbane in 2009, the MDA has worked to support the settlement of 161 Rohingya families in Queensland.
Rohingya culture and identity
Even though the Rohingya suffer severely from being denied their existence and identity, they are able to develop, negotiate and express their coherent identity.
However, the struggle for survival that the Rohingya people have been through has affected their authentic cultural heritage, allowing for adaptation and negotiation of cultural influences of countries in which they live or seek asylum (Danish Immigration
Service 2011).
This section presents some important cultural features of the Rohingya, which have been developed and negotiated through their dramatic life experiences over the years. I
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consider that the elements can influence the use of mobile phones by the Rohingya people.
Language
The Rohingya language indicates the strong influence of other cultures of countries where the Rohingya have had their history. According to the UNHCR (2007), the
Rohingya language is only a spoken language, not a written one, and is used predominantly by the Rohingya who live in the Northern Rakhine State of Myanmar as well as by those who live in Chittagong of Bangladesh. Yegar (2002) reveals that the
Rohingya language is a distinctive language with a combination of three languages:
Arakanese, Bengali and Urdu. In addition, Bengali and Urdu are languages rooted in an
Indo-European region. On the other hand, Arakanese belongs to the Tibeto-Burman.
This combination, thereby, could suggest the historical presence of the Rohingya people in different areas where those three languages are widely spoken.
The UNHCR (2007) asserts that the Rohingya language reveals a great similarity to the
Chittagonian dialect of the Bangladeshi, and features the same style of complexities as
Bangladeshi. As a consequence of the close connection of the two languages, it is relatively difficult to distinguish the Rohingya people out of Bangladeshi people from the way they speak. However, this aspect does not seem to be an issue of concern for the Rohingya. On the other hand, many of them perceive it as a great feature and even try very hard to assimilate their language to the proper Bangladeshi (UNHCR 2007;
Danish Immigration Service 2011). The assimilation of other cultures including the languages has been perceived by the Rohingya as a way to avoid discrimination and
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persecution against their ethnicity. It is also an approach through which they feel accepted by and are well integrated into the local society (UNHCR 2007).
Islamic religious practices
Rohingya people reveal the close connections of cultural and religious practices of the dominant Muslim Bengali population of Bangladesh. Traditionally and conservatively, they follow and uphold Islam as their religion, and also recognise it as an important part of their identity. In migrating to Myanmar where Buddhism is the dominant religion, the religious and ethnic differences can create significant tensions. This aspect has been extensively used as a key driver by the Myanmar authorities to deprive the Rohingya of rights and protections (Nemeto 2005). Violence against Muslims in Myanmar has erupted. The Rohingya are restricted in their religious practice and prevented from constructing religious institutions. Moreover, many mosques and Islamic religious schools were reportedly destroyed and burnt down by the state authorities (UNHCR
2007; Pittaway 2008).
Although the Rohingya encounter mounting obstacles and limitations to their religious freedom, the Rohingya still manage to maintain their devout Islamic religious identity and promote their religion to the new generation. According to the UNHCR (2007), the
Rohingya people constructed their own mosques inside refugee camps in Bangladesh, allowing them to practise and uphold their religious identity. Karim (2006) states:
The important point to be noticed about these shipwrecked Muslims is that they have stuck to their religion, i.e. Islam and Islamic social customs. Though they used Burmese language and also adopted other local customs, they have retained the language of their ancestors (probably with the mixture of local words) in dealing among themselves. Another point to be noted is that Arab shipwrecked
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Muslims have retained their religion, language and social customs for more than a thousand years.
The narrative of being protractedly stateless
The issues of being stateless, discriminated against, treated unequally, excluded and persecuted have become the most important aspects of the Rohingya ethnic identity which has been reinforced by the Rohingya people themselves as well as by people from the mainstream community (Equal Rights Trust and Institute of Human Rights and
Peace Studies 2014). According to Ullah M (2015, pers. comm.), the identity narrative of the Rohingya people’s statelessness is hegemonic in that it represents the greatest oppressive experience which only the Rohingya people encounter.
Summary
This chapter presents the historical background of the Thai, Hmong and Rohingya community in Australia. The in-depth information about the community members’ lives before and in Australia as well as their cultures and identity describes the importance of each community and reasons why the three communities are suitable to serve as units of analysis of this research. The importance aspects such as history of refugee affair and different lengths of community establishment in Australia are demonstrated as I believe that they could influence the use of mobile phones among the three communities and should be grounded.
The historical contexts of the three selected communities show that the three selective communities similarly have their origin in South-East Asia. Therefore, this research is
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significant in having a central focus on Australian migrants of this particular region.
However, among the three communities, the Thai is the only community that has a firm and definite agreement on its actual homeland, Thailand. According to the Thai historical background presented in this chapter, Thailand has developed and protected its own nation and identity through a variety of political, cultural and spiritual practices, and those have cultivated the true feeling of belonging and pride in the nation in Thai people. On the other hand, the community histories of the Hmong and the Rohingya reveal that the people of the two groups encounter the similar problem of the impracticality of identifing or agreeing upon their true ethnic homeland. That is because the Hmong and Rohingya similarly have/had oppressive experiences of having no nation-state of their own and being refugees, settling in many foreign countries. In addition, the experiences of scattering as refugees of the Hmong and the Rohingya have also packed with a massive number of traumatic events include loss of, or separation from, family members, physical and psychological torture, and human rights abuses and dangerous journeys in which the Thai people may have no ideas how horrible they were.
Even though the Hmong and Rohingya have a long and similar history of refugee affairs before coming and settling in Australia, the Rohingya community appears to be much more vulnerable as the issues around those traumatic events are still new and fresh in the minds of community members. Besides this, the Rohingya community has a very short length of community residency in Australia. Therefore, the ethnic community presents the insufficient community structures, support systems and family networks which are the important characteristics of the ‘new and emerging community’, according to the Ethnic Communities’ Council of Victoria (2012). I believe that the difficulties that the Rohingya community has faced could affect how the people use
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their mobile phones in many situations such as keeping in touch with Rohingya people who disperse across the globe, maintaining their identity while living in Australia, and establishing themselves as full members of the Australian community.
The Hmong community has been establishing its own community in Australia for approximately forty years (since 1975). Even though the community has a significant refugee background and experienced displacement like the Rohingya ethnic minority group, the longer length of community residency in Australia allows the community to develop significant networks of family and community supports. Moreover, the Hmong community appear to have more established independent and inter-independent infrastructure and resources. However, when compared to the Thai community, which upholds the certain stable and secure social conditions of its home country as well as the pleasant status in Australia, the Hmong may find itself encountering the need to improve its community status and place in Australia. In addition, community identity challenges and complexities may also become concerns.
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CHAPTER III
Multiculturalism, mobile telephony and minorities
This research aims to explore the roles of mobile phones in Australian minority communities. As a consequence, this chapter exclusively explores the literature surrounding minorities in Australia and their communication activities, especially mobile phone communication. The critical review will be divided into five main sections including multicultural Australia; mobile telephony; the network technology and the network society; migrants and mobile phones; and Australian mobile phone use.
Through review and analysis of this existing body of knowledge, the research develops an understanding of ethnic migrants’ lives in multicultural Australia and their media use. Moreover, it provides an overview of smartphones as handheld media that put massive communication possibilities into the palm of the people’s hands, and how these communication devices are embedded in the lives of ethnic minority people residing in Australia.
Multicultural Australia
Australia is home to a staggering diversity of people who have come from all over the world. They include people from influential as well as small, lesser-known countries.
As the Australian Multicultural Council (2017) reports, since World War II, more than seven million migrants have settled in Australia. According to the current 2016
Australia census, more than twenty-eight per cent of Australians or approximately one in five of the twenty-four million Australians were born overseas. In addition, forty-nine
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per cent of Australian residents were recorded either as having been born overseas or having at least one parent who was. There are more than 300 languages spoken throughout Australia with people identifying with more than 280 ancestries (Australian
Bureau of Statistics 2017). The Australian nation is the product of a unique blend of established traditions and new influences. Integration of people from different countries, ethnic or tribal groups and religions has made this country one of the most ethnically diverse societies in the world (Koleth 2010; Australian Government, Department of
Immigration and Border protection 2011a, 2011b).
Multiculturalism is a concept and policy which has been formulated to respond to the notion of the recognition of co-existence of a plurality of cultures within the nation
(Australian Government, Department of Immigration and Border Protection 2011a;
Australian Multicultural Council 2017). The term ‘multicultural’ which has been frequently used to describe the character of the growing ethno-cultural diversity of society, has changed its meaning significantly from time to time. Initially, from the time of Australian federation in 1901 until the latter part of the twentieth century, the fundamental attitude to migrant settlement was rooted in the intentional favouring of immigration from certain European countries and aimed at assimilation. The government approach was known as the White Australia Policy (Australian
Government, Department of Social Services 2014). The government policy expected migrants and refugees to assimilate and to become indistinguishable from the Australia- born population. It was perceived as a means towards building a united Australian nation and preserving the homogeneity of the country (Stratton & Ang 1994; Castles et al. 1995; Lopez 2000). The policy was applied to all migrants (The Commonwealth
Parliament of Australia 1961).
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There were three principal components proposed relating to the question of Australian national identity which underpinned the upholding of the policies (Stratton & Ang 1994, p. 46):
1. Australia was a culturally homogeneous society based on British values and institutions; 2. This homogeneity would not be disturbed by mass European immigration; and 3. It could not survive any Asian immigration.
At the time, new arrivals were required to study English, adopt Australian cultural practices and shed their traditional cultures and languages (Parliament of Australia
2010). During the active period of the policy, multiculturalism was perceived as an invasion and a threat to Australian culture, identity and shared values (Blainey 1984;
Stratton & Ang 1994; Castles et al. 1995; Lopez 2000).
By the 1960s and 1970s, the ineffectiveness of cultural assimilation was noticeable.
Migrants indicated less ability or willingness to assimilate, and this was accompanied by persistent migrant welfare problems (Castles 1987). In the meantime, there was increasing recognition of the impressive possibilities if new migrants could integrate fruitfully into the Australian community without leaving their own treasured national identities, values and beliefs behind (Australian Government, Department of Social
Services 2014). As a consequence, the policy of assimilation has moved toward a focus on integration. Harold Holt, the then Minister for Immigration, supported the notion of cultural pluralism in Australia and played a positive role in integration by assisting in the orientation of Australia’s new arrivals. Holt (as cited in Lopez 2000, p. 59) stated at the Citizenship Convention in 1965 that “We must make Australia so attractive to the new settlers that not only will they feel they belong, but also that they want to belong
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and will have the urge to join us in a permanent association”. This changing perception which was broadly developed throughout the nation was a paramount factor that accelerated the official abolition of the White Australia Policy in 1973 by the new
Whitlam Labor government, following twenty-five years of a gradual dismantling of the policy (Australian Government, Department of Social Services 2014).
By 1973, a positive change in appreciation of the ethno-cultural diversity of Australian society was formally and profoundly modelled. The term ‘multicultural society’ was first presented in a famous speech entitled ‘A multi-cultural society for the future’ delivered by the Minister for Immigration under the Whitlam government, Al Grassby
(Lopez 2000). The term was used to highlight that government services and programmes must be responsive to the needs of the country’s culturally and linguistically diverse communities as the presence of ethnic communities was viewed as an enrichment of Australia (Castles 1987, 1999; Lopez 2000). In response, a Migrant
Task Force was established to investigate the needs of ethnic minority communities.
Moreover, there were improvements in the welfare and education systems to help the new Australian residents become accustomed to the reality of a multi-ethnic society.
Ethnic Communities Councils were instituted in all states across the Australian nation.
These formations correlated to the establishment of the Federation of Ethnic
Communities Councils of Australia (FECCA) in 1980 (Castles 1987).
The character of multiculturalism has continually developed (Parliament of Australia,
Department of Parliamentary Services 2010). During the conservative Fraser government of the 1970s and early 1980s, the policy of multiculturalism was emphasised even more. The development of Australia’s multicultural policy was heavily influenced by the 1978 report of Frank Galbally’s committee, ‘Migrant services
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and programmes’, generally known as the Galbally Report, which addressed issues with living in and planning for a multicultural Australian society and could be praised as a vital landmark in the move to multicultural Australia (Australia Government,
Department of Immigration and Ethnic Affairs 1978, p. 4).
In the period prior to the Galbally Report, a general reduction in the level of migration from European countries was reported while there was a noticeable increase in the number of migrants from South-East Asia (Cox 1987). Adoption of the Galbally report recommendations led to further development of an Australian multicultural policy. The policy was designed to place importance on four core principles: social cohesion, cultural identity, equality of opportunity and access and equal responsibility for, commitment to, and participation in, society (Australian Council on Population and
Ethnic Affairs 1982; Castles 1987). The four principles have remained the cornerstone of governments’ new multicultural policies. In addition, they have been reviewed, updated and improved over time to ensure equitable services to Australians from all backgrounds (Castles 1999; Australian Government, Department of Immigration and
Border Protection 2011a).
In 2016, the Net Oversea Migration or NOM, which is the a measure of immigration presenting the net gain of immigrants arriving less emigrants departing and includes all people who maintain residency for twelve months and in a sixteen month period, reveals that by the end of 2016, Australia could have a total of both permanent and temporary arrivals of 487,400. In addition, overseas migrants aged in their 20s to early
30s comprised the largest number of arrivals. The number accounts for fifty-four per cent of population growth (Australian Government, Department of Immigration and
Border Protection 2016). The high number of the migrants significantly confirms the
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notion of multiculturalism in Australia. However, it generates concerns about the maintenance of social cohesion and feeling of belonging. In the next section, negative social attitudes and perceptions towards migrants will be discussed in order to express the significance of the promotion of resettlement and integration of migrants.
Experiences of discrimination and social marginalisation of Australian minorities
Although a commitment to multiculturalism in managing the great diversity within the framework of Australian values and law has had the broad support of Australian governments for more than thirty years, a number of scholars assert that minorities in some aspects remain at a disadvantage, especially when encountering racism (Zubrzycki
1977, 1995; Dunn 2003; McLeod & Yates 2003; Booth et al. 2009; Jakubowicz 2010,
2011; Szoke 2012; Joint Standing Committee on Migration 2013). Babacan (2005, p.
10) asserts:
‘Race and racism’ are value-laden notions that carry with them a set of assumptions about power relations in society. Although racism appears contrary to democratic societal values, it can still be articulated without denouncing democratic principles and, through transformation into more palatable concerns, becomes a legitimate concern.
In practice, an increase in the incidence of racism has emerged in the Australian community in recent years with particularly negative views expressed towards ethnic migrants who are asylum seekers and Muslims (Booth et al. 2009). Ethnic and race- based discrimination possibly happens in almost every aspect of people’s everyday lives, in both verbal and non-verbal forms (Green 2006; Jakubowicz 2010, 2011). Prime evidence on the subject of community tolerance has been presented by the Scanlon
Foundation Social Cohesion Research Programme at Monash University. The Scanlon population sample research under the direction of Professor Andrew Markus in 2013
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(Markus 2013) reports that of six surveys conducted between 2007 to 2013, the 2013 survey showed the highest level of survey respondents who reported experiencing
discrimination on the basis of colour, ethnic origin or religion; a record nineteen per cent. This is an increase of seven percentage points on the previous year (see Figure 5).
Figure 5: The reported experience of discrimination between 2007and 2013 (retrieved from Markus 2013)
The survey also revealed that there were negative attitudes towards immigrants from
India and Sri Lanka (42%) followed by those from China and Hong Kong (39%).
People aged eighteen to twenty-four reported a high level of discrimination.
The more recent research done by the Scanlon Foundation (Markus 2016) affirms the deep-seated discriminatory attitudes towards migrants. More than three in four (77%) of
South Sudanese migrants said they had experienced discrimination. The migrants also reported higher levels of physical attack, property damage and verbal abuse compared to Australian born residents. Moreover, negativity towards Muslims is also relatively high, with Muslim women are twice as likely to face discrimination as men.
In 2012, VicHealth reports that there were observable connections between poorer physical and mental health and self-reported perceptions or experience of racism. Forty-
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four per cent of participants in these surveys reported that they had been made to feel as if they did not belong to Australian society because of their race. The experience of being treated with distrust on the basis of ethnicity and race increased the risk of lower self-esteem which impacts directly on a full enjoyment of an individual’s human rights.
The study (2012) concludes that the number of racism cases that people experience has a direct impact on the risk of a person developing mental health and behavioural problems.
The difficulties in relation to the concept of multicultural Australia can be seen in many communities such as the Chinese community, which will be presented as an example.
The Chinese immigrant community was unlike any other, most of whom settled here after World War II (Collins 2002; Jakubowicz 2011). Chinese immigration was believed to be the major target of a racist campaign to drive them out of the goldfields during the gold rush era. The anti-Chinese laws of the late 1870s and 1880s, along with the White Australia Policy of 1901, were declarations that Chinese people were a threat to mainstream Australia, based on concerns about Chinese competition in labouring jobs. The Chinese mining population in particular suffered from racial resentment.
However, even after Australia adopted the notion of multiculturalism through the parliamentary tabling of the Galbally Report, racial discrimination against the Chinese-
Australian community has not disappeared. As the Scanlon statistics (Markus 2013) suggested, immigrants from China and Hong Kong still receive a high rate of reported experiences of discrimination.
Booth et al. (2009) also emphasise the point by revealing the result of the study that
Asian people, especially Chinese, are the most likely ethnic group to suffer discrimination in employment merely on the basis of their names. Their study shows a
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Chinese-named job applicant would need to submit sixty-eight per cent more applications than an Anglo-named applicant in order to receive the same number of return calls. Jakubowicz (2011) concludes that the challenge of multiculturalism is that
“the Chinese community thus represents an emerging and unique constellation of factors that multiculturalism was never designed to accommodate or manage”.
Aside from the racism, the minority people may also be subjected to marginality. In the social context of ethnicity, marginality occurs when a person is living in between two or more cultures and their integration to a particular society is incomplete (Antonovsky
1956). According to the concept, it is arguable that ethnic migrants are more likely to suffer from marginality. The marginal people could experience self-depreciation, inferiority and withdrawal, leading to the problem of disunity of the nation and disturbing the expression and maintenance of people’s ethnic culture and identity (Hall
1996).
Although there has been a great effort to encourage the notion of a culturally diverse and socially cohesive Australia, it is arguable that the practical outcomes still have not reached the level of expectations of many minorities and remain problematic (Zevallos
2006; Booth et al. 2009; VicHealth 2012). The inability to participate fully as a member of Australian society and to perceive a complete sense of belonging in the dominant sphere has moved minority people to establish their own alternative public sphere in order to allow them to express and experience their interests without leaving their identity behind. More details about the public sphere and how the notion of the public sphere relates to mobile phones are discussed in the next chapter.
Mobile telephony
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In this section, I explore the literature surrounding mobile communication technology.
The brief history of mobile communication technology is outlined. The understanding of the historical progress of mobile communication and its use helps to provide the reasons mobile telephony permeates across cultural groups and age levels.
Significant changes in traditional personal communication methods were signalled with the invention of the telephone (Goggin 2006, 2008). The landline telephone drastically changed the way the world communicated (Crompton 2008). However, not so long after the widespread popularity of the fixed telephone was accepted, the development of wireless telecommunication technologies and the mobile phone have interrupted and finally jeopardised the power of the landline (Ruuska-Kalliokulju et al. 2001).
The early generation of mobile phones in the 1960s was confined to the automated mobile phone system for vehicles (Murray 2001). Due to inconvenient design, together with their prohibitively expensive cost, the early generations of mobile phones were not widely adopted. They became more of a status symbol during the 1960s rather than an actual means of communication (Murray 2001). The marketing of cell phones, therefore, was targeted on business users who could justify the cost of cell phones as a way to make commuting time more productive. The slow adoption of the mobile phone in this era was in the main by small, individual business executives (Murray 2001;
Lacohee et al. 2003; Ling 2004).
The need to create a truly portable and convenient mobile phone was finally achieved when Martin Cooper invented the first of the analog phones. These first Motorola Dyna
TAC mobile phones were called “Bricks” because of their rectangular shape and heavy weight (see Figure 6).
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Figure 6: Martin Cooper with the first handheld mobile phone, ‘Brick’ (retrieved from Smith 2011)
Since the invention of the portable mobile phone, there have been continuous, great improvements in mobile phone technology. During the 1990s, cell phones progressed from analog to digital. It was a significant step and has come to dominate the world of mobile phone communication (Agar 2003; Ling 2004).
As demand expanded for mobile web applications and higher data transfer speeds, carriers had to decide the best way to meet that need. 3G technology was unveiled in
May 2001 (Agar 2003). The 3G technology was not only capable of transferring voice data but it also allowed better and quicker transference of other types of data, including emails, Multimedia Message Service (MMS), and instant messages.
With the onset of 3G connectivity, the popularity of the mobile internet has become a social phenomenon. The International Telecommunication Union or ITU (2002) notes that people in many countries such as Japan and South Korea had their first experience
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with the internet via mobile phones. Mobile phone users have been rapidly switching over to smartphones as devices become more affordable and 3G and 4G networks advance (Farley 2005; Mercey 2006). As a consequence, an expansion in the range of non-voice activities being undertaken via mobile handsets is evident (Flueckiger 2012).
The level of mobile phone adoption is presumed to be even higher as currently the 4G service has been introduced to replace the 3G and then proceeding to 5G (ITU 2014,
2016).
The shift away from landlines towards mobile phones could be noticeably seen in almost every part of the world. In Australia, statistics from Australian Communications and Media Authority or ACMA (2011) reveal that the decline of traditional fixed line telephone services indicates changes in consumer communications trends; in particular, the increasing use of mobile phones and the take-up of other communication technologies. While the number of active landline voice services continues to drop, there has been a significant increase in the number of Australians using smartphones
(ACMA 2011). The 2013 Australian Mobile Phone Lifestyle Index presented by the
Australian Interactive Media Industry Association (AIMIA) also supports the changing nature of consumer communication preference. AIMIA (2013) shows that Australians have adopted smartphones into everyday culture faster than consumers in many other developed countries. Besides this, AIMIA (2013) reveals that smartphone penetration of the Australian mobile subscriber base has exploded to an estimated eighty-four per cent of the penetration in 2013 from just nineteen per cent penetration in 2007. Results of a more current Australian mobile consumer survey conducted by Deloitte (2015) similarly show that seventy-nine per cent of Australians owned a least one smartphone.
In addition, in 2015, Australian smartphone users across all age groups used social networks on their mobile phones more actively than the year before (52% vs 44%).
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At the global scale, societies have already become mobile phone centric. The adoption of mobile phones indicates to be reaching saturation level, accelerating the climb up across global. eMarketer (2014) asserts that the majority of mobile phone subscriptions worldwide are smartphones and feature phones with internet capabilities. Smartphones are innovations that currently provide immense benefits and convenience to users in society. In 2014, the number of smartphone users could account for almost one-quarter of the world’s total population which indicates a rise of more than twenty-five per cent over 2013. Moreover, the number was expected to continue in a fast-paced trajectory and maintain significant growth in the number of users; one-third of all people around the globe by 2017 (eMarketer 2014).
The network technology and the network society
The widespread use of mobile communication devices throughout the world has transformed communications and media globally. The new attitude towards world communication has been even more elaborated since the technological convergence of the communication process through mobile devices, denoted as the rise of digital communication in the late twentieth century. This digital revolution has altered media industries as well as people’s mindset across the globe in undergoing the industrial, cultural and social paradigm shift (Davis 2001; Menon 2007). To understand better the convergence of the technological communication, Pool (1983) conceptualises it in
Technologies of Freedom, which was probably the first book presenting the importance of the convergence. The prophecy of media convergence (Pool 1983, p. 23) is described as below:
A process called the ‘convergence of modes’ is blurring the lines between media, even between point-to-point communications, such as
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the post, telephone and telegraph, and mass communications, such as the press, radio, and television. A single physical means — be it wires, cables, or airwaves — may carry services that in the past were provided in separate ways. Conversely, a service that provided in the past by any one medium — be it broadcasting, the press, or telephony — can now be provided in several different physical ways. So the one-to-one relationship that used to exist between a medium and its use is eroding.
The convergence of telecommunications, computing and broadcasting into a single digital bit-stream or what Barney (2004, p. 45) identifies as “the network technology” in the dynamic of globalisation has played a critical role in creating the technological society, a place in which “modes of reasoning extend into spheres beyond the technical”. The great capabilities offered by the new information and communication technology are making it more desirable and more convenient for both individuals and businesses to enjoy their new convergent culture of consumption in everyday communication, especially when individually controlled. Jenkins (2008) states that the flow of content across multiple media platforms in an age of media transition not only disturbs the relationships and rationalities between existing technologies but it also has important effects on the cultural ways of life of society.
Converged with other technologies such as the internet and camera, mobile phones are not only enabling easy communication across vast distances as analog phones have previously done, they also contribute “an attrition of the limitations and conditions locations and time otherwise exert on human communicative” (Barney 2004, p. 48).
Digital network technology on these mobile devices has been employed in many creative ways to link the fundamentally new conditions for human sociability (Ling &
Yttri 2002). Habuchi (2005) develops the term “tele-cocooning” in reference to an expression used to describe human computer interaction through personal devices supporting communication. Habuchi (2005) states that the concept of tele-cocooning can be used to represent global society where people rely heavily on communication
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technologies to achieve their communication with others without having physical interaction. Not only voice functions, non-voice tasks in the cell phones also allow users to perform other effective kinds of communicative activities to experience new or more intense ways of interacting and to participate more fully in their culture.
In Japan, for example, the widespread adoption of mobile phones which are capable of internet access and built-in camera function has clearly been seen since its first service in 1999 (Friedman 2000; Negishi 2003). An integrated email capability and internet browsing through compact mobile phone models is arguably the foremost manifestation of the process of connectivity in the Japanese mobile culture. Many scholars such as
Okabe (2004), Matsuda (2005) and Nagata (2009) similarly reveal a high number of
Japanese people, especially teenagers, heavily rely on sending and receiving emails as a principal modality for mobile communication. These studies also show that there were various reasons behind the prevalent use of text messaging in Japan. Mobile phones cooperated with the wireless internet service in Japan to allow individuals to function a mobile phone number as a personal email address, making it a lot easier to search for and contact others (Kasesniemi 2003). Moreover, in many situations including on public transportation, talking on mobile phones is considered an inappropriate and impolite behaviour in Japanese culture. Sending text messages to others, therefore, is alternatively employed as an always-connected communication method, allowing people to maintain their mobile communication while maintaining their good manners according to their cultural context. Texting is also recognised as a simple, fast and private method of communication. It prevents causing any disruption for others within the area of personal communication, avoids monitoring of conversations and allows privacy to be maintained between those engaging in the conversation. At the same time, texting allows nearly instantaneous discussion without the need to use speech. The other
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important point is that the Japanese mobile phones are generally equipped with useful and enjoyable capabilities to enhance text message experiences (Mundy 2010).
Moreover, people are able to choose whether to write in English, Japanese or other preferred languages. Besides this, they are able to include special characters, Japanese emoticons (different from Western emoticons which are basically found on the Western mobile phones), pictures, animations or moving images and photos to help express tones and emotion that text only cannot fully convey (Kasesniemi 2003).
The ranges of new communication technologies continuously develop and enlarge the range of options for conversation for people, who are also considering taking greater advantage of the benefits offered by new and smarter technologies (Potts 2010). The evolution of mobile phones towards the availability of internet connectivity helps enormously in maintaining and generating constant communication between social contacts. It also allows instant availability of information through a massive number of applications for social interaction (Gordon & Richard 2006). Arguably, social media network sites empower people to create more complex networks of communication and more connected experience with others in cyberspace.
Online social networking sites and software such as Facebook, Twitter, Skype and
Instagram are among the main communication methods that many people use to create a new form of social interaction, dialogue, exchange and collaboration in today’s digital culture (Kietzmann et al. 2001; Burgess & Banks 2010; Potts 2010;). The principal capabilities that encourage the rapid uptake of them is the visual, interactive, real-time communicative affordances, which importantly enable a great level of emotional engagement between users. Steuer (1992, p. 74) refers to the communicative and psycho-social capabilities provided by communication technology as “telepresence”.
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The term describes the mediated perception of an environment in which users are being transported by the use of communication technology. Steuer (1992) asserts that through the use of communication technology like mobile phones, people can also develop the
“immediate or intense feeling of being there” without actually being there. Therefore, he concludes that the technology can help to facilitate emotional support and reassurance for people who are geographically apart from their loved ones. Licoppe (2004, p.141) studies the notion of mediation in social relationships and also acknowledges the opportunity of being together at distance provided by mobile phones. He introduces the term “connected presence” to define the portability of mobile phones in enabling an ongoing dialogue that “helps to maintain the feeling of a permanent connection”. In addition, Licoppe (2004, 2013) asserts that mobile phones have changed the frequency of interaction between people by allowing them to become continually available to others through short, frequent calls and chats on social networking sites.
Since mobile phones became mass-consumer products, the growing accessibility of social media networking is much easier than ever before and has become dominant presence in people’s lives (Eyrich et al. 2008; Barners & Lescault 2011; Australian
Indigenous Studies Program 2012; Moeller 2012). ITU (2016) reveals that there was a strong growth in the number of people who access social networking sites over their smartphones throughout the globe. ITU (2016) shows that the number of mobile broadband subscriptions reached an estimated 3.6 billion, compared with 3.2 billion at end of 2015. The increasing number was certainly driven by the rising demand for smartphones.
Welser (interviewed by Colbert 2013) specialises in studying how people represent themselves and relate to others on the internet. He states that social media have the
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greatest ability to facilitate relationships in circumstances that might not be possible in the real world. Welser also claims that social media are far from destroying personal interaction. Instead, they play a vital role in building a digital metropolis where people construct relationships based on common interests. Moreover, the intense feeling of solidarity, empathy and support generated by people interacting in the virtual online community could possibly facilitate strong and meaningful relationships like those in the real world, face-to-face communication. Arguably, the openness and opportunities for engagement offered by social media radically promote the diversity of relationships.
Oulasvirta et al. (2011) examine how new technologies such as smartphones spur unforseen habits of people. They show that smartphones had a high potential to produce new habits related to social media use. In addition, they reveal that people reported appreciating the easy form of information and the ability to connect with their colleagues and family and also to stay in touch with the world around them. Accessing social media over smartphones allows social activities such as updating one’s Facebook status, checking updated new feeds and reading news headlines, to be done in significantly shorter time. Therefore, it could be seen that people are more associated with their social media-checking habits throughout the day. Even though the study of
Oulasvirta et al. (2011) shows that the actions are very frequent, people have not yet perceived the smartphone–related habits as problematic. Mihailidis (2012) also affirms that participants deemed enjoyable participating regularly in social activities on social media. In addition, there were needs to socialise with friends and others, to expand the diversity and breadth of news consumption available on a daily basis, to seek self-status and to find entertainment through social media use.
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Digital technology offers growing capacities and potentialities for innovation which particularly confirm the continuance of the more elemental trajectory of technological society. Arguably, the evolution of mobile devices in their applications for social interaction has tended to become the major driving force of the increased interconnectedness among the world’s population in an age of globalisation. Mahbubani
(2012) asserts that one of the foremost manifestations of the process of connectivity is new communication technology:
Interconnectivity is growing by leaps and bounds. Quietly, without much fanfare, humanity passed a significant milestone. Today, there are more phones than people. This does not mean every human being has a phone. Some have two or three … This level of teledensity means that people have become interconnected at a level never seen before in history. Technology is generating global convergence. This global explosion of cell phones, and soon of smartphones, will take the Internet, and the information it conveys, to all corners of the globe.
The intense penetration of the network technologies in personal, interpersonal and mass communication has raised the prominence of network analysis (Van Dijk 2006). There have been a number of studies of social networks and online communities that discuss new terms such as ‘network density’ and ‘multiplexity’ to embody the idea of online network patterns (Wellman 1999; Haythornthwaite 2002). The situation of complex relationships of people through the network technology is ultimately important in shaping and leading the global society. The convergent technologies employed in the network communications have embraced most infrastructures of contemporary society and also increased volumes and levels of human communications and interactions in almost every corner of the world (Rheingold 1993; Katz & Aakhus 2002). Society in the so-called digital revolution now cannot be understood or represented without its technological tools. Castells (2004, p. 3) describes this particular circumstance as “a society whose social structure is made of networks powered by microelectronics-based information and communication technologies”. This perspective on media and society is
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also supported by other media scholars including De Jong and Schuilenburg (2006),
Silverstone (2007) and Deuze (2007, 2009, 2011). They emphasise the importance of media in shaping, underpinning and enhancing the experiences and expression of everyday life.
As media, especially the mobile phones, have become a regular feature of people’s everyday life, the suggestion of Deuze (2007, 2011) that people live in, rather than with media, is certainly worth considering. Deuze’s media life point of view is as follows
(2011, p. 143):
Media cannot be conceived of as separate to us, to the extent that we live in media, rather than with media. There are extensive social and cultural re-percussions occurring primarily due to the way media are becoming invisible, as media are so pervasive and ubiquitous that people in general do not even register the presence of media in their lives. The networked individualist and personalized information space that digital natives have created for themselves and which constitutes their everyday reality influences work, play, learning and interacting by unsettling and liquefying all boundaries.
According to Deuze (2007, 2009, 2011), it can be understood that media significantly mediate relationships among individuals and also between individuals and society.
People now are incorporating media into their lives on every level and at every moment which makes it impossible for the people to function without them. By saying that, it does not mean that that the media determine people’s lives and cultural practices, and the people should not be seen as victims of the changes in technology. Deuze (2007) just explains that no matter if people like it or not, they are living and producing themselves in the media; daily rhythms of their lives are situated in the media, just like fish in water. In other words, the mobile telephony has become less visible in people’s lives and started to disappear from people’s consciousness due to the very close attachment and familiarity.
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Migrants and mobile phones
According to the previous section, it is arguable that mobile phones have become one of the most important manifestations of the process of connectivity of people across the globe (Goggin 2008). In other words, people across the globe live with the media and use the media, especially the mobile phones, to contribute and to enhance their network society (Deuze 2011). By including a number of useful technologies such as internet connection and high-resolution camera into one single communication device, the mobile phones allow people to communicate and increase their networks and connections in ways previously unknown. As is the case with the mainstream population, migrants or diasporic people also acknowledge the critical importance of the mobile phones in this sense (Leung et al. 2009; Felton 2012; Georgiou 2013; Ofcom
Research 2013; Lopez 2016). In addition, they are often at the foreground of the technological development because of their dependency on such communicative innovations to sustain relationships at a distance as well as to “be peripherally aware of the actions and daily rhythms of their significant (and not so significant) others on a constant basis and while on the move” (Madianou 2016, p. 198). However, to diasporic minorities in an immigrant country, there are many others matters which could motivate the use of the mobile telephony. Those matters could include the needs to obtain useful information to help them re-establish their lives, to reduce feelings of social isolation and anxiety and to build a community based on a group identity and a territorial homeland (Gillespie 2000; Nedulcu 2012).
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A number of large scale studies find that communication technology, particularly the mobile internet, is fundamental in empowering migrants to develop sociability and emotional well-being and has wider implications for the phenomenon of migration. For example, Hampton and Wellman (2003) express that the internet is more than just a channel of communication and information. It is significant in transforming a dispersed community of migrants into more well-connected communities, which could result in the reduction of social isolation of the migrants and the intensification of social intimacy with friends and family who are geographically apart. Hiller and Franz (2004) also emphasise that online communications impressively empower migrants’ ability to create an online community from the generalised sense of belonging grounded on a shared ethnic community identity. Moreover, they assert that the significance of the internet continues over time and through the various stages of migrants’ experiences.
Similarly, William’s research (2011) shows that through the use of social applications such as Facebook, Skype and YouTube, which provide visual capability, migrants are able to develop a strong sense of emotional connection and a greater level of intimacy.
As a consequence, the migrants may find the media useful in reducing the feeling of social isolation by constituting cross-border practice or as Vertovec (2009, p. 56) calls it
“transnationalism via telecommunication”.
Madianou (2016, p. 199) also points out that through the use of new communication technology like the internet, migrants are empowered to facilitate “ambient co- presence”, an atmosphere of co-presence based on the awareness of the action of distant others. This atmosphere provides transnational migrants a significant way for “doing family” and encourages emotional reassurance. However, she (2016) adds that there are also possibilities for the ambient co-presence to lead to conflicts and arguments due to the increasing opportunities to be aware of the regular presence of distant others.
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Today’s mobile phones are now capable of surfing the internet as well as all social networking applications. They are increasingly taking a major role in the communication revolution, producing new communication patterns with unpredictable consequences. People across cultural groups, economic strata and age cohorts incorporate the media into their rhythms of everyday lives. This matter allows me to come up with the assumption that all benefits that the migrants gain from the use of the internet can also be achieved through the adoption of mobile phones. The concept underlines the fundamental role of the mobile telephony in assisting and advancing the quality of lives of migrants. This could be further supported by the study of Sun (2016).
His study explores the use of social networking applications via mobile phones among
Chinese migrants in Australia. Sun (2016) reveals that the social networking applications, especially WeChat, are an extremely valuable communication platform for
Chinese migrants to engage with the Australian-Chinese community and connect with friends and family in China. Moreover, the social networking applications lend themselves readily to playing a crucial role in supporting and shaping users’ self-esteem and sense of self among Chinese migrants in Australia.
To conclude, mobile phones are an important means of communication to ethnic people including migrants to stay connected to their homeland. The mobile phones are also crucial in migrants’ settlement processes. In order to discover the role mobile phones play in the lives of diasporic people in Australia, which is the ultimate aim of this research, how migrants use mobile phones and their context in the experience of everyday life need to be first investigated. The research theoretical frameworks including the uses and gratifications theory (Blumler & McQuail 1969) which I adopt as the research model to explore how mobile phones are integrated into their daily routines
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and habits of migrants and how the media help in facilitating the notion of public sphere and the notion of the imagined community, is discussed in the following chapter.
Australian mobile phone use
As previously mentioned, this section offers an overview of Australian mobile phone use. It will be employed as a way to put mobile phone use of the selected ethnic communities in context — essentially, to understand how the level of mobile phone use, and the nature of use, varies between the broader population and these communities.
The level of mobile phone penetration in Australia is distinctive. According to the
Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA 2015), the number of mobile phone subscriptions outnumbered the Australian population. However, ACMA notes that this does not mean that every Australian owned a mobile device — rather, some people have more than one device. More recent statistics conducted by Deloitte (2016) affirm the matter. The smartphone penetration rate of the country (84%) is higher than the global average of eighty-one per cent. This places Australia in the top four countries with the highest smartphone saturation, alongside Norway (91%), South Korea (89%) and the Netherlands (87%).
Deloitte (2015, p. 2) reveals that there are two key aspects that influence Australians to adopt mobile phones, especially smartphones. The first reason is to use them as a means to communicate, which is the original utility of the technology, and the second is to employ them as a ‘personal remote for life’. The use of the devices in the two aspects are discussed below.
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1. Mobile phones as a means to communicate
In relation to the use as a communication channel, it is arguable that mobile phones have brought a new and fascinating manner of social interaction and communication without being restricted by distance. ACMA (2011, 2013a, 2015, 2016) says that mobile phones have become a preferred mode of personal communication of Australians.
Besides this, it appears to be a communally acceptable way of communicating and relating to others. According to ACMA (2015), more than eighty-two per cent of mobile phone users used their device for communication purpose, and fifty-seven per cent reported using the medium to foster their friendships and companionships through social networking sites.
Deloitte (2016) finds that the use of standard voice calls, the most common traditional communication feature, is still the most predominant service that Australian people use to communicate with others (79%). However, Deloitte (2016) asserts that a drop in the number of voice calls could be visibly seen in the near future. In 2015, twenty-three per cent of Australians had not made any standard calls in a given week, and the number already jumped to twenty-seven per cent in 2016. According to Deloitte (2016), the rise of alternative calling and messaging applications, and the wide penetration of social networking sites, are among the main influences of this social phenomenon. The research reveals that Australian mobile phone users are becoming more comfortable with non-traditional communication methods such as video calls, short videos, emails and communicating through social networks. As a consequence, the continuing rise in the non-traditional forms of communication is certainly assumable. The results of Roy
Morgan Research (2017) affirm the rise of the use of communication applications via smartphones. In 2016, the number of Australians using Facebook Messenger application
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grew strongly, up to nineteen per cent, compared to 2016, to almost 6.5 million or one in three. Other communication applications such as WhatsApp, Skype and WeChat also
gained more Australian users (see Figure 7).
6,487,000
5,451,000
2,201,000
1,918,000
1,634,000
1,615,000
340,000 319,000
Facebook WeChat WhatsApp Skype Messenger
2015 2016
Figure 7: The increasing number of Australians using communication applications via mobile phones (retrieved from Roy Morgan Research 2017)
Roy Morgan Research (2017) also compares the use of communication applications between native-born Australians and overseas-born Australians. The research finds that overseas-born Australians distinctly used communication apps more than home-grown
Australians. For example, Skype usage of overseas-born is approximately 2.5 times higher than the use of native-born Australians (14.4% vs 5.7%). The use of Viber is also over three times higher among foreign-born people (8.6% vs 2.7%). In addition, the usage is highest among Australian migrants who have lived in the country for less than a year. Roy Morgan Research (2017) concludes that the need to maintain regular contact with loved ones like family and friends overseas is a primary reason for the higher use of communication applications among Australian migrants. The research also reveals that the use of communication apps that use data instead of traditional phone and SMS
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services is seen as an ideal solution for Australian migrants to avoid potentially expensive international calling and texting charges.
Although native-born Australians use communication apps less that those born overseas, the use of social media is distinctive and popular across all Australian age groups, with Facebook the most important social media for social connectivity and communication. Collin et al. (2011, p. 7) say that the use of social networking services is an “integral part of everyday communication in Australia”. The Digital in 2017 report from We are Social and Hootsuite (2017) presents that Australia has a very high number of active Facebook users. While the global average for daily active Facebook users is fifty-five per cent, Australia surpasses the rate at seventy-five. In addition, fourteen million in sixteen million Australian active social media users log-in to their social media networking sites via smartphones.
Nielsen (2010) points out that the use of social media has significantly transformed processes of communication and interactions of many Australians, and the core aspect is the growing integration of social media functionalities such as photo and video sharing.
As a consequence, it is commonly seen that people have developed an increasingly complex communicative practice. Rather than just instant messaging to each other on
Facebook, people are now communicating with others in a variety of forms. The frequently used forms include updating one’s own profile, commenting on people’s photos and/or posts, posting public messages to others, or even giving people a ‘Like’.
Neilsen (2010) reveals that Australian people are among the world most active social media users when it comes to performing interactive actions like creating, sharing and viewing social media.
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2. Mobile phones as a ‘personal remote for life’
The growth in mobile phone adoption, especially smartphones, in Australia has given rise to significant growth in both online and offline mobile phone activities in people’s daily lives. For the purpose of using the mobile phones as a life-enhancing device,
Deloitte (2015) finds that the mobile devices are integrated into almost every aspect of
Australians’ lives whether socially, professionally and personally. From setting an alarm clock to reading barcodes, mobile phones have been found in handy due to their increased functionality and ease of use (ACMA 2012). The better and more convenient access to online services is another key factor that drives users to engage more in using their mobiles. ACMA (2012) finds that Australian smartphone users demonstrated a wider scope of mobile phone activities as well as higher level of use, comparing to non- smartphone users. The increase is obvious in the use of smartphones for undertaking online activities like paying bills, doing online shopping, browsing websites, searching for information, accessing current news and weather updates and streaming audio and online contents. More explicitly, smartphone owners are nine times more likely to access online services. The use of mobile devices as a personal organiser and mobile wallet are also increasing.
The use of smartphones for accessing the online world among Australians is significant.
ACMA (2015) finds that Australians smartphone users have a similar pattern of internet activity to general internet users. Figure 8 illustrates the internet activities undertaken by
Australian mobile phone users and general internet users, and it shows comparable results.
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Browsing and surfing 65 59
Buying and selling 61 57
Entertainment activities 68 67
Research and information 79 78
Internet banking 76 76
0 20 40 60 80 100
General internet users Mobile phone users
Figure 8: Internet activities undertaken by mobile phone users and general internet users (retrieved from ACMA 2015)
According to the results, ACMA (2015) concludes that the smartphones do not change people’s pattern of using the internet. The devices have just made the accessibility and connectivity to the online world easier, more convenient and more flexible. Therefore, it is common to see people use their mobile phones to complement their daily activities as well as face-to-face interactions (ACMA 2015; Deloitte 2015). Google’s Mobile In-
Store research (2013) illustrates that eighty-four per cent of Australian shoppers use their mobile phones to conduct pre-purchase research while in a store. Deloitte (2015) also reveals that an overwhelming majority of Australians integrate their mobile phones into their daily activities: ninety-two per cent while at work, eighty-eight per cent while on public transport, eighty-eight per cent while talking with friends and family, and ninety-two per cent while watching TV. However, ACMA (2013b, 2015), Deloitte
(2015) and Sensis (2016) similarly note that on smartphones people prefer to perform their internet activities through applications as opposed to websites.
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Applications significantly add functionality to mobile phones by allowing users to easily and directly access particular online services. Nowadays, there is an extensive range of applications available for users to download to expand the scope of mobile phones’ usability. Those include games, social network, shopping, productivity and tools, banking and finance, travel and lifestyle, and many more. In Australia, ACMA
(2013b) reveals that games are the most popular kind of applications that Australian application users downloaded (66%), followed by social networking applications (59%)
(see Figure 9).
Others 8 Shopping 33 Education 33 Transport 35 Travel and lifestyle 41 Productivity and tools 48 Banking and finance 49 Social networking 59 Games 66 0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70
Figure 9: Applications downloaded by Australian application users (retrieved from ACMA 2013b)
The high proportion of game applications downloading of Australian people indicates that playing games is a common activity in Australian culture. Brand and Todhunter
(2016) affirm the point by showing that more than sixty-eight per cent of Australian people are playing games, and mobile phones have significantly helped in increasing the presence of games in Australian culture.
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Due to the extensive use of mobile phones in many aspects of the lives of Australian people, Deloitte (2015, p. 4) finds that Australia has a significantly high level of
“smartphone obsession”. It is estimated that, in general, people are interacting with their mobile more than thirty times a day, and the number is higher for young people (56 times). Five per cent of Australians frequently check their phone as often as more than two hundred times a day. Furthermore, one-third of Australians indicate that they have reached for their phone within five minutes of waking up. Deloitte (2016, p. 33) concludes:
Without question, we are fast becoming (if not already are) an always- on mobile society. Our addiction to our favourite device and the apparent need to check regularly and respond instantly must be in response to our growing fear of missing out or perhaps our love of being always-on.
Summary
This chapter firstly discusses multiculturalism in Australia. People from many different countries including ethnic or tribal groups and religions have made this country one of the most ethnically diverse societies in the world. In the past, multiculturalism seemed to be an invasion to Australian culture. As a consequence, the White Australia policy was proposed in order to urge migrants and refugees to assimilate and become indistinguishable from the Australia-born population. However, the policy was found impractical in practice. Therefore, the policy of assimilation had moved toward a focus on cultural pluralism. Ethnic communities have been accepted as an enrichment of
Australia instead of being a threat. This policy of plurality embraces minorities’ shared values and cultural traditions. However, there is still evidence that minorities in some
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aspects remain at a disadvantage, especially when encountering racism (Jakubowicz et al. 1994; Jakubowicz 2011; Markus 2013; VicHealth 2012; Yang 2013).
The second section offers the review of mobile telephony and the broader impact of this communication technology. Mobile phones are devices that have no hard wires connecting to landlines. The development and design process of mobile phones have occurred gradually. Mobile phones and their systems are now not only capable of transferring voice data but also allow better and quicker transference of other types of data, including emails, Multimedia Message Service and instant messages. As a result, there has been an increase in the popularity of mobile phones throughout the world.
Australia has adopted smartphones into everyday culture faster than consumers in many other developed countries (AIMIA 2013). Furthermore, the number of smartphones users across the world is expected to continue in a fast-paced trajectory and to maintain significant growth (eMarketer 2014).
People’s routines seem to be constructed around or rely greatly on mobile phones. They offer people voice communications, data and other productivity applications, and also images and videos, to share the same resources and interact with each other synergistically in a single network. Online social networking applications on smartphones have become the main communication methods that many people use to create a new form of social interaction, dialogue, exchange and collaboration (ITU
2010, 2016; Kietzmann et al. 2011). The evolution of mobile devices in their applications for social interaction has tended to become the major driving force of the increased interconnectedness amongst the world’s population in an age of globalisation.
Connecting to the internet via smartphones has exploded exponentially and collectively represents the fastest growing sector of internet use in Australia.
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Australian minorities across cultural groups, economic strata and age cohorts incorporate mobile phone communication into their rhythm of everyday lives. These handheld devices arguably allow ethnic migrants to stay connected to their homeland and to help them settle their lives in Australia.
In broader Australia, people use smartphones as a communication tool and a ‘personal remote for life’ (Deloitte 2015). A very large number of mobile phone users use social media as an important platform for enhancing their social connectivity. The overview of the use of mobile telephony among Australians is set up to be a benchmark for this thesis’s case studies — Thai, Hmong and Rohingya communities — in order to compare and contrast the research results in the later chapter.
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CHAPTER IV
Diverse communities and the media: understanding the public sphere, minority communities and media use
This chapter offers examinations of theoretical concepts and other previous research which relates to the key themes of this thesis, aiming to serve as the research’s epistemological and theoretical bedrock. Important theoretical frameworks including the theory of the public sphere and the media (Habermas 1989), community media, and the notion of imagined communities (Anderson 1983) are canvassed. Various nuances to
Habermas’s concept of the public sphere are used to frame the specific need for communication among minorities in Australia while Anderson’s theory is applied to test the contribution of mobile phones in creating a bond and a national consciousness among diasporic groups. I also discuss uses and gratifications theory, which places the media user at the heart of communications considerations. Rather than trying to understand the impact of media, uses and gratifications theory tries to understand the active role of the media user (Blumler & McQuail 1969). Uses and gratifications is, therefore, a useful foundation to explain the nuanced ‘how and why’ of mobile phone use in Australian ethnic minority communities. Limitations and criticisms of the theory are also presented. With an understanding of the possible factors underlying mobile phone use, it is appropriate for this research to finally explore the role of mobile telephony in enhancing the lives of the three targeted ethnic communities in multicultural Australia.
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The concept of the public sphere
The theory of the public sphere was best-articulated by German philosopher and sociologist Jurgen Habermas (1989). The popular term ‘the public sphere’ was employed to describe the public and the sphere in which public activities took place at the state-level in the book entitled The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere in 1962 (English translation in 1989). Habermas (1989) defines the idea of the public sphere as a forum distinct from both state and official economic activity, where individuals can engage and articulate their independent views to communicate collectively on relevant issues, allowing citizens to inform themselves about societal developments and to observe and control political, economic and other elites. Access to this forum was assured to all citizens in society (Fuchs 2013). The origin of the idea of the public sphere came into existence in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries when meeting places such as coffeehouses, taverns, social clubs, salons, cafés, Masonic lodges, table societies, and other voluntary associations had become centres for members of the public to discuss the power of the state. The emergence of the bourgeois public sphere went together with an institutionalisation of privateness, with the establishment of a clear distinction between public and private.
Through engagement in the public sphere, an individual human being is seen as making a precious contribution to rational-critical debates with the potential to move discussions from a private to a public environment. The rational public discussion which is facilitated as a result of the capacity for people to discuss freely, identify societal problems and make comments about those particular situations, Habermas
(1989) argues, promotes the formation of public agreement and decision-making based
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on public opinion in the strong sense of a consensus about the common good. In addition, the result of the public debate could be translated encouragingly into and modelled around state policies of the institutions of society. Habermas et al. (1974, p.
49) state:
By ‘the public sphere’ we mean first of all a realm of our social life in which something approaching public opinion can be formed. Access is guaranteed to all citizens. A portion of the public sphere comes into being in every conversation in which private individuals assemble to form a public body ... Citizens behave as a public body when they confer in an unrestricted fashion — that is, with the guarantee of freedom of assembly and association and the freedom to express and publish their opinions —about matters of general interest.
The development of social life in the modern era unsettles the idea of the public sphere in Habermas’s sense. There have been explorations and reconsiderations from scholars related to the need for updating the notions of the public and the private. Over time, the public sphere, according to Habermas (1989), was undermined by the introduction of a series of social conditions that blurred the distinctions between public and private and transformed the notion of an objective general interest, generated by rational-critical debate, into a practice of negotiated compromises among special interests (Calhoun
1992).
Habermas’s concept of the bourgeois public sphere and its transformation has also been criticised by feminist political scientists like Fraser (1991) and a number of media scholars such as Zoonen (1991), Garnham (1992), McLaughlin (1998), Annabelle and
Zoonen (1999) and Butsch (2009). Fraser (1991) asserts that Habermas’s conceptualisation of the past public sphere intentionally and/or unintentionally excludes women and non-propertied classes, which makes the public sphere undemocratic in its structure. She (1991) claims the Habermas’s public sphere performs as a realm where privileged men use it to practice the skill of governance. As a result of the elimination
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of women and social inequality, Fraser (1991) proposes that there is a post-industrial model of co-existing public spheres which is formed in response to exclusion from the dominant public sphere. In other words, instead of a single sphere, there are two basic kinds of public spheres: the dominant public sphere — a province of white, middle- and upper-class males, and the subaltern counterpublics — a group populated by the historically oppressed who have been excluded from the dominant public sphere by legal or extralegal means. Fraser (1991, p. 123) explains:
Subaltern counterpublics … signal that they are parallel discursive arenas where members of subordinated social groups invent and circulate counter discourses to formulate oppositional interpretations of their identities, interests, and needs.
Fraser (1991) also states that in the modern world a multiplicity of publics is preferable to a single public sphere because it enhances a healthy and strong existing democracy in society. If there is a single public sphere, minority groups would be subjected to the supervision of a dominant group, therefore at risk of being denied the opportunity to express and defend their own interests. Consequently, multiple public spheres exist in a global age to help the marginalised people escape from the main public sphere that fails to meet the real needs of minorities in terms of balanced, critical and objective views
(Asen & Brouwer 2001). Schudson (1997) also concurs that there is very little evidence that a true ideal public sphere has ever existed. Fraser (1991, p. 128) states that what people ultimately need is “a critical political sociology of a form of public life in which multiple but unequal publics participate”. Susen (2011, p. 55) concludes:
The empowering potentials of alternative public spheres emanate from their capacity to challenge the legitimacy of dominant practice and dominant discourses by creating counter-hegemonic realms based on alternative practices and alternative discourses. Hegemonies need to be continuously re-hegemonised in order to ensure that they are not de- hegemonised. Counter-hegemonies need to be constantly de- hegemonised in order to avoid becoming hegemonised.
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According to the increased expansion of public spheres, Fraser (1991) asserts that the multiple public spheres overlap in some ways and work in tension with each other, even though participants in each sphere are unequally endowed with various power discourses. People are not confined to a single sphere; they have overlapping memberships of multiple public spheres and the membership of subaltern counterpublics should be decided by the participants themselves. Janoski (1998) and
Keane (2000) supportively emphasise the homogeneity of the unitary public sphere.
They both state that borders between the spheres are by no means fixed and strict but that the spheres overlap and can be called ‘interconnected public spheres’. In addition, within the multitude of overlapping public spheres, people are able to move across them according to their immediate needs.
Media and their role in the public sphere
Habermas (1989) confirms that media institutions have performed the vital role of spreading information to a larger group of people — the public. Khan et al. (2012) posit three main structural preconditions for the Habermasian model of the public sphere.
First, media institutions should be the foundation of the public sphere by providing information and forums for public conversation. In doing so, the national press should ideally present public views across the state. The next prerequisite is that the media should address public debate in order to help in shaping the sovereign state. Public opinion is essentially a component for making the state accountable and responsive.
Finally, public debate needs to be generated under the conditions of a clever civil society. These three key preconditions for the notion of the public sphere validate the
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important role of media in performing as a platform, manipulator and also as a precondition of the existence of the public sphere (Keane 2000).
The media represent a major pillar serving society. The use of public means to facilitate communication among people, along with encouraging them to experience representations of world issues, enriches individual lives. People in society are informed via the process of representation, interpretation and evaluation by the media; they know what the world is like and what is happening around them, which enables a broader participation and movement in civil societies (Curran 1991; O’Shaughnessy & Stadler
2002). The wide array of information presented in the media can make people change their opinions and views in positive ways. This change is certainly important for the improvement of individuals and the public. It thus seems to be a widely accepted fact that mass media indeed are the public sphere (Browne 2005).
Being well informed via media with accurate media representation of world issues in order to be able to participate in democracy is one of the foremost aspects of a functioning democracy that the media can enable. However, the role of media in terms of identifying and promoting the public interest remains problematic (Stewart 2010).
Mass media are usually located in the heart of a capitalist economy as profit-driven organisations. The content and form presented in the mass media are considered and selected to suit the majority of people’s primary interests because they support the principles of a capitalist mode of production. This leads to degradation in the supply of minority interest programmes and results in neglect of non-commercial opinions and non-market forms of people’s lives (Curran 1991). The commercial motivation of mainstream media unintentionally creates a huge inequality in terms of cultural representation. Therefore, it is not surprising that a massive number of ethnic minorities
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remain displeased with their representations via mainstream media. Moreover, many feel as if they are being ignored, silenced or even misrepresented by mainstream media
(Jakubowicz et al. 1994; Downing & Husband 2005; Cottle 2007; Dreher 2010a). As a result, many have turned to alternative channels, where they believe they can communicate and discuss diverse attitudes and interests (Couldry & Dreher 2007); and this is how Fraser’s (1991) suggested subaltern counterpublics emerge and develop in society.
Community media and the public sphere
One outcome of this dissatisfaction with mainstream media is community media, which have been referred to in a variety of ways, including ‘alternative media’, ‘ethnic media’ and ‘citizen media’. They primarily address the diverse attitudes and interests of ethnic, specialist, racial and minority groups (Dorothy 1999; Forde et al. 2009; Howley 2010).
This kind of media is better understood as important counter-public spheres in multicultural societies (Couldry & Dreher 2007). Nowadays, there can be seen an enormous number of community media throughout the world. That is because of their abilities to deal with the diversity of cultures, provide a space for debating and experiencing alternative viewpoints and lifestyles and ensure their accountability to the particular community concerned without commercial interests (Husband 2005; Aksoy
2006; Meadows et al. 2007). Community media make it possible for ‘quiet voices’ who are situated outside mainstream communities to freely disseminate and consume their own cultures, opinions, beliefs and values (Howley 2010). Community media audiences are able to produce and reproduce their cultures via news, information and entertainment programming. They also can debate and experience alternative viewpoints and lifestyles. Howley (2010) argues that the ability of minorities to express
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their voices through media is an irreplaceable way to assure their sense of belonging in society, and community media have come to fill a huge gap for those in need. As
Rodriguez (2001, p. 154) suggests:
Citizens’ media do not have to compete for global markets; they do not have to reach all audiences; they do not have to ‘talk to everyone’ and therefore local dialects, local issues, and local codifications of social reality find their way into citizens’ media programming … citizens’ media are in a privileged position to delve into, to explore, and to articulate (differences between subordinate groups) — unlike mainstream media which tend to generalize and smooth away such differences.
Community media play a significant role in today’s society. Forde et al. (2009) assert that ethnic media significantly empower ethnic and indigenous audiences at various levels, foster active citizenry, and enhance democracy in the society. In the research of
Forde and colleagues, the roles of community media are classified into five themes: maintaining community networks, languages, and cultures, boosting community and individual self-esteem, educating community members at the community level, providing news and information about issues of concern, and supporting indigenous music and dance.
In the context of diasporic people, Adoni et al. (2006) as well as Matsaganis et al.
(2011) add that community media are a vital channel for new immigrants in connecting with the wider public and becoming established, independent and fully participating members of the new homeland. Couldry and Dreher (2007) studied how different communicative spaces in Sydney including diasporic media facilitate “the space of possibles” for minority people. They (2007, p. 4) find that minority public spheres, which are constituted with the help of community media, are not just situated in the opposite positon to Australia’s mainstream public sphere and have no or little impact on majority discourses. However, the minority public spheres like the transnational
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diasporic spheres could contribute “the space of possibles” which is important in moving minority concerns to the dominant public sphere. Couldry and Dreher (2007, p.
10) assert:
Diaspora media spaces enable the negotiation of culture and politics in both ‘home’ and ‘host’ countries, creating transnational communities and imaginings. These allow for collective conversations both within and beyond nation-states and the formation of hybrid identities.
Throughout the Australian community media sector, there are more than a hundred languages broadcasting to support the exchange of ideas, experiences and perspectives, promoting understanding, mutual respect and active citizenship and improving social cohesion (Community Broadcasting Association of Australia 2013). The diversity of program content available through community broadcasting broadens the media choices available to all Australians.
A large number of studies have provided insights into how alternative or community media have become important resources and have impacted positively on ethnic minorities in multicultural society. The roles community media play could enrich the development of formal citizenship rights and multiculturalism policy by encouraging the substantive rights and recognitions (Cottle 2000; Dreher 2010b). My own previous research, which involved interviewing six key people working with Thai community media in Australia, illustrates the failure of the Australian mainstream media in representing the Thai community (Krisneepaiboon 2012). As a consequence, Thai community media have emerged as alternative communication channels for Australian-
Thai people. The research (2012) emphasises that Thai community media have become the preferred channels through which the Thai community has found its place in
Australia through promoting Thai community solidarity. Moreover, Thai community media play an important role in creating and sustaining the Thai public sphere, a space
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where Thai people in Australia can engage in discussion about issues and interests important to them and to be able to bring those issues to the wider public sphere
(Krisneepaiboon 2012). To those who are new to Australia, Thai community media are also fundamental for connecting the newly-arrived to information, news and events of their original homeland as well as orienting them to the country of immigration. A balance of connective and orientation stories delivered by the Thai community media is able to contribute to the “dual frame of reference” which means migrants have knowledge about the norms of both the homeland and the new country (Reese 2001, p.
455).
The above example of a Thai public sphere is just one evidence of the existence of an enormous number of alternative or ‘subaltern’ public spheres (Fraser 1991). It emphasises the importance of community media in facilitating ethnic public spheres, and also stresses the preference of multiple spheres to a single public sphere that Fraser
(1991) has debated. Arguably, the establishment of ethnic community media not only generated an ethnic public sphere in society, but also made a valuable contribution to the concept of multiculturalism by encouraging people from various backgrounds, beliefs and races to assemble for the benefits of collaboration (Ethnic Broadcasting
Association of Queensland 2002). Gordon (2008, p. 14) assesses the significance of community media:
Community media in all its guises has come to have an importance and significance for communities in many differing circumstances. At its best, it has developed as a public sphere, uncensored by authoritarian or hegemonic view-points. It has aided economic and social development and has provided an outlet for cultural products of minority, under- represented or repressed groups of people. Community media outlets have given practical information, self-esteem and self-worth to those without other media forms at their disposal, ‘a voice for the voiceless’.
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Mobile phones as community media
As previous mentioned, diverse societies such as Australia consist of multiple publics competing for spaces of representation on an uneven playing field (Ethnic Broadcasting
Association of Queensland 2002). Community media are established to counter negative mass media discourses and images and to address issues essential for minority groups that the mainstream media rarely engage with. The community media are also fundamental for connecting minority people, especially migrants, to information, news and events of their original homeland as well as orienting them to the country of immigration (Adoni et al. 2006; Matsaganis et al. 2011). Considering the role of the community media in the lives of minorities and migrants, the question raised is whether mobile phones play the same role as the community media, and can be comprised as community media. This research, therefore, investigates the ways in which diasporic people of Thai, Hmong and Rohingya communities use their mobile phones and their context in the experience of everyday lives in order to discover the answer.
In today’s globalised world, media have become the foremost manifestation of the process of connectivity. Carely and Cairncross (as cited in Flew 2002, p. 13) refer to the overcoming of geographical, cultural and logistical barriers as “the death of distance”.
Mobile phones which can now easily and conveniently access the internet, are another channel that have played an essential role in this process. Arguably, they have transformed the way people communicate their opinions, ideas and beliefs on issues, local and global, that affect their everyday lives. The potential of the internet to generate global discussion and dialogue opportunities had emerged that the internet represents the new public sphere and the future of the public sphere and the role of it has become even greater and stronger when it is always available in the hands of people through
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mobile phones (Castells 1996, 2004, 2008; Jones 1997; Papacharissi 2002, 2009;
Ubayasiri 2006; Khan et al. 2012).
With the notable help of the mobile phones, people are able to access the internet conveniently and to be actively engaged in one remote affair while in another public sphere. The public sphere of cyberspace promoted by the mobile phones provides a place where people can freely communicate and share their opinions and beliefs about issues of concern, thus promoting an enlightened democratic exchange of ideas and opinions. At the same time, a new unbounded online space meets people’s needs in terms of information presentation. People are able to acquire knowledge and political information in a more convenient form and also at lower cost, which could positively result in the improvement of communicative interaction (Keane 2000; Gimmler 2001;
Papacharissi 2002; Mehra et al. 2004; Gordon 2007; Kissau & Hunger 2010; Murti
2013). Dahlberg (2001, p. 1) asserts:
Indeed, a cursory examination of the thousands of diverse conversations taking place everyday online and open to anyone with Internet access seems to indicate the expansion on a global scale of the loose webs of rational-critical discourse that constitute what is known as the public sphere.
As the internet is identified as heralding new possibilities for social participation and communication, there are a number of studies reviewing the relationship between the internet and the rise and development of social cohesion and social well-being. Felton’s study (2012) reveals that participants who are migrants from culturally and linguistically diverse groups in Australia value the communicative capability of the internet. Ninety-two per cent of them used a variety of internet-based applications such as email, Facebook and Skype as a dominant means to maintain their regular reassurances with their family and friends who are overseas in order to help mediate the feeling of discomfort and loneliness. Besides this, the internet communication is vital in
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helping the migrants connect with people from their homeland countries who are based in Australia as well as meeting other people in the wider society who share mutual interest. The study (Felton 2012) concludes that the prevention of social isolation and the rise of social inclusivity encouraged by the use of the internet could assist in the development of social capital in multicultural Australia.
In relation to mobile phones, Erni (2016) points out that the use of social media and mobile phones importantly helps to facilitate and manage the practice of feeling ethnic in the multicultural environment across Asia. Because of social misunderstanding as well as stereotyping, mystification and discrimination presented on mainstream media, minority people in Asia have turned to mobile phones and social media in order to form
“the private space” where they have ability to control media content. Erni (2016) states that, through self-representation, minority people can positively transform their lived experiences and finally contribute to a heathy multicultural atmosphere.
Gordon (2007) studied how people use their mobile phones to contribute to their public sphere in the period of critical situations like the Chinese SARs outbreak (2003), the
Southeast-Asian tsunami (2004) and the London bombing (2005). She (2007) finds that in the critical circumstances, mobile phones were beneficial to enhance the local public sphere. Moreover, the use of the communication devices to spread information and provide visual evidence of the critical situations could impact the primary definitions of news agenda, which was important in a feeling of empowerment to the people.
According to the discussion of the role of community media and mobile phones to minorities and migrants, it can be seen that the close relationship between mobile phones and community media is noticeable. Both community media and mobile phones are vital in presenting important symbolic and cultural resources and supporting the
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formation of a sense of self in pluralistic societies. The mediated concepts of the public sphere emphasise the importance of the mobile phones and the cyberspace in encouraging the formation and dissemination of discursive arenas in which individuals and minority groups associate to discuss matters of mutual interest. The transformation of the mobile phones to a multimedia-capable mobile device in which browser-based internet service can be easily accessed therefore is able to assume to facilitate a greater level of connectivity among people as well as heathy alternative public spheres in society. Gorgon (2006, p. 45) asserts:
The cell phone has become not only a part of popular culture, but also a tool of the public sphere. On occasions the ability of the individual to have access to a cell phone may have a significant influence not only on personal choices and actions but also on national and international events.
Aside from Habermas’s concept of the public sphere, and the community media, it is also possible to conceive the existence of such public spheres through the concept of
‘imagined communities’ proposed by Benedict Anderson (1983). Details are discussed in the next section.
The concept of imagined communities
‘What is the relationship between communication technology and community and to what extent do mobile phones, for instance, empower and sustain intra- and inter- community relations?’ To answer this question, it is essential to acknowledge the importance of the sense of nationality; the personal and cultural feeling of belonging to the nation. I examine the scholarly literature concerning the relationship between communications technology and community cohesion concerning two close theoretical notions: diaspora and transnationalism. Both concepts are important in migration studies
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in relation to political, economic and cultural discourses (Rios & Adiv 2010).
According to Blunt (2003, p. 282), the concept of diaspora is:
… inherently geographical, implying a scattering of people over space and transnational connections between people and places. Geography clearly lies at the heart of diaspora both as a concept and as lived experience, encompassing the contested interplay of place, home, culture and identity through migration and resettlement.
In the above quote, it can be seen that the concept of ‘diaspora’ comprises three main elements including the circumstances of being away from their historical homeland, the relationships to the actual place of origin, and the integration of migrants into the country of resettlement which entails the negotiation of cultural identity (Vertovec
1999; Safran 2005; Faist 2010; Rios & Adiv 2010).
‘Transnationalism’, the most common term associated with ‘diaspora’, is originally invoked to focus on economic and political activities of international migrants
(Remennick 2003). Later, the term is redefined to encompass a much wider range of transnational activities in the experiences of migrant people in order to better describe crucial agents of the diasporic people (Staeheli et al. 2002). Nagel (2001, p. 248) explains the term ‘transnationalism’ below:
If the international signifies relationships between states or actors representing different states, then the transnational refers to linkages forged by social groups who exist seemingly in spite of the nation-state and who, through their transnational activities, undermine state sovereignty and the hegemony of national borders and ideologies
The definitions of the two terms illustrate that the words ‘diaspora’ and
‘transnationalism’ similarly concern persistent cross-border socio-cultural connections as well as the incorporation and integration of migrants into the country of resettlement
(Dufoix 2008). They both highlight deep and strong connections to national or local territories, especially in the case of migrants. However, the concept of diaspora may emphasis more on the cultural uniqueness of diaspora migrants, while transnationalism
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focuses more migrant integration and transnational behaviours and practices. Due the close conceptual comparison and no clear separation of the two notions, scholars may find studying diaspora could pose an understanding about migrants and social integration, and vice versa (Faist 2010). The use of the two concepts, therefore, has often overlapped or even been interchangeable (Dufoix 2008; Faist 2010; Rios & Adiv
2010). Faist (2010, p. 11) states that “While diaspora is a very old concept, transnationalism is relatively new. Not only in public debates but also in academic analysis, the terms have fuzzy boundaries and often overlap”.
As is the case with many studies, this research is not aimed to develop a comprehensive supposition of the two particular concepts. The two terms, ‘diaspora’ and
‘transnationalism’, are used interchangeably in this thesis. They are used to refer to the national groups living outside their homeland who have durable connections across the borders of nations.
Anderson’s (1983) concept of imagined communities proposed the reason for why people love and die for their nation. It is also a perspective that rationally “provides a crucial explanation of why the nation can demand sacrifices and commitments from its members” (Calhoun 1993, p. 232). The concept of imagined communities was first published in the sociological literature in 1983 in Anderson’s influential book entitled
Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism. In this book, Anderson (1983) examines the origin and spread of nationalism in colonial and post-colonial contexts. His research into topics around ‘nationalism’ is applauded as a seminal text on nationalism (Zimelis 2010).
Anderson (1983) offers a notable way to look at nationalism and a nation as an imagined political community and to experience community based on indirect social
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relationships. The very term ‘imagined communities’ captures Anderson’s suggestion
(1983, p. 15) that “all communities larger than primordial villagers of face-to-face contact ... are imagined”. For him, a nation is a collection of people who are living in an area bounded by a border. The border line could be recognised in an enormously scaled- down, two-dimensional representation. The people within the boundaries cannot possibly know each other personally. Their relationship is not based on everyday, face- to-face interaction. However, they all believe fervently in each other’s existence. They also have allegiance to a core set of values and beliefs as part of the same nation. In other words, a nation is a socially constructed community, imagined by the people who perceive themselves as part of that group and have always known that they are connected to people they have never seen. An image of affinity becomes the powerful emotional bond that holds people’s minds together in an imagined community.
Anderson (1991, p. 6) states:
It [nation] is imagined because the members of even the smallest nation will never know most of their fellow-members, meet them, or even hear of them, yet in the minds of each lives the image of their communion.
Appadurai (1996) affirms that imagination is a principal technique used to shape and define group boundaries which helps to emphasise the personal feeling of belonging. He states that the work of imagination is viewed as “a space of contestation in which individuals and groups seek to annex the global into their own practices” (Appadurai
1996, p. 40). Smith’s (1991, 1998) definitions of the word ‘nation’ also demonstrate the use of the imagination technique. Smith (1998) explains that people imagine that they belong to a particular nation as they share general beliefs and attitudes. The people also recognise a collective national populace as having similar opinions and sentiments to their own. The role of imagination is also applied by Wenger (1998) for whom the imagined process is a form of engagement with communities of practice.
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According to Anderson (1991, p. 7), the nation is thought of as an imagined community, and is both inherently “limited” and “sovereign”. The two adjectives are used to highlight a historically recognised paradox in the study of nation building. Anderson
(1991) shows that nations form a shared constructed idea explaining a geographically limited area of people. Even though the limitations of the social construction of the nation as political entities are unextendable, nations have a strong influence and power in their greater region and sovereignty over their people. Anderson (1983) describes cultural artefacts or “a bundle of messages” (Macdonald & Alsford 2010, p. 75) that people share in their minds, as a national identity which can arouse deep attachments and hold profound emotional legitimacy for people. Anderson (1983) asserts that the national identity is a powerful image and can inspire people to sacrifice themselves for their nation. This idea can be clearly seen in the situation of national wars when national citizens are all equal, and class boundaries are eroded. People of a particular nation are eager to struggle communally for the survival and prevalence of their nation (Anderson
1991).
Media and the concept of imagined community
The issue of the personal sense of national identity and belonging is part of the conceptual apparatus required for analysing the idea of imagined communities. In order to spread the sense of nationality, Anderson (1983) considers the spread of publishing in the vernacular language and the gradual demotion of Latin as the prime social conditions in creating the national form of imagined communities. For Anderson (1983), the widespread use of the vernacular print-language media allows communities from all
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local vernaculars to produce and consume their own local cultures and is no longer integrated by their dependence on a core Latin-writing print media.
According to Anderson (1983), vernacular print capitalism plays a central role in sustaining national consciousness. Daily newspapers become a vital technical means to bond people together: Anderson (1991, p. 36) states that “newspapers made it possible for people to think about themselves, and relate themselves to others, in profoundly new ways”. By reading the newspaper, people have the feeling that everyone else in the nation is reading the same source of national information and they are equal in terms of access to the information (Karim 2003; Ojo 2005; Hauser 2009). Moreover, Anderson
(1983) proposes the idea of daily newspaper readership as a synchronised mass ceremony. The standardisation of national calendars, clocks and languages, which is expressed, represented, reproduced and maintained in the daily newspapers, would provide a sense of national awareness to the people in the nation (Calhoun 1993).
As time passes, not only print media but also other communication methods such as broadcasting media have played an important role in articulating a community imagining (Williams 1975; Morley & Robins 1995; Castells 1996; Robins 1998; Elias &
Lemish 2009; Komito 2011). The simultaneous expansion of the imagined community has been solidified through the use of television (Tsaliki 1995; Robins 1998). Since the first appearance of television, people have relied on television as an important platform for getting to know what is happening around them and sharing other people’s experiences of some important national events. According to Dayan and Kanz (1992), television does not report or present events; however, it performs as well as narrates the events. They assert that messages that are promulgated on the broadcast media are designed to be listened to en mass and to create the national culture linking individuals
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to the centre of national life. Scannell and Cardiff (1991) also illustrate the construction of imagined community through British broadcasting. They reveal that British broadcasting was serving a nation as a conscious policy to manufacture an imagined community. It became a vital means that offered a sense of lost community to listeners who felt isolated at the regional, national and also imperial level.
As stated above, broadcasting has been used as an instrumental mechanism in the attempt to unite a segmented society, comprising different national and regional identities. Chaney (1993, p. 121) also states that, because of the broadcasting technology
(television in his sense), the transformation of individual dramas, performances, activities and memories into “fictions of collective life” has become possible. Chaney
(1993) and Tsaliki (1995) say that a huge number of people who never interact with others are able to enjoy their participation in a mediated culture, a common experience and a collective memory via the process of transmission of symbolic forms on television.
The evolution of technological breakthroughs and advancement as a result of the process of globalisation created massive global change (Flew 2002; Karim 2003). The growth of the internet has allowed both individuals and businesses to overcome geographical, cultural and logistical barriers, traversing and challenging national boundaries and concepts of national identity (Anderson 1983; Foster 1991; Robertson
1992; Elias & Lemish 2009; Krivolap 2011; Powers 2011). Arguably, due to the loss of physical contact, the imagined communities of diasporas over the internet are even stronger, more visual and clearly imagined (Bernal 2006; Diminescu 2008; Komito
2011; Pentecost 2011). The internet helps to maintain the imagined community because it facilitates massive dissemination of information that is relevant and important to
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community building and people’s lives (Tsagarousianou 2004). The internet has offered opportunities for people to share their own experiences about communities to others, and to imagine and reconceptualise themselves through email, social networking sites, online publications and other forms (Robinson 2006). Fremlin (2012) states that through online platforms, the four aspects of social relationship including the shared emotional connections, the emotional bonds, the investment of intimacy, and the emotional risks with other members are formed and/or enhanced. She also emphasises that those four factors could be as intense as the ones generated via face-to-face communication.
Migration and the imagined communities
As discussed, the development of communication technologies from time to time has in some ways influenced the process of dissemination of national information which helps generate the construction of the imagined community. The flows of people across national border lines are allowed to encompass all members in the sociological boundaries of belonging as members in the national community. As a consequence,
Anderson (1991) acclaims mass communication as a significant factor holding the fabric of imagined community together. However, in the 1992 article entitled The new world disorder, Anderson proposed the other factor which is ‘mass migrations’ as one of the most significant aspects together with mass communication that influentially generate nationalism and construct imagined community. Anderson (1992, p. 7) claims that “the two most significant factors generating nationalism and ethnicity are both closely linked to the rise of capitalism. They can be described summarily as mass communication and mass migrations”.
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Today’s world seems to be as small as a ‘global village’ (Flew 2002). There are increasing movements of people, knowledge and goods across nation borders. Migration has resulted in one of three main demographic components of population changes within nations along with the other two, births and deaths, and can be recognised as an intrinsic feature of the globalised world (United Nations 2013a; 2016). The movement of people has often been acknowledged as the most difficult trend to measure, model and forecast.
The statistic presented by the United Nations (2016) indicated that the number of people living outside their home country of birth worldwide reached 244 million in 2015, up from 175 million in 2000. The UN (2016) also reveals that in 2015, sixty-seven per cent or two-thirds of all international migrants in the world resided in just twenty countries; the largest number of international migrants stayed in the US. Germany provided the second largest number, followed by the Russian Federation, while Australia hosted the ninth largest number.
In situations of displacement from beloved landscapes and acquired tastes to the unfamiliar land, there are a number of additional issues and problems migrants encounter, apart from prevailing issues affected by mainstream populations. Significant problems may include language proficiency and language barriers, settlement issues, racism and discrimination, and employment and education. In order to adjust their new lives to new ways of living and cultural differences in a new homeland, assistance and support from relevant sources are required. Not only in adjusting to the new environment, the relocated people also need to retrieve what they have missed (Hall
1996; Leung et al. 2009; Lopez 2016). Their actions may include the potential to recreate the atmosphere of their homeland in their new receiving lands, to maintain strong connections with people of the same groups, and to find their own places or channels that will allow them to be able to enjoy their traditional ways of life. Shavit
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(2009, p. 24) states that “these efforts were constructive in reducing to some extent yearning feelings and in bridging some of the gaps between individuals and their homelands”. Gupta and Ferguson (1992, p. 11) state that:
Remembered places have often served as symbolic anchors of community for dispersed people. This has long been true of immigrants, who use memory of place to construct imaginatively their new lived world.
As a consequence, it could be argued that immigrants are enabled to imagine their native national communities from afar. A variety of activities the migrants perform in their host society are then grounded if based upon common identities they have shared with others from their place of origin (Citrin & Sides 2008). In addition, immigration and the idea of imagined community are closely allied as Anderson (1992, p. 13) states:
It may well be that we are faced here with a new type of nationalist: the ‘long-distance nationalist’ one might perhaps call him [fn. ‘Him’ because this type of politics seems to attract males more than females]. For while technically a citizen of the state in which he comfortably lives, but to which he may feel little attachment, he finds it tempting to play identity politics by participating (via propaganda, money, weapons, any way but voting) in the conflicts of his imagined Heimat —now only fax-time away.
The role of place in reconstructing the notion of imagining community is also the focus of scholars like Safran (1991) who researches on diasporic studies. Safran (1991) points out that the nature of diasporic phenomena revolves around the relationship of the diasporic group. Displaced people normally shared some or all characteristics below
(Safran 1991, p. 83):
the original community has spread from a homeland to two or more countries; they are bonded from their disparate geographical locations by a common vision, memory or myth about their homelands; they have a belief that they will never be accepted by their host societies and therefore develop their autonomous cultural and social needs; they or their descendants will return to the homeland should the conditions prove favourable; and
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they should continue to maintain support for homeland and therefore the communal consciousness and solidarity enables them to continue these activities.
The common perception that the migrant people have in mind importantly drives them to engage with people claiming to have common origins and a similar pattern of movement. This action is carried out to ensure that they have their own place in the new homeland surrounded by the people who have shared the same thoughts, some forms of common identity and various migration experiences (Gupta & Ferguson 1992; Shavit
2009). Moreover, staying close to the people of the same group allows them to indulge their accustomed and comfortable ways of life. Those actions are considered a predominant necessity for people’s migration experience. Safran (1991) also suggests that displacement and migration of people is believed to be a central aspect of connectivity and cultural reinvention and reconstruction. In the diasporic public sphere, the need to maintain strong links and identification with the tradition of the homeland is evoked by a sense of loss and displacement. However, instead of focusing on the displacement of people, Safran (1991) argues that scholars should draw attention to connectivity among people of a community.
In certain ways, however, diaspora plays a significant role in constructing and reinventing people’s identities and everyday lives (Mandaville 2001; Barney 2004;
Tsagarousianou 2004). There is a concern that the readiness and willingness of migrants to engage with and adjust themselves to the new and varied ways of living and cultural differences in a new homeland may affect the original cultural traditions, beliefs and perspectives in unleashing or inventing among others. Mandaville (2001, p. 172) points out:
The estrangement of a community in diaspora — its separation from the ‘natural’ setting of the homeland — often leads to a particularly intense search for and negotiation of identity: gone are many traditional anchor
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points of culture; conventional hierarchies of authority can fragment. In short, the condition of diaspora is one in which the multiplicity of identity and community is a key dynamic. The conceptual study of the nature of diaspora and migration indicates that the possibilities of place or diasporas and the intersection of connectivity have shaped and defined the meaning of place in the cultural symbols used to create imagined communities according to Anderson’s research (1991).
To conclude this section, according to Anderson (1983, 1991), community is imagined as a natural constellation of persons existing within a limited sovereign group with a shared history and trajectory. The personal sense of national identity and belonging in their homeland is the first and foremost factor that connects people with shared backgrounds together. The association of people is grounded in the main perception that they share some forms of common identity, often based upon a place of origin and the cultural and linguistic traits associated with it. In the situation of displacement, the experience of loss of migrant people, together with the spread of the vernacular media, essentially encourages the articulating of a community imagining. At the same time, these aspects also play a vital role in shaping the construction of people’s identity.
Appadurai (1996) asserts that the combination of mass media and mass migration co- constitutes and unleashes previously unknown sorts of desire and subjectivity. It also facilitates resources which are available and important for the reinvention and reconstruction of cultural identity.
Uses and gratifications theory
A large variety of discourse about how people use mobile communication technology and what they do to communicate with others has expanded as a broader trend among
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media researchers. Theoretically motivated, this research attempts to address the motivation of three Australian minority communities, Thai, Hmong and Rohingya, related to different mobile phone uses in order to better understand how they use mobile telephony to gratify their needs and to identify functions or consequences that follow from needs, motives and behaviour of the mobile phones users. The underpinning theory of technology use that fits well with the purpose of this study is referred to uses and gratifications grounded by Jay Blumler and Denis McQuail in 1969. The two scholars studied the political television programs during the time of the 1964 election in the UK in order to categorise the audiences’ motives for watching this type of media program. The audience motivation that Blumber and McQuail identified, therefore, formed the foundation for their own research about how people used and viewed mass media and eventually led to the development of the uses and gratifications theory (Katz et al. 1973; Stafford et al. 2004). This traditional approach has its roots in the communication literature of media effects. The approach was originated to investigate the motivations and gratifications that attract and hold audiences to a particular kind of media. This theory presumes that individuals have power over their media usage, rather than positioning individuals as passive consumers of media (Blumler & McQuail 1969).
Early in the history of communication researches, the audience-centred approach was employed to examine the developed practices of users of newspapers, children’s comics, radio and early television media (Katz et al. 1973) before it was applied to cable television, video recording, VCR remote control devices, digital television, the internet and recently studies in the emerging multimedia devices including mobile phones
(Stafford et al. 2004; Katz & Sugiyama 2006). The basic premise of the uses and gratifications theory is that individuals are actively involved in seeking out for the media in the media market that fulfils their needs and to be able to ultimate their level of
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satisfaction. Katz et al. (1973, p. 510) reveal that there are five important elements encompassing the uses and gratifications theory:
1. The audience is conceived as active. 2. In the mass communication process, much initiative in linking gratification and media choice lies with the audience member. 3. The media compete with other sources of satisfaction. 4. Methodologically speaking, many of the goals of mass media use can be derived from data supplied by individual audience members themselves. 5. Value judgments about the cultural significance of mass communication should be suspended while audience orientations are explored on their own terms.
Instead of examining mass communication from the perspective of the communicator, the uses and gratifications approach allows researchers to use the audience as a point of departure. The new focus of the user-centric approach of uses and gratifications is believed to provide a wider range of responses and interpretations from media users.
This comprehension, therefore, encourages me to adopt this theory as a model to investigate the use of mobile phones of people in Thai, Hmong and Rohingya communities in Australia.
Critiques of the uses and gratifications research approach
The uses and gratifications theory has provided mass communication scholars with a useful theoretical approach, especially in the early introduction stage of each new mass communication medium (Katz et al. 1973; Pool 1983). However, some mass communications scholars have contended that the uses and gratifications theory is not a precise social science theory to answer questions about media use. Criticisms of the uses and gratifications research focus on the imperfections of the theoretical and methodological framework. In the early uses of the uses and gratifications approach, it was conceptually critiqued to be too simplistic to accurately present the true
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gratifications (Severin & Tankard 1997). The approach was also criticised because it relied heavily on self-reporting. Moreover, it is challenged by the unsophisticated interpretation of the social origin of needs that audiences convey to the media (Mondi et al. 2008). A failure to consider audiences’ perceptions of media content is another challenge that affects the development of typologies of the uses people made of the media to gratify social and psychological needs (Ruggiero 2000). The disagreement by communication scholars has encouraged gratifications researchers to produce a more rigorous and comprehensive theory. The re-evaluation of the notion of uses and gratifications has continued to prove the effect in determining the importance of social context as a factor in the communication experience (Ko et al. 2005).
Although there are criticisms of the uses and gratifications framework, the approach is applied in a number of communication studies (Palmgreen & Rayburn 1979;
Korgaonkar & Wolin 1999; Papacharissi & Rubin 2000; Ko et al. 2005; Whiting &
Williams 2013). In addition, it is used extensively within the study of politics and the dissemination of the political message (McLeod & Becker 1974; Jackson & Lilleker
2007). The extensive use of the theory illustrates that gratification sought from media users could be used as a predictor of media use and recurring media use. In the next section, some previous studies are reviewed to show why it is important to study media uses from the perspective of media users, and how the uses and gratifications theory could allow for investigating the motivations for media consumption.
How the uses and gratifications theory guides the assessment of consumer motivations for media use and access
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People use technological instruments in many ways, some of which are perfectly correlated to the purposeful design while others are not prescribed by design and undetermined by situations (Katz 1977; Feenberg 1999). Human beings desire opportunities to develop and design rather than stick with the default modes or pre-set options. No matter what the genuine purpose of a product, people are actively enthusiastic in challenging or subverting the existing control embedded in a technology in order to serve their real needs which may be ignored by the intended design of the technological instrument. Barney (2004, p. 58) asserts:
In many cases uses are prescribed, standardised and adopted by individuals who assume the posture of consumers in choosing either to use the technology in the manner prescribed, or not to use it at all … You can’t use a technology in a manner that its design disallows (you can’t catch a cod with a lighthouse); however, you can use technologies in ways that their designers might not have intended, but which their designs nevertheless allow (you can use a lighthouse as a museum). We appropriate technologies for uses other than those for which they were designed all the time.
This circumstance is also applied to the use of mobile phones. Law’s article (2006) entitled The technology in your cell phone wasn’t invented for you reveals that the invention of mobile phones had an original inspiration to meet the needs of people with disabilities rather than the majority of the population. The technologies including the integrated circuit, Short Message Service (SMS), vibrating alerts, digital camera, CCD chips, speech recognition, speech output and polyphonic ring tones of the mobile phones were inclusively designed to enable mobile phones “to be useable without vision, useable without hearing, and useable with limited physical capabilities” (Law
2006, p. 1). However, in today’s society, mobile phones have significantly become domesticated in people’s everyday lives. Fossard and Joly (1974) and McGraw (1977) also affirm the point.
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Law (2006) concludes that the concept of inventing a particular technology may not reflect a real product. The actual outcome may be adjusted to be good or bad depending on what one considers to be the most desirable form. In the case of mobile phones, it could be argued that mobile phones are the outcome of an adjusted purpose to maximise the benefits of those inventions and expand them to those for whom the project was not originally aimed.
The idea of media application facilitates the user-driven transformation which develops the complex relationship of essence, design, situation and use pattern. A magnitude of new possibilities which a technology might offer possibly makes the technology strive well beyond the classic design. In the case of mobile phones, they have been amended to carry out everyday tasks of people at all life stages, rather than just business users or disabled people, making the coordination of everyday life be prevalently perceived as the most beneficial use of them (Lindholm et al. 2003; Ling 2004).
It can be concluded that the widespread adoption of mobile telephony allows the needs of mobile phone subscribers to be addressed by multiple functions offered on the devices. These conclusions simply hold the essence of the uses and gratifications approach that audiences are responsible for choosing media to meet their desires and needs to achieve gratifications. At the same time, the conclusion could be implied that the mobile phones are able to perform well and effectively compete against other media in order to gain user satisfaction.
The application of the uses and gratifications model in this research
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The previous section demonstrated that personal or private use was not the initial purpose for which the mobile telephone was invented. However, it eventually gained popular support from people at all stages of life and has contributed to various advancements in today’s society. Today’s mobile phones have come a long way beyond voice telecommunication devices. A considerable number of added-on, non-voice functions on mobile phones such as the internet and camera have importantly allowed these devices to completely shift from a pure voice model to a hybrid voice and data model (Potts 2010). The developing scenario in mobile telephony, of course, influences and enlarges options for communication of mobile phone users. As a consequence, the uses and gratifications for this study may need to draw from related communication technologies such as social media, mobile internet and the internet. Figure 10 provides an overview of some previous uses and gratifications studies.
Although there are many research studies on the uses and gratifications specifically for mobile phones I could utilise as a guideline of my own research, I find that the uses and gratifications model for social media of Whiting and Williams (2013) well-identified the different motivations in the use of media in terms of audiences’ communication behaviours and the consequences of those behaviours. In addition, the study investigates the uses and gratifications themes which people receive from using social media in order to explain why people utilise and like social media. The main focus of the study is very similar to my own study. As a consequence, Whiting and Williams’s model (2013) is perfect to be referred to. Moreover, according to my consideration, the model is easy to be adapted and extended when trying to understand how three selected ethnic communities in Australia, Thai, Hmong and Rohingya, use mobile telephony to gratify their needs.
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Researcher(s) Research Identified motivations area
Eighmey and Internet purchase interest, controversy, clarity of purpose, McCord (1998) continuing relationship, personal involvement
Leung and Wei Mobile phone fashion/status, sociability, entertainment, information (2000) seeking, utility
Aoki and Mobile phone personal safety, financial incentive, information Downes (2003) access, social interaction, parental contacts, time management, dependency, image, privacy management
Stafford et al. Internet resources, search engine, surfing the internet, (2004) website education, information, learning research, chatting, friends, interaction, people
Gillenson and Mobile convenience, efficiency, immediacy, ease of use, Stafford (2004) internet speed, productivity
Chigona et al. Mobile process motivations, content motivations, social (2008) internet motivations
Whiting and Social media social interaction, information seeking, pass time, Williams (2013) entertainment, relaxation, express opinions, communicatory utility, convenient utility, information sharing, surveillance/knowledge about others
Figure 10: An overview of some previous uses and gratifications studies
There is another reason influencing me to utilise the uses and gratifications model proposed by Whiting and Williams (2013). Arguably, the evolution of mobile devices and their applications for social interaction has altered the unforeseen habits of people’s everyday life. The use of social networking sites has become the principal reason for obtaining mobile phones for many people (Eyrich et al. 2008; Barners & Lescault
2011). Therefore, it is not surprising that the uses and gratifications themes of social media and mobile phones reveal similarities in their acquisition and use (Ling 2004). As
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a result, I adopted the analysis of uses and gratifications for using social media approach as suggested by Whiting and Williams (2013) as a reference model when discussing the findings in Chapter VII. Whiting and Williams’s model provides a structure for describing and analysing how people in the three selected communities, Thai, Hmong and Rohingya, utilise their mobile phones to fulfil their personal desires. Yet other uses and gratifications models are also considered and adapted in this research where possible in order to ensure that this research covers as many mobile phone use themes as possible.
The influential factors on mobile phone usage variety
According to Bina and Giaglis (2005), mobile phone usage is varied and complex to understand because many important factors have favoured and influenced the adoption and use of mobile devices. However, this research believes that it is possible to develop an understanding of the factors that encourage many different aspects of mobile phone usage in people’s everyday lives. In order to do so, this research considers three factors which play a vital role in motivating mobile phone usage: demographic, motivational and cultural issues. However, the cultural issues are the main focus of this research. The use of mobile phones in accordance with the three issues will then be categorised by referring to Whiting and Williams’s uses and gratifications model (details in Chapter
VII).
Demographic factors
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Demographic factors are understood as the quantifiable statistics of a population. They are commonly used to identify the characteristic of a group within that population at the period of time of a study. Examples of demographic variables are gender, age, nationality, language (mother tongue) and educational level. Mobile phones are used for a variety of purposes and by a range of people within groups. Different mobile phone user groups have different needs and purposes (Coen et al. 2002; Lindholm et al. 2003;
Balaji et al. 2005).
The foremost demographic factor which has long been recognised as having a noticeable influence on mobile phone usage is age. Alafeef et al. (2011) reveal that people in different age groups showed different levels of interest and familiarity with mobile technology, while people in the same age group indicated similar responses. In addition, people who were under twenty-five years of age were commonly interested in using and adapting new mobile technologies. The research of ACMA (2013a) shows that eighty-nine per cent of Australian teenagers aged fourteen to seventeen owned a mobile phone, and sixty-nine per cent of those phones were smartphones. Among adolescents, mobile phones are treated more as a source of entertainment and communicating with friends (Grinter & Eldridge 2001; Ling 2004; Haste 2005;
Nurullah 2009). Lenhart et al. (2010, p. 2) reaffirm the importance of mobile phone usage among teenagers by stating that for teenagers, “the phone has become a social and entertainment hub”. As a consequence, the main mobile phone usage among the teens concentrated extensively on social networking services and entertainment such as music, games and video.
Beyond the functional capabilities, the mobile phones themselves are also a fashion statement and status symbol for teenagers (Ling 2004; Haste 2005; Katz & Sugiyama
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2006). The mobile phones have become an important object which adolescents consider using and owning to reflect their personality and group identity (Haste 2005). In other words, the relationship between teenagers and mobile phones habitually signifies the integration between the subjectively imagined image and their actual facade (Grinter &
Eldridge 2001; Nurullah 2009).
Not only in adolescents’ everyday lives, mobile phones are also essential consumer products utilised by older people. Biljon (2006, p. 32) asserts that most of the satisfaction with mobile phones among older adults is obstructed by “the decline of memory capacity, decrease in processing speed and diminished spatial visualization abilities”. Furthermore, Ziefle and Bay (2004) emphasise that a high number of older people are unfamiliar with the menu-driven technology. Navabi et al. (2016) reinforce the point by revealing that older adults aged fifty-five and above considered their mobile phones to be very difficult to use. As a result, they preferred to have a basic phone with only basic phone features such as the regular phone call, emergency call, clock and call history. Moreover, older people were conservative in their mobile phone use. They used their basic mobile phones mainly for personal communication and safety and security purposes where the mobile phones provide immediate accessibility (Coen et al. 2002; Ling 2004).
Motivational factors
Various theories could be utilised to model human needs. One of the important theories used in this research is the hierarchy of human needs presented by Abraham Maslow
(1943). Maslow’s theory (1943) is a well-known and influential model of psychological needs. Maslow (1943) first proposed five levels of human motivational needs. The
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model suggests that people are motivated to fulfil basic needs before moving on to more advanced needs.
Maslow’s hierarchical model of motivational needs was later developed and expanded to a total of eight stages (Maslow & Lowery 1998). Those eight levels of human motivational needs are often depicted as the hierarchical levels within a pyramid. The lowest levels of the pyramid are made up of the most fundamental needs, while the more complex needs are located at the top of the pyramid (see Figure 11). According to
Maslow (1943), these human needs are similar to instincts and play a major role in motivating behaviours. He suggests that the reason behind every activity people perform is a need that wants to be satisfied. The hierarchy of motivational needs identifies the basic types of individual motivation and the order in which they should be met.
The hierarchy of needs starts with the psychological needs which are physical requirements for human survival. Examples of the psychological needs are the needs for food, water, air and sleep. Once the physical needs are satisfied, the individual’s safety needs will then take precedence and dominate behaviour. Security needs are important for survival. However, they are not as demanding as the physiological needs. Examples of security needs include a desire for steady employment, health care and safe neighbourhoods. After the physiological and safety needs are fulfilled, the next level of human needs is interpersonal and involves feelings of belongingness. Maslow (1943) suggests that people need to feel a sense of belonging and companionship among their social groups no matter how large or small. The fourth stage of motivational needs is esteem. Every person has a need to feel respected and valued (both from self-esteem and esteem they receive from others). People take their actions from their ego needs.
They appreciate recognition from others in order to believe in themselves and have a
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sense of accomplishment. Next level is cognitive needs. People may feel a need to increase their own intelligence, and they search for information and knowledge to gain a better understanding of the world around them. At this stage, people desire to explore and acquire new experiences. With the previous needs fulfilled, people may recognise their motive to refresh themselves with beauty, nature, art, music and the other aesthetic aspects. Subsequently, people will move to self-actualisation needs. It is one of the instinctual needs of humans to realise what a person’s full potential is. Maslow (1954, p.
91) describes this need as “the desire to accomplish everything that one can, to become the most that one can be”. The highest level of motivational needs is transcendence which is a desire to help others find self-fulfilment and to realise one’s personal potential.
In the context of mobile phone use, Maslow’s theory of motivational needs could be applied to develop an understanding of human behaviour. As people use mobile phones to satisfy their perceived needs, there are identified links between mobile phones and
Maslow’s hierarchy (Bedny & Meister 1997; Humphreys 2005; Meloche & Hasan
2008). Tamminen et al. (2004) examine the motivational aspects related to the use of mobile phones and recognise that the use of the mobile phones are directly associated with the motivational needs. For the need of safety and security, mobile phones are widely adopted as a means to maintain safety and promote a sense of security. Safety and security is the most basic reason for people to own a mobile phone (Ling 2004;
Tamminen et al. 2004). Ling (2004) also says that, in case of an emergency, people feel much more confidence when they have their mobile phones with them because the devices ensure that they will not be alone. Furthermore, the mobile telephone can truly extend the possibility of survival and help reduce the time needed to contact and
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respond to medical emergencies. Mobile phones can also act as a location finder for emergency services.
Personal privacy is another area that incorporates the safety and security need. Privacy in social interaction is important in the mobile context. Mobile phones have engendered a transition for the individual. They allow direct person-to-person connections which do not preclude the viability for personal conversations that landline phones usually do
(Lindholm et al. 2003; Ling 2004; Tamminen 2004).
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Transcendence
Self- Actualisation - personal fulfillment.
Aesthetic - appreciation and search for beauty, balance, etc.
Cognitive - knowledge, meaning, etc.
Esteem - self-esteem, achievement, mastery, independence, status, dominance, prestige, managerial responsibility, etc.
Love and belongingness - friendship, intimacy, affection love, etc.
Safety - protection from elements, security, order, law, stability, etc.
Biological and Physiological - air, food, drink, shelter, warmth, sleep, etc.
Figure 11: Maslow’s hierarchy of motivational needs
The belongingness needs also emerged in mobile phone usage. Mobile phones are adopted by a number of people as a means to help create and sustain the social dimensions of their lives (Tamminen et al. 2004; Biljon 2006). Humans are by nature inherently social beings. Social coordination via mobile phones is necessary to enhance the power of relationships between individuals and is a common everyday activity.
Mobile devices have eventually been developed to better encourage the strong and fundamental human desire for social belonging and interpersonal exchange (Ling 2004;
Goggin 2006). In contemporary society, mobile phones have demonstrated the
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development of complex social behaviour. One of the most important social developments in mobile media, which well-services the need of socialisation, has been the built-in camera (Okabe 2004; Rohs & Gfeller 2004). Camera phones importantly change mobile phone practices by allowing mobile phone users to take snapshots and even videos and send them to other people which help to provide continuous connectivity. More to the point, the use of camera-equipped mobile phone could be seen as far more than entertainment, and maintains social networks (Nielsen 2015). People also expand their use of camera phones to address their special needs and interests such as creating mobile documentary photographs or mobile videos and enabling new forms of citizen journalism (Rohs & Gfeller 2004). The new and creative use of mobile phones illustrates the strong needs driven from the higher-level of people’s motivational needs. The need to have a sense of accomplishment along with the need to know, to understand and to explore may push a person to discover new and useful ways of using mobile phones. The need to find self-fulfilment and realise their own potential may cause the person to produce a mobile short film, full of creative, inventive and original ideas to self-realise his or her strengths and weaknesses. These motivation-driven actions indicate the ability of humans to repurpose media in their own ways in accordance with their motivational needs (Barney 2004).
The use of the mobile phone for enhancing one’s esteem also deserves consideration.
Mobile telephony has become one of the primary technology tools which people enjoy using in order to participate in creating content and online social networking for a range of cultural, social as well as commercial purposes (Lindholm et al. 2003; Ling 2004;
Goggin 2006). The rapid expansion of the extent and perceived importance of participation in the process of designing, making, circulating and evaluating content through blogs and social networking websites highlights the self-esteem needs of
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achievement, mastery, independence, dominance and prestige (Burgess & Banks 2010).
The use of mobile phones for creating user-generated content and online social networking embraces people’s potential to be a creator rather than a passive audience member. Moreover, other people in the online world could be beneficially inspired or encouraged by those originally produced works (Tamminen et al. 2004; Moeller 2012).
Cultural factors
The term ‘culture’ has been differently defined and interpreted by scholars. In the anthropological sense, for example, Hofstede (1994, p. 5) defines the term as “the collective programming of the mind which distinguishes the members of one group or category of people from another”. Spencer-Oatey (2008, p. 3) also gives the concept of the term ‘culture’ as follows:
[a] A fuzzy set of basic assumptions and values, orientations to life, policies, procedures and behavioural conventions that are shared by a group of people, and that influence (but do not determine) each member’s behaviour and his/her interpretations of the ‘meaning’ of other people’s behaviour.
According to the two definitions, it can be understood that different groups of people share and learn a different set of norms, values and practices which importantly distinguish them from other social groups. The small and limited diversity of thoughts, feeling and actions shared in a particular social group allows people to have a sense of belonging.
In terms of mobile phone usage, ‘culture’ is another essential element that plays a crucial role in influencing the diverse range of mobile phone uses, and is the main focus of this study. From a cultural perspective, the patterns of thinking, feeling and acting that people in a particular culture share are believed to influence more homogeneous
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results on a particular topic (Palen et al. 2000; Lindholm et al. 2003; Muk 2007). In addition, social influence is meaningful as a coercive power that may compel a group of people to conform to group behaviour.
Lindholm et al. (2003) investigate the mobile phone use of Indian people in order to identify relevant and sensitive cultural factors involved in the mobile phone experience.
They show that the distinctive characteristics of environmental setting, cultural values, economic possibilities, religious beliefs and legislative regulation in India certainly have a strong influence on mobile phone communication. As Indian cities are noisy and crowded, the Indian mobile phone users usually shouted into the phone. Additionally, they often covered one ear with a hand to better hear or they used a hand to cover the space between mouth and the phone to reduce background noise. This unpleasant experience with the mobile phones leads to the improvement of background noise reduction (Lindholm et al. 2003). Adding Hindi greeting or religious symbols to a text message was another cultural aspect found within the Indian mobile phone usage
(Lindholm et al. 2003). The desire to have Hindi ringing tones was also recognised.
These cultural priorities were spread across Hindu people (Lindholm et al. 2003).
Therefore, the mobile phones were later developed to accommodate this cultural factor of the Indian users. Moreover, Tenhunen (2008) examines the appropriation of the mobile telephone in the local culture of Indian people in a rural area. Tenhunen (2008) asserts that, while the use of mobile phones embodies local culture and social contexts, it also has a great ability to disrupt the structure of social interactions. In addition, in
Indian culture, during the first year of a daughters’ marriage, mothers visiting daughters is considered as an intrusive action. Contacting the daughters by phone, according to
Tenhunen (2008), has become an unconventional preference for many mothers because it enhanced their ability to stay in constant touch with their children without offending
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the cultural ways of life. However, the practice could negatively contribute to the modification or negotiation of local norms (Tenhunen 2008).
Further research which provides an understanding of the relationship between cultural factors and mobile usage is from Muk (2007). He investigates the cultural influences on the adoption of SMS advertising via mobile phones between American and Taiwanese people. Muk (2007) reveals that cultural differences between American and Taiwanese people had a significant impact on a person’s propensity to adopt SMS advertising.
According to Muk (2007), American research participants indicated the cultural characteristics of individualists. In an individualist society, people were more concerned about privacy issues. Unsurprisingly, the research shows that American consumers’ intentions to adopt SMS advertising were predominantly influenced by their own privacy concerns. On the other hand, Taiwanese people emphasised the importance of sharing, cooperation and group harmony which is an important characteristic of a collectivist culture. Regarding the cultural values, the research shows that the
Taiwanese people’s decisions on accepting SMS advertising were influenced by reference groups and leadership opinions.
Summary
This chapter offers a review of the public sphere (Habermas 1989). The public sphere is a space where every individual is able to engage in and articulate independent views and to communicate collectively on relevant issues. This rational public discussion is facilitated as a result of the capacity for people to freely discuss and identify societal problems. However, critics such as Fraser (1991), Schudson (1997) and Susen (2011) point out the absence of women and social inequality in Harbermas’s public sphere.
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They state that if there is only a single public sphere, the minority groups would be subjected to the supervision of a dominant group and therefore be at risk of being denied the opportunity to express and defend their own interests. As a result, the concept of multiple public spheres is proposed and is claimed as more preferable because of the ability to rescue minorities from the dominant public sphere.
Media play a role in performing as a platform, manipulator and also as a precondition of the existence of the public sphere. It seems that mass media indeed are the public sphere
(Habermas 1989; O’Shaughnessy & Stadler 2002). The wide array of information presented in the media can make people change their opinions and views in positive ways. However, mass media’s roles in terms of identifying and promoting the public interest remain problematic. Media content has been found to suit only the majority of people’s primary interests. Minorities, thus, are being ignored, silenced or even misrepresented by mainstream media (Downing & Husband 2005; Dreher 2010a). The emergence of community media is an outcome of this dissatisfaction. Community media have great abilities to deal with the diversity of cultures, provide a space for debating and experiencing alternative viewpoints and lifestyles, and ensure their accountability to the particular community concerns (Couldry & Dreher 2007). This reflects the idea of multiple public spheres proposed by Fraser (1991). In multicultural
Australia, community media stations serve many needs and interests of local geographic communities and specific communities of interest. Throughout the community media sector, a variety of languages and media choices provides invaluable opportunities to many different ethnic groups in Australia. It creates an ethnic public sphere in the society, and makes a valuable contribution to the concept of multiculturalism by encouraging people from various backgrounds, beliefs and races to assemble for the benefits of collaboration via the media.
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Mobile phones arguably play the role of ethnic media for ethnic migrants. They have the ability to facilitate and manage the practice of feeling ethnic among migrants (Erni
2016). Mobile phones as ethnic media are vital in presenting important symbolic and cultural resources and supporting the formation of sense of self in pluralistic societies like Australia.
Anderson (1983) states that a nation is a socially constructed community, imagined by the people who perceive themselves as part of that group and have always known that they are connected to people they have never seen. The sense of nationality, the personal and cultural feeling of belonging to the nation, is disseminated and created via media. The growth of new communication technologies has made it possible for people to link themselves to others much more conveniently and effectively. At the same time, it is also uniting national diasporas. The imagined communities of diasporas over the internet are even stronger, more visual and clearly imagined (Bernal 2006; Pentecost
2011). Through the use of the internet, immigrants are enabled to imagine their native national communities from afar as well as develop identities within social networks that connect them to two or more societies simultaneously (Bernal 2006; Diminescu 2008;
Elias & Lemish 2009; Kissau & Hunger 2010; Komito 2011).
According to Anderson (1992), migration is the other factor that importantly generates the construction of the imagined community. The common identity which immigrants share basically drive them to engage with others of the same background. The action allows them to indulge in their accustomed and comfortable ways of life while living in the new host country. However, there is a concern that the willingness of migrants to engage with and adjust themselves to the new and varied ways of living and cultural
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differences in a new homeland may affect the original cultural traditions, beliefs and perspectives in unleashing or inventing among others.
As mobile phones have become tremendously popular and have been used by a massive number of people across the globe, a large variety of discourses about how people use mobile phones and what people do to communicate with others has expanded as a broader trend. In this thesis, the uses and gratifications theory (Blumler & McQuail
1969) is chosen to explore how Australian minorities use mobile phones. This approach helps to discover motives and selection patterns of audiences for the new mass media.
The analysis of previous uses and gratifications communication studies leads to the conclusion that people are responsible for choosing media to meet their desires and needs to achieve gratification. Since this research is similar to the uses and gratifications study of Whiting and Williams (2013), the uses and gratifications themes identified in the study will be mainly referred to. However, other uses and gratifications models are also considered and adopted in this research where possible. This research applies the three possible factors — demographic factors, motivational factors and cultural factors
— in order to develop an understanding of the factors that encourage many different aspects of mobile phone usage among minorities in Australia.
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CHAPTER V
Research design and methodology
This research is designed to discover the ways in which three particular ethnic communities — the Thai, Hmong and Rohingya communities — use mobile telephones in Australia. This framework is to understand the media use in the context of building cultural identity, maintaining community connections, and the migrant settlement experience. The principal aim of the thesis is therefore to explore what roles mobile phones play in the lives of diasporic minorities in Australia. In order to obtain the information on the mobile phone use of the subject groups, various research practices of both qualitative and quantitative approaches including personal interviews, surveys using short questionnaires and participant observation are applied. This chapter sets out to present the methodology applied in the research and to explain how and why the mixed research approaches could lead to answering the main research question.
Research design
In order to understand the contextual information on mobile phone use among
Australian ethnic minorities, this research is planned and conducted in phases, where the finding of one phase could be used as an input of the next step. This research follows the conventional research format, where the literature review is presented in
Chapter III to provide an important overview of this study. The existing body of knowledge in the field of mobile phone communication and migration and multiculturalism in Australia is reviewed. Chapter IV focuses on the epistemological
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and theoretical foundations for this research. Then, the thesis is followed by the explanation of the research design and methodology. The data collecting process is designed to gain a better understanding of the way in which people from the three selected ethnic communities in Australia, Thai, Hmong and Rohingya, use their mobile phones in their everyday lives. Moreover, it aims to capture the motivational and cultural factors that possibly influence the mobile phone use. For these particular purposes, two main information-gathering processes are selected. They are in-depth interviews and surveys by means of distributing short questionnaires. The in-depth interview is designed for extracting in-depth information from a limited number of people while the questionnaire is planned to gain a larger number of responses.
Moreover, participant observation is also conducted to understand cultures, social situations and mobile phone practices from the perspectives of the people (Tacchi et al.
2003). The combination of qualitative and quantitative research approaches adopted in this study allows them to supplement each other. As a result, this research is able to obtain more insightful information on the use of mobile phones of the research participants. After this, the obtained research data is analysed and identified for the mobile phone uses and gratification themes. The similarities and differences in the motives of mobile phone use among the three communities are also discussed. Then, the relevant cultural dimensions for mobile phone use are investigated. Finally, the research offers a conclusion on the roles mobile telephony play in advancing the lives of minority people in Australia. Figure 12 shows the design notation of this research.
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• Multicultural Australia • Mobile telephony and minorities Literature • The network technology and the network society review • The adoption and use of mobile communication • The concept of the public sphere • The concept of imagined communities Theoretical framworks • Uses and gratifications theory
• Partcipant observations Data • In-depth interviews gathering • Surveys using short questionaires • Identifying the uses and gratifications themes of mobile phone • Identifing similarities and differences in the motives of mobile phone Data analysis uses among the three selected communities
• Finding out whether the differences in traditional cultures and backgrounds impact on the mobile phones usage Researh • Answering the main research question: The role of mobile telephony in evaluation advancing lives of minority people in Australia
Figure 12: Research design notation
Research methods used in this study
1. Combining qualitative and quantitative research approaches
The integration of qualitative and quantitative research approaches is commonly referred to as ‘mixed method research’. This methodology originated in the social sciences, and has recently expanded into many areas of research such as health and medical science (Creswell 2008). The basic premise of this approach is that it enables a more complete and synergistic utilisation of research data than single qualitative or quantitative approaches could provide. In addition, mixed method research can be viewed as an approach which draws upon the strengths and perspectives of each
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method, allowing the collection of rich and comprehensive research data (Ostlund et al.
2011).
In this research, the mixed method approach is adopted to complement each phase of data-gathering. I consider that the combined strengths of the two approaches (with supplementary data created through participant observation field notes) could allow me to better access information as well as better reflect research subjects’ point of view.
The investigation into the role mobile phones play in assisting Australian minority people’s lives would require me to use the qualitative method to acquire information on how study participants think of this media, and what the mobile phones mean to them.
Moreover, the qualitative research method is used as an important technique to assess participants’ personal mobile phone experience. A series of in-depth interviews with seven selected members from each community is designed to obtain the richer, qualitative data for this study.
In terms of the quantitative method, short questionnaire-based survey was chosen to collect essential quantitative data. A number of closed-ended questions including rating scales are used to capture some important data and measure participants’ attitudes and behaviours related to mobile phones. More details about the survey are presented later in this chapter. The use of quantitative methodology in this research is considered useful as it could provide overview data on mobile phone adoption, features and services of people in the three selected communities. Moreover, it could help enhance and validate the research data. In doing so, the quantitative study is used to verify or dispute the findings from qualitative data (Robson 2002). I argue that, by doing so, this research can create solid foundations for drawing research conclusions on the role of mobile phones in assisting minorities’ lives while living in multicultural Australia.
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2. Case study
Case study is one of the important qualitative research methods. There have been a large number of applications of the case study research method across a variety of disciplines.
This project also applies the case study method. Case study is an ideal methodology or strategy when a holistic, in-depth investigation or the comparison of a single or small number of cases set in the real-world context is needed (Hamel et al. 1993). It helps emphasising detailed contextual analysis and produces deep understanding of a limited number of events or conditions and their relationships. Yin (1984, p. 23) defines the case study research method as:
An empirical inquiry that investigates a contemporary phenomenon within its real-life context, especially when the boundaries between phenomenon and context are not clearly evident; and in which multiple sources of evidence are used.
Yin’s statement highlights the importance of the case study method in being a valuable way to look at the world. It offers the ability to undertake an investigation into a phenomenon in its context. To apply this kind of study method, researchers do not need to replicate the phenomenon in a laboratory or experimental setting in order to better understand it.
This research employs case study methodology as the main research approach. The primary reason is that the approach allowed me as a researcher to closely observe the mobile phone use of minority people in the natural environment of the group under study.
As this thesis aims to understand the mobile phone use of people in different cultures and backgrounds in a multicultural environment in Australia, the case study approach is useful in the process of investigation, description, interpretation and analysis of a culture or social group through field research within the participants’ own environment.
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According to Johansson (2003, p. 2), the notion of the case study has been commonly agreed by recognised case study researchers such as Yin (1984), Easton (1992), Hamel et al. (1993), Perry (1998), Gomm et al. (2000) and Saunders et al. (2000) which could be shortly described as below:
The case study should have a ‘case’ which is the object of the study. The ‘case’ should be a complex functioning unit; be investigated in its natural context with a multitude of methods; and be contemporary events when the relevant behaviour cannot be manipulated.
There are two types of case study research designs: a single and multiple-case. The case serves as a main unit of analysis in a case study and helps to decide how researchers label their research studies. Selecting the unit of analysis is important. Such a process should ensure that there is a clear view of what is to be achieved by the case study. Questions to be asked should only be relevant to the unit of analysis and any sub-units. Therefore, in the process of selection, the unit of analysis must be determined by considering the research purpose, research questions, propositions and theoretical context (Rowley 2002).
Moreover, other factors such as resources, accessibility and time available should be taken into account when designing the research study (Stake 1995). Stake (1995) also asserts that the cases in a multiple-case study, as in the experiments in a multiple- experiment study, might have been selected to predict similar or contrasting results.
Thai, Hmong and Rohingya communities as main objects of this study
In this thesis, three ethnic communities in Australia, Thai Hmong and Rohingya, are selected to be cases or objects of the study. As a consequence, this research can be recognised as a multiple-case study. The three communities are carefully chosen with the main purpose to stress that the central focus of the project is limited to South-East Asia.
The historical background of each community presented in Chapter II shows the ancestral
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origin of the three ethnic communities in South-East Asia which supports the research justification. Moreover, I am aware of synergies between these and the Thai community to which I belong. Reasonable familiarity with the range of cultural backgrounds, values and practices that the three communities share could help me understand, explore and reflect better on the criteria for interpreting the findings. Besides this, the cohesiveness of the unit of analysis is believed to be more likely to produce meaningful outcomes
(Rowley 2002; Goodrick 2014). The great availability of and accessibility to the three ethnic communities in Australia are also crucial aspects that make the three communities appropriate to serve as main units of analysis in this case study.
Although the three units of analysis are selected due to their cohesion in one aspect which
I have described earlier, they present distinctions and complexities in another. The distinctions are the relative differences in community backgrounds as well as the length of community residency in Australia, which I consider could influence differences in mobile phone uses. In order to describe the three selected communities in relation to time of living and establishing their community in Australia, I adopt the three important background terms: “recently-arrived community”, “new and emerging community” and
“established community”, which are authoritatively described by the Ethnic communities’
Council of Victoria or ECCV (2012, p. 2). As suggested by ECCV, the three terms used in this research could be described as follow:
‘Recently-arrived community’ is used in this thesis to describe a community consisting of first and second generation migrants, refugees, asylum seekers and also permanent residents who have been living in Australia less than five years. Those migrants and refugees may be still in need of cultural and linguistic support.
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‘New and emerging community’ is the term applied to a community which is small in number, and has recently settled in Australia. The community may have insufficient infrastructure resources, community structures, support systems and also family networks, relative to more established ethnic communities. Moreover, the community is more vulnerable than established communities as members of the group are often from a refugee background and have experienced displacement due to civil conflict. Besides this, the members often have low levels of education, limited English language skills and are unfamiliar with mainstream government services that are available across Australia.
‘Established community’ is used in this thesis to define a community that has generally been settled in Australia between one to two generations or more. Communities of this kind are commonly long-term resident communities, particularly those from a refugee background who arrived in the post-World War II and Vietnam War periods. The established communities unusually develop significant networks of family and community supports and have well-established independent and interdependent infrastructure and resources. However, they may encounter community identity challenges and complexities related to inter-generational differences.
According to the community definitions above and the historical background of each community presented in Chapter II, I could classify that among the three selected ethnic communities, the Rohingya community in Australia presents many characteristics of
‘recently-arrived community’ as well as ‘new and emerging community’, allowing it to be recognised with those two terms. The presence of the Rohingya people in Australia could be traced back no earlier than 2008 (Department of Immigration and Border
Protection 2015; Refugee Council of Australia 2015). There is also no official census data revealing the total number of the Australian-Rohingya population due to the short period of settlement as well as the problem of identity burden of the ethnicity (McAuliffe &
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Jayasuriya 2016). Besides this, members of this ethnic community reported experiencing many settlement issues such as language and communication barriers, psychological effects of trauma and fragmented social networking and community structures, which are significant characteristics of ‘Recently-arrived community’ and ‘New and emerging community’ (Huda 2014, pers. comm.; MDA 2015).
On the other hand, the Thai and Hmong communities are more suitable to be described as
‘established communities’. The Hmong is an ethnic community that arrived in Australia during World War II and Vietnam War period in 1976, and has developed to become an established community since then. Currently, according to the 2015 community- conducted Australian-Hmong census (Saykao 2015, pers. comm.), there are 3,517 Hmong residents living across the Australian nation and most of them are Australian citizens.
The Thai community is an ethnic community with a non-refugee background; it presents a certain level of independent and interdependent infrastructure and resources
(Taneerananon 2011; Ministry of Foreign Affair of the Kingdom of Thailand 2013), and can be recognised as an established community. A substantial number of community network supports including the establishment of different types of community media and
Australian-Thai community groups/associations are significant in presenting how well the
Thai community has been established in Australian society (Beasley et al. 2014).
While the Hmong and the Rohingya have a long history of refugee affairs, the two communities are different, especially in terms of the length of community residency in
Australia. The Hmong is apparently a well-established ethnic community in Australia due to the longer history of migration. On the other hand, the Rohingya is relatively small, newly-arrived and newly-established. The issues around traumatic events include loss of, or separation from, family members, physical and psychological torture, human rights
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abuses and dangerous journeys to Australia, along with prolonged periods of deprivation in refugee camps or marginalisation in urban settings, are still fresh in the minds of members of the Rohingya community. In Chapter II, historical backgrounds as well as cultural values and practices of each community are presented in more detail in order to address various issues encountered before becoming minority communities in Australia.
The background information is essential to help find out whether the similarities and differences in community history and cultural practices influence the use of mobile phones.
According to Yin (1984), case study methodology is normally employed with the ultimate purpose of arriving at a comprehensive understanding of the event under study and also to practically develop a more general theoretical statement about regularities in the observed phenomena. By comparing and contrasting the use of mobile phones among the three ethnic communities, this research also aims to demonstrate generalisations from the case study if possible. However, generalisations can only be done when case study design has been appropriately informed by theory (Rowley 2002). The method of generalisation for case studies is analytical generalisation; a previously developed theory is used as a template to establish logic that might be applicable to other situations (Stake 1995). On the basis of replication logic, multiple-case design is preferred, which is the reason why this research is set to be a multiple-case rather than a single case one. If two or more cases are shown to represent the same theory, replication can be claimed.
Data gathering
In using a case study approach, Rowley (2002) points out that researches should be aware of potential bias and the use of vague evidence which could influence the
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findings of the research. In order to avoid these, he suggests that the researcher should use a variety of data-gathering methods to ensure that the obtained data is balanced and accurate. Therefore in this research, an integration of qualitative and quantitative research methods is adopted to collect data as it is considered useful and appropriate in allowing me to clarify meaning, verify the repeatability of the data as well as explore more deeply and contextually how minorities in Thai, Hmong and Rohingya communities use their mobile phones.
The process of data-gathering of this research had a duration of two years, from
November 2013 to November 2015. I include the adoption of participant observations, interviews and surveys. The participant observation is conducted first in the beginning of the process of data-gathering, followed by the other two key approaches: participant in-depth interviews and short questionnaire-based surveys. Seven people from each community group participated in the in-depth interview sessions. For the questionnaire, the study has 150 participants, fifty from each selected community. The short questionnaire contains questions for capturing demographic details of participants as well as questions on the use of their mobile phones and preferences in using the mobile phones. In summary, there were 171 participants, with fifty-seven from each community involved in this current research. Besides this, I carry out other methods such as field notes and diaries while performing participant observations as suggested by Hickey and Mohan (2004) in order to gain information at the community level.
The implement of several data-gathering approaches in commonly found in ethnographic research, which is the research that based on long-term engagement in the field of study (Tacchi et al. 2013). This research may not be recognised as one of those, however, I consider that the use of multi-method approach of participant observations,
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interviews and surveys is appropriate and useful to the situation of the research to compare data culled from various sources. By putting the material gained from the three different methods of data-collecting together and in relation to each other, “this avoids the risk that stem from reliance on a single kind of data: the possibility that one’s findings are method-dependant” (Hammersley & Atkinson 1991, p. 24). The use of a variety of data-collecting methods including face-to-face interviews, contextual inquiry observations and self-report surveys was also employed in a similar research of Muller et al. (2012), which studied how people in three different locations across the US use mobile tablets in their everyday lives. The adoption of the multi-method approach helped gather insight and information about how the tablets were used and triangulated varying data. I expect that the employment of the three different methods of data- collecting — participant observations, interviews and surveys — could benefit this research the same way it did for Muller et al. (2012) and allows this research to develop a richer understanding on the use of mobile telephony of the Thai, Hmong and
Rohingya communities in Australia.
1. Participant observation
The process of data-gathering begins with the conduction of observations at local meetings and community cultural events. Field observation is one of the important participatory techniques, and has gained popularity in a range of disciplines as a tool for collecting data about people, processes and cultures. Moreover, it has been accepted as a part of the range of methodological tools available to academic researchers in more recent decades (Kawulich 2005; Jorgensen 2014). Participant observation can be defined as a process that enables researchers to learn more about the activities of people
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by observing them in their natural setting, involving the researchers in the activities for an extended period of time (Kawulich 2005). This methodology mainly focuses on the interaction between people in their “ordinary, usual, typical, routine or natural environment” (Jorgensen 2014, p. 7). Without manipulating the environment, Jorgensen
(2014, p. 6) states that participant observation could help uncover and reveal “the world of everyday” which is the reality that people use to make sense of their daily lives. Van
Maanen (1988, p. 30) describes researchers who take part in participant observation as
“part spy, part voyeur, part fan, part member”. The data obtained from the observation, then, should be reported without any interpretation about the actions or beliefs of the community.
The participant observation offers researchers the ability to have direct experiential and observational access to the world of the targeted population in the role of an insider.
This role makes it possible for the researchers to closely observe the cultural elements, directly experience some activities and dynamically study relationships among people and events. In order to gain status as the insider, it is important for the researchers to develop a good relationship with the targeted people or the community group (Bernard
2002). Bernard (2002, p. 41) terms the process of building relationships with the research participants as a “hanging out process” that involves a wide range of activities such as making themselves known to the targeted community, organising a meeting with those people, learning their language and trying to converse with the people. By doing so, the researchers can gain their trust and establish rapport, allowing both the researchers and participants to comfortably interact. A trusting relationship with the community is essential because it makes the members feel secure, appreciated and happy to share some information which is sometimes hidden from public view
(DeMunck & Sobo 1998).
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The field observation methodology is usually employed at the beginning of the data- gathering process as it offers researchers the opportunity to have an overview of information about cultural activities, people’s behaviour and the community itself, and to develop relationships with the community members (Mack et al. 2005). This research also follows this suggestion. According to DeWalt and DeWalt (2002), the more the researchers understand about the community, the better they can develop interview guides, produce questions in the questionnaires and other research tools. Moreover, participant observation is beneficial in indicating members who seem to be important regarding manners, leadership, politics, social interaction and taboos (Jorgensen 2014).
Mack et al. (2005, p. 14) assert:
Through participant observation, researches can also uncover factors important for a thorough understanding of the research problem but that were unknown when the study was designed. This is the great advantage of the method because, although we may get truthful answers to the research question we ask, we may not always ask the right questions. Thus, what we learn from the participant observation can help us not only understand data collected through other methods (such as interviews, focus groups and qualitative research methods), but also to design question for those methods that will give us the best understanding of the phenomenon being studied.
The use of participant observation in this research
This data-gathering method is adopted at the beginning of the research project in order to generate a relationship between the researcher and the three targeted ethnic communities: Thai, Hmong and Rohingya. These relationships are essential for setting up this research project in a variety of aspects including to identify and gain access to potential research participants and to develop cultural understandings of the three ethnic minority groups. However, it is important to note that this method is just an additional research approach used in this research. It is not a main method of data-gathering.
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In the similar study of Tacchi et al. (2012) on the use of mobile phones by rural women in India, the participant observation approach was employed to understand the locations, the local populations and initiatives. In the research, Tacchi et al. (2012, p. 529) suggest the way to look at mobile phones is as an active agent in cultural and social structures and “must be understood within their culturally embedded everyday uses and settings”.
As a consequence, this current research includes field visits. The purpose of using this method is primarily to gain an understanding of the communication processes that operate at community level; for example, how often people use mobile devices and how long they use their mobile phone each time. Documentations of participant observation data consisted of field notes and diaries. I recorded data of what I experienced and learned through interaction with people in the three communities. Moreover, information on what I observed such as whether people use their mobile phone to film the shows presented in the community events, the type of mobile phones people have a possession of is noted and the dynamics of social interaction were documented. All notes begin with date, time and place of data collection.
The research technique is useful in helping to identify possible in-depth-interviewees from the Thai, Hmong and Rohingya communities. By observing people’s mobile phone behaviour and the community itself, I aim to come across people who meet the research criteria and may provide excellent information. I begin with identifying people who seem to receive a lot of attention from other people in their communities as those people who stand out may help facilitate my access to particular resources and help make connections between situations that might not be obvious to an outsider.
All observational activities, particularly my attendance, are conducted with the full consent of all parties involved, as I seek to obtain the permission to do so from the host
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of events I attend. In cases of sensitive information revealed, I specifically seek permission during the meeting to use the information if it is relevant to the study.
Furthermore, if there are any expressed concerns over use of any information which emerges from such meetings, I ensure that the information will not be used as part of the research data. I follow the code of practice regarding participant observation suggested by Schensul et al. (1999, p. 65). The code includes:
use exact quotes when possible; use pseudonyms to protect confidentiality; describe activities in the order in which they occur; provide descriptions without inferring meaning; include relevant background information to situate the event; separate one’s own thoughts and assumptions from what one actually observes; and record the date, time, place, and name of researcher on each set of notes.
List of meetings and community events attended
The list below shows the community events I participated for the purpose of conducting surveys and field observations.
Organised by and/or associated with Thai community
1. Thai New Year 2014 (Song Kran Festival)
Date: 20 April 2014
Place: Wat Thai Buddharam, 1 Paradise Rd, Fortsedale, QLD
2. Thai New Year 2015 (Song Kran Festival)
Date: 19 April 2015
Place: Wat Thai Buddharam, 1 Paradise Rd, Fortsedale, QLD
3. Thai Mother’s day
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Date: 16 August 2015
Place: Wat Thai Buddharam, 1 Paradise Rd, Fortsedale, QLD
Organised by and/or associated with Hmong community
1. Brisbane Hmong Youth Society Inc. (BHYS) on the lawn 2014
Date: 6 October 2014
Place: Gould Adams Community Centre, 558-662, Kingston Rd,
Kingston, QLD
2. Community Youth Soccer day
Date: 22 March 2015
Place: Kingsridge Touch Football Association, Gould Adams Parks, 558
Kingston Rd, Kingston, QLD
Organised by and/or associated with Rohingya community
1. Traditional sports and Volleyball
Date: 14 June 2014
Place: Corner of Japonica St and Robinia St, Inala, QLD
2. Zillmere Festival 2014
Date: 31 August 2014
Place: Kurbingui Youth Development Association, 425, Zillmere Rd,
Zillmere, QLD
3. The G-20 Peaceful Assembly
Date: 15 November 2014
Place: King George Square, Brisbane, QLD
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2. In-depth interview
The in-depth interview is a qualitative research approach used in this research. It involves conducting intensive interviews in order to elicit depth of information from relatively few people. It is frequently described as a form of conversation with particular purposes because it poses the clear objectives constructed in normal conversations. This research method allows interviewers to intensely explore the respondent’s experiences, attitudes, feelings and perspectives on a particular idea or situation. Interviewing can be used for a variety of purposes, particularly in social research that places central importance on personal accounts and narratives (Hammersley & Atkinson 1991;
Silverman 2004).
As this research is set to explore the use of mobile phones among the three selected communities in Australia, Thai, Hmong and Rohingya, focusing on answering a massive number of ‘how’ and ‘why’ questions, the in-depth interview method is considered very useful and appropriate. This technique also allows me to investigate participants’ feelings, personal meanings and understandings related to the use of mobile phones. Flexibility, the important nature of this research method (Ritchie &
Lewis 2003), is also taken into account when choosing to apply the method in this research. In using the in-depth interview technique, there should not be sets of predefined questions that participants will be asked in strict order. It is more likely that the interviewer will have key topics or issues to be examined, and general scopes. Then,
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he or she will interview participants with sufficient flexibility to permit topics to be covered in the ways that most suit the participants. In other words, this kind of interview does not predetermine the question and answer categories, but relies on social interaction between the interviewers and the participants. The flow intervention of in- depth interviews normally settles on penetrations, explanations and explorations. Open- ended questions, which encourage a full response, are expected to play a vital role during the interview. However, closed questions could be asked by the interviewers to help control the process of the interview (Kvale 1996). Although it could be seen that, by using the in-depth interview method, the interviewers can pursue in-depth information around a particular issue, the process can be time-consuming.
To employ the in-depth interview in the process of data collection, the researcher must have themes to explore, and use the interview as a method to interact with interviewees.
The facilitator should allow the participants to talk freely when answering the questions, use follow-up questions to seek clarity or fuller understanding throughout the interview and observe both verbal and non-verbal behaviours as they occur, and note immediate personal reflections about the interview (Ritchie & Lewis 2003). At the same time, the interviewer must ensure that the issues of interest are covered to the satisfactory depth, without influencing on the interviewees’ perspectives.
The use of in-depth interview in this research
In this research, I follow the instructions on how to apply the in-depth interview technique as outlined above. I start with planning the research. It is crucial in addressing fundamental questions prior to carrying out the research. I also make sure that I fully understand the purpose and recognise the benefits of the study. This helps to ensure that
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all research activities, time and human resources involved and required in the research will be practically and efficiently engaged.
The in-depth interviewing involved in this research entails asking participants questions about their needs, opinions, attitudes, perceptions, observations and behaviours with regard to mobile telephony. The research also includes an interview with a support officer who works with migrants and refugees in a settlement organisation in order to gain an overview of concerns about migrants’ experiences and settlement process. In selecting the in-depth interview research participants, the method I adopt is well-known under the name ‘selective’ or ‘purposive’ sampling (Bernard 2002; Tongco 2007). It is an informant selection tool in which participants of a research are identified in a deliberative and non-probability fashion; mostly relying on a researcher’s own judgement. This means that the researcher selects research respondents of the community whom he believes could provide him with excellent information and could help answer research questions or achieve research objectives (Bernard 2002). This information selection tool is widely used in both qualitative and qualitative researches which study a certain cultural area (Tongco 2007). Although this non-random method is often criticised for its inherent bias on which can contributes to its reliability, many researchers such as Topp et al. (2004) argue that it is useful, feasible and efficient to apply this method in research as there are many circumstances that non-random sampling could practically and theoretically be applied. In their research, Topp et al.
(2004) compare purposive and random techniques in a study involving users of the drug ecstasy, and the results show that the data collected from purposive sampling could approximate those done by the use of random sample.
According to Black (2010), the purposive sampling technique is believed to be one of the most cost-effective and time-effective sampling methods as it is allows researchers
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to reach target samples quickly and effectively. However, the researchers should be aware that the non-probability samples may not be perfectly representative of the group under study, and the researchers should state the possible bias clearly when analysing and interpreting the research results in order to not mislead readers. In order to increase the validity of the research that used the purposive sampling strategy, I follow the suggestion of Bernard (2002) that researchers should extend the study onto different groups of population and keep on using the non-probability method in order to seek confirmations. Therefore, the adoption of the non-random method is extended onto three ethnic communities including Thai, Hmong and Rohingya in Australia.
As this research explores the use of mobile phones and the role they play in lives of ethnic minority people in Australia, the opportunity to participate in this research is opened to either key people in those communities or community members. It is to ensure that no opinions and information of each community subgroups are overweighted those of others (Bernard 2002). However, it is important to note that data gained from key people like community leaders or community representatives of the
Thai, Hmong and Rohingya communities could present useful information regarding the community solidarity and the community development. Several studies focusing on media and communication roles of community leaders in community development
(Stamm et al. 1997; Northouse 2007; Kaewthep 2008) demonstrate the importance of community leaders as a primary mechanism for community integration. They provide a reason why this research should include the participations of community leaders.
The purposive sampling technique is used to recruit all in-depth interview respondents across the three selected communities. The first verified point that I set as the criteria for being in the samples of this research is that all respondents have to be members of the
Thai, Hmong or Rohingya communities in Australia, and currently use mobile phones
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to communicate with their peers in Australia and elsewhere. In addition, they have to be willing and able to comment on the nature of their mobile phone activities. I began recruiting with asking help from each community to recommend people who may meet the criteria. In addition, I visited the community as well as made contacts online in order to drop the research information sheet which provides an overview of my research study
(see Appendix C). People who are interested in participating in the research were invited to personally contact me. For those who were observant, reflective members of the community, I sent a kindly personal invitation to participate in an in-depth interview. The people were welcome to contact me at any time if they needed further information or had any questions or concerns regarding the research.
There are also other minor criteria of being the in-depth interview samples of the research when it comes to the final stage of selection, and those are different from one community to another. For example, for the Hmong community, I also consider the generation they belong to as I would like to include samples from different generations in the study.
Each in-depth interview involved in this study is set to last around thirty to forty minutes. The samples are requested to reflect on their mobile phone experiences and share their thoughts on the topic in their own words. At any time during the interview, the participants are allowed to raise issues they think are important. In addition, the participants are not asked to provide any information that might present a risk for them, their family or their property. For those participants who are not able to participate in face-to-face interviews or prefer to have mediated interviews such as email interviews,
MSN messenger interviews and telephone interviews, I am flexible to organise an interview that suites their needs.
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Profile of in-depth interview research participants
The total number of participants in the in-depth interviews is twenty-one which is equally shared by Thai, Hmong and Rohingya communities.
In-depth interview participants from Thai community
Participant Participant’s role
1. Petch Berge (Preferred name) Coordinated management member of Thai Age: 34 Culture Events Management, an organisation set up to promote Thai cultural events across [Telephone interview, 9 Queensland, Australia November 2015]
2. Samart Krataijan Executive chef of a famous Thai restaurant in Age: 61 Brisbane, Australia
[Face-to-face interviews, 22 August & 14 October 2014]
3. Thittaya Wirojwaranurak International student (English language Age: 24 course)
[Face-to-face interview, 3 May 2014]
4. Supaluck Opal (Preferred name) Chief executive officer of MaBrisbane, a Age: 35 website built to provide useful information
[Face-to-face interview, 25 and general knowledge about Brisbane and November 2014] across Queensland mainly to satisfy purposes such as study, accommodation, tours,
The role of mobile telephony in multicultural Australia: A case study of Thai, Hmong and Rohingya communities 163
business and restaurants for those who are associated with the Thai community.
5. Petcharat Theemuenvai International student (Postgraduate course) Age: 26
[Face-to-face interview, 21 July 2014]
6. Anne (Pseudonym) Owner of a Thai restaurant in Brisbane, Age: 38 Australia [Face-to-face interview, 13 June 2014]
7. Pathompong Kalpana International student (Undergraduate course) Age: 20
[Face-to-face interview, 16 December 2014]
In-depth interview participants from Hmong community
Participant Participant’s role
1. Mary Vang A volunteer coordinator of Brisbane Hmong Age: 27 Youth Society, Inc. (BHYS), an organisation
[Face-to-face interview, 13 established to organise social activities and September 2014] community events to encourage, support and create awareness of cultural heritage and language with the Hmong youth community in Brisbane
2. Vanghoua Anthony Vue An active member of Hmong community Age: 26 who reconceptualises and reinterprets his
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[Face-to-face interview, 10 Hmong heritage through artworks
October 2014] Coordinated management member of Australia Providing Across Borders (PAB), a non-profit organisation established to support grassroot activities in South-East Asia to foster the development of ethnic minorities.
3. Toby Vue An Australian-born Hmong, working as a Age: 28 freelance journalist
[Telephone interview, 19 October 2015
Email interviews, 1 November 2015]
4. Tong Khou Yang Member of the first generation of the Age:37 Australia-Hmong community, actively engaging in the Australian-Hmong [MSN messenger interviews, 8 community through sport participation and September 2014, soccer coaching Email interview, 31 October 2014]
5. Veng Thao Member of the Australian National sepak Age: 22 takraw team
[Email interview, 30 May 2015
6. Dr Pao Saykao One of the most recognised Hmong shamans Age: 62 in Australia
[MSN messenger interviews, 12 February 2014,
Email interview, 22 April 2014]
7. Smith (Pseudoym) Member of the second generation of the
The role of mobile telephony in multicultural Australia: A case study of Thai, Hmong and Rohingya communities 165
Age: 37 Hmong community , actively working for Far North Queensland Hmong Youth Society, Inc. [Telephone interview, 21 June (FNQHYS) 2015
MSN messenger interview, 3 July 2015]
In-depth interview participants from Rohingya community
Participant Participant’s role
1. Noor Zaman The president of the Rohingya Community in Age: 28 Brisbane, Australia
[Face-to-face interview, 30 August 2014]
2. Mojib Ullah An active member of the Rohingya Age: 29 community in Australia, working as a cultural support worker at Multicultural Development [Face-to-face interview, 3 April Association (MDA), an interpreter at 2015] Queensland Interpreting and Translating service (QITS), and Language assistant volunteer at Australian Red Cross
3. Kefayet Akram An active member of the Rohingya community Age: 26 in Australia, working as an interpreter at Centrelink, Oncall Interpreters and Translators, [Face-to-face interview, 3 and Department of Immigration and Border September 2014] Protection
4. Sujauddin Karimuddin The former president of the Queensland Age: 33 Rohingya Community (QRC), and also worked as an interpreter at Queensland [Face-to-face interview, 23 March
The role of mobile telephony in multicultural Australia: A case study of Thai, Hmong and Rohingya communities 166
2015] Interpreting and Translating Service (QITS), and as a Rohingya casework assistant at Multicultural Development Association (MDA)
5. Mansur Alam Member of the Rohingya community in Age: 25 Brisbane, actively participating in events organised and/or associated with the [Face-to-face interview, 7 Rohingya community February 2014]
6. Abul Alam An active member of the Rohingya Age: 30 community in Australia, working as an interpreter at Department of Immigration and [Face-to-face interview, 3 Border Protection September 2014]
7. Mohammad Salaudin Member of the Rohingya community in Age: 36 Brisbane, actively participating in events organised and/or associated with the Rohingya [Face-to-face interview, 19 March community 2015]
3. Survey
Survey is one of the most popular data collection approaches used by researchers in various fields of research such as psychology, sociology and politics. It is a structured method of data collection that can be used to find out information or data from an individual on different topics including individuals’ preferences, opinions and behaviours. The survey can be undertaken by means of face-to-face interview or by distributing questionnaires to targeted groups (Zimmerman & Muraski 1995). As technology advances, administering a survey has experienced rapid evolution. A variety of channels such as telephone, email, mail (post), computer-direct and web-based
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variations could be used. However, different methods offer different benefits and also significantly impact the way in which research participants respond (Dillman 1978;
Zimmerman & Muraski 1995).
The main function of the survey methodology is to obtain a large number of responses from a population of interest and use the obtained data to make statistical inferences.
This quantitative information gathering requires a certain number of participants to participate in the research. They act as a research element which represents some significant aspect of the population. The result of the study does not aim to describe the behaviours or opinions of the research participants only. The ultimate goal of the survey research is to generalise from the sample to the whole targeted population (O’Leary
2003).
In the process of conducting a survey, a predetermined set of questions is required.
Questionnaires are commonly used as a technique for collecting data in surveys.
However, Harbich and Auer (2005) state that questionnaires are not always compulsory for surveys. Yet they are widely used because they can be adopted in many different situations and objectively provide a standard result. The use of questionnaires as a data- capturing tool easily allows data to be collected from a large number of people.
Moreover, as the data is collected within the group of people who share the same characteristics, it is suitable for enumeration and facilitating quantitative analysis.
The use of survey in this research
In this research, I adopt the short questionnaire-based survey as another means of data- gathering. The questionnaire used in this research is displayed in Appendix B. The
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method allows me to capture overview data on mobile phone adoption, features and services of people in the three selected communities (Dillman 1978; Zimmerman &
Muraski 1995). Furthermore, this data-gathering method is expected to explain mobile phone use according to user needs. For instance, the questions used to obtain such information include ‘How many mobile phones do you have?’, ‘What feature on your mobile phone do you use most to communicate with others?’, and ‘What application on your mobile phone do you often use for finding out what is going on in your community?’.
The number of survey participants of each group is set to be equal at fifty people. The data gained for this method is used to validate or dispute the findings from qualitative data research data (Robson 2002). The method that I employ to contact the survey respondents is face-to-face approach. The reason why I consider this approach is appropriate and useful is that face-to-face questionnaire distribution allows me to establish rapport with community members at the outset by explaining what the survey is about and how it works. Besides this, I could provide help in clarifying and explaining if needed, and ensure that all questions in the questionnaire are completed
(Tacchi et al. 2003).
The research questionnaires are mainly distributed to research respondents during ethnic community cultural events in which members of the Thai, Hmong and Rohingya organise or take part in. The list of the events is detailed in the very last section of
‘Participant observation’. The reason I do this is because in the special community events, community members across age and gender generally come together as a community, and seem to warmly welcome people from outside their own community to join the events (Tacchi et al. 2003, 2012). Attending those events, therefore, is considered an excellent chance for me to meet a variety of people the community under
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study, which could result in having people from different age groups participating in the short questionnaire survey (Harbich & Auer 2005).
Each participant who is asked to participate in the short questionnaire survey is considered as a representative of their larger community. As representatives of the targeted population, the response of the research samplings is expected to reflect the mobile phone preferences of their whole community. However, even as I try to eliminate participant selection bias to the best of my ability, whether those chosen people are representative may still be questioned. As a consequence, when it comes to the process of analysing and interpreting research results, I will ensure that the acknowledgement of the limitation is provided to assure correct understanding of research conclusions.
Even though the process of data-gathering has been designed to be conducted in particular order — participant observations, in-depth interviews and surveys respectively —, it was later adapted to be much more flexible by allowing me to move back and forth between participant observations, in-depth interviews and surveys. The adapted action is beneficial as it enables me to seek further clarification on certain issues which emerged later during the process of data-analysis. I follow the suggestion of Mack et al. (2005) and Reeves et al. (2008, p. 337) that researchers “have to be flexible, patient and persistent in their work as data collection activities can be disrupted or access withdrawn as local circumstances”.
Limitations of the methodology
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Various limitations exist in this study. The current research studies, designs and methods of data collection particularly limit the findings of this research to some extent.
A discussion of limitations is presented as follows.
The particular difficulty I encountered in conducting this research is that no female
Rohingya agreed to be interviewed. As previously mentioned, this research was circumscribed by the notion of the public sphere that highlights the absence of women and other non-propertied classes in the public arena (Fraser 1991; Zoonen 1991;
McLaughlin 1998). In this way, this project demonstrates that there is still an exclusion of women in the Rohingya community because of their social structure that accepts the superiority of men over women (Barney 1967; Duffy et al. 2004). Therefore, it should be acknowledged that the women who perceive their role to be as a passive recipient and are not confident enough in talking about themselves and their communities, therefore, have refused to participate in the research. The women may be reluctant to be involved in this study due to the issue of trust which they learned from their own experience of trauma or persecution in the past. These women may have had a different perspective to offer on the use of mobile phones to help establish their diasporic lives in
Australia. Karimuddin (2015, pers. comm.), a male Rohingya and one of the research participants, discusses the role of female Rohingya in the community:
Women [Rohingya] have been oppressed. It’s like our tradition for females to just stay at home, do all the cooking, cleaning and taking care of the kids. They’re not engaging in discussion on any other topics further than that .... It’s the problem of gender unbalances which I think it happens in many countries as well. It is changing now but only a little. The women’s action is still passive. This is like what has been frozen for many many years. To defrost it, it won’t be easy. It needs lots of time.
As with any qualitative study, limitations based on generalisability and reliability are acknowledged. Many of the findings may not be generalisable to mobile phone
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activities among all users. In this current research, participants were considered as representatives of the larger community to which they belong. Many of them were recruited through the application of the non-probability method, which is often criticised its inherent bias. Even though I tried to eliminate participant selection bias to the best of my ability, whether those chosen people are well representatives of their community may still be questioned. As a consequence, it is important to note that research findings may not perfectly represent the entire Thai, Rohingya and Hmong communities in Australia.
Furthermore, this study was principally conducted in the Brisbane area due to the great availability and accessibility of the resources. There were a few participants from other areas of Australia such as Sydney, Melbourne and Cairns participating in this study.
Participants from a larger number of minority groups around Australia are excluded in the thesis findings and implications. Further research to include ethnic minority people who are living in other areas of Australia is suggested.
The researcher also found a limitation in presenting some research results based on in- depth interviews. Some data from the Rohingya participants, which was very useful for this dissertation, cannot be used. There are many sensitive issues and stories that must be anonymous due to safety reasons and the preferences of the research participants.
In addition, many new social media communication tools and new applications on mobile phones have been continuously developed. This research is limited to the use of mobile phones at the particular time of this thesis submission in 2017. In addition, the process of gathering research data had a duration of just two years, from November
2013 to November 2015. The data presented in this research should be applicable only for those periods of time.
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Summary
This thesis explores the role of mobile phones in minorities’ lives by analysing the way in which the people use their mobile phones. In order to achieve answers, I employ mixed method research, which is the use of qualitative and quantitative methods in a single study. The reason is that I consider that the combination of two important methods not only provides methodological flexibility, but also allows me to elucidate more information than adopting only one research approach (Creswell 2008). The integration of the qualitative and quantitative approaches can be clearly seen in the process of data-gathering.
Case study is applied as a central research method. This method is useful for undertaking an investigation into a phenomenon in its context (Yin 1984). Multiple-case study is chosen to predict similar or contrasting research results. The three cultural collectives in Australia, namely Thai, Hmong and Rohingya, are selected to stress the central focus of the project limited to South-East Asia. The cohesion in terms of the area of origin of the Thai, Hmong and Rohingya communities makes the three suitable to serve as cases of the study. The relative dissimilarities in community backgrounds as well as the length of community residency in Australia of the three are also taken into account when considering and deciding the Thai, Hmong and Rohingya communities as the units of analysis. The Rohingya community can be classified as a ‘recently-arrived community’ or ‘new and emerging community’ due to the short length of residency in
Australia, while the Thai and Hmong are more suitable to be called ‘established communities’ (ECCV 2012). However, the Thai and the Hmong are still different as the
Thai community has no refugee background, and established its community in Australia
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differently. The differences as well as the cohesiveness of the three communities, therefore, allow the three selected communities to be complex and interesting enough to function as the main units of analysis of this research.
The key methods of data collection in this research include in-depth interview and survey. Participant observations at local meetings and community cultural events are also conducted in this research. The main reason for employing the participant observation approach is to have an overview of information about the community itself, and to develop relationships with the community members. Besides this, I am able to identify possible in-depth-interviewees from the Thai, Hmong and Rohingya communities. The data obtained from the observations is reported without interpretation about the actions or beliefs of the community.
In-depth interview is used to elicit depth of information from all key participants and to explore their experiences, attitudes, feelings and perspectives on each question. Each participant is interviewed without predetermining the question and answer categories.
The interview is to explore participants’ needs, opinions, attitudes, perceptions, observations and behaviours with regard to mobile telephony.
Survey is a structured method of data collection used to find out additional information or data from the participants. Fifty members of each ethnic community are invited to participate in the survey that set out to capture an overview of data on mobile phone adoption, features and services.
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CHAPTER VI
Research findings
This research advances knowledge and understanding of the role of mobile phones as communication tool that has the ability to empower minorities in a multicultural context. Then, the research findings investigate ways Thai, Hmong and Rohingya people in Australia use mobile phones. This chapter presents the findings on mobile phone uses and communication practices of the three ethnic groups chosen as units of analysis: Thai, Hmong and Rohingya communities. The uses and gratifications theory is adopted as a main research model to categorise the different ways of using mobile phones. A mixture of narratives about the use of mobile phones and participants’ perspectives on mobile phone uses is documented to detail their mobile communication practices in the situations of displacement and settlement in Australia. Furthermore, the findings from the surveys using short questionnaires are presented to illustrate the data on mobile phone adoption. This chapter is presented with three main sections: Measures of mobile phone adoption, Research result structure, and Mobile phone uses and communication practices of Thai, Hmong and Rohingya: similarities and differences.
This chapter presents the results from observations, a series of mobile phone questionnaires, and in-depth interviews with participants from each community. As
Chapter V has indicated, this data was gathered over a period of November 2013 to
November 2015. Key findings from the fieldwork are illuminated in this chapter. Some are the following: maintaining transnational family relationships is among the most important mobile phone use of the three communities. More interesting findings come from Hmong and Rohingya participants who have refugee backgrounds. Hmong
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participants significantly use their smartphones to search for their ancestors and connect to their non-biological brothers, sisters and relatives who migrated and lived in different parts of the world. The lowest level of enthusiasm and interest in establishing relationships with people from outside their own ethnic community through mobile devices is shown by Rohingya who have experienced torture.
This research critically takes the contexts of cultural differences and migrant experiences of the Thai, Hmong and Rohingya community in understanding how mobile phones are used similarly and/or differently across cultures. When understanding the migrants’ mobile phone appreciation and uses, mobile phones’ roles in advancing lives of the diasporic people, the central goal of this research, can therefore be discovered.
Measures of mobile phone adoption
The survey questionnaire contains questions for capturing demographic details of participants. The results of the questionnaire involving 150 participants from the Thai,
Hmong and Rohingya communities reveal that the majority of participants are in the 26-
35 age group, which is consistent with Australia-wide migration trends and mobility
(see Figure 13) (Australian Government, Department of Immigration and Border
Protection 2016).
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10% 20% 18%
52%
18-25 26-35 36-50 50+
Figure 13: The cohorts of the survey research participants’ age
For the question regarding mobile phone adoption and selection, the research shows that all the participants (100%) own at least one mobile phone. Seven participants (4.7%) including two from the Thai community, two from the Hmong community and three from the Rohingya, indicate they have more than one mobile phone. The participants make use of two different kinds of mobile phones and are divided as follows: 145 participants (96.7%) favour smartphones, and five participants (3.3%) use feature phones. In terms of mobile phone brands, it is found that there are six brands: Apple
(55.3%), HTC (2.5%), LG (1.9%), Nokia (3.1%), Samsung (35.9%) and Sony (1.3%) are used by the participants. The distribution between brands is depicted in Figure 14.
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40
35
30
25 THAI 20 HMONG
15 ROHINGYA
10
5
0 APPLE HTC LG NOKIA SAMSUNG SONY
Figure 14: Distribution between mobile phone brands
The questionnaire also asks survey participants to self-rate their level of mobile phone uses on a five-scale of light to very heavy, where the level of usage is based on the participants’ personal perception (see Figure 14). The majority of participants (47.3%) rate their level of mobile phone use as moderate, followed by heavy (35.3%). Six participants (4%) consider themselves as very heavy mobile phone users. Only one person claims to be a light user.
50
40
30
20
10
0 light average light moderate heavy very heavy
Figure 15: Level of mobile phone use according to participants’ perception
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In terms of the in-depth interviewing, all participants are expected to have mobile phone experiences. They have to use mobile phones to communicate with their peers in
Australia and elsewhere. Moreover, they are willing and able to comment on the nature of their activities. As a consequence of this requirement, one hundred per cent of in- depth interview participants adopt the mobile phone. In addition, the majority of mobile phones used by the participants are smartphones. There are only two participants, one from the Hmong group and the other from the Rohingya, who possess Nokia feature phones.
Research result structure
This study documents study participants’ experiences and perspectives of using mobile phones for advancing their life experiences while living as minority people in multicultural Australia. The structure of data presentation in this chapter is organised around discussions of the three community groups: Thai, Hmong and Rohingya, focusing particularly on the comparative data, in the context of uses and gratifications theory. The findings are discussed as if the mobile phone uses for the three groups are similar. Besides this, I describe the differences of the use between and within the three community groups. In the next chapter, I will then compare the mobile phone use between the three communities and wider Australia, using the data presented in this chapter and data on Australian mobile phone use presented in Chapter III.
Congruent with the uses and gratifications study of Whiting and Williams (2013)
(examined in the section ‘The application of uses and gratifications model in this research’ of Chapter III), I find that people in the Thai, Hmong and Rohingya communities also adopt and use their mobile phones to fulfil their needs and address
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their gratifications in similar ways to the general use of social media. However, seven out of ten uses and gratifications themes appear to be regular mobile phone usage themes while three themes were precluded as they seem principally to identify the uses and gratifications of social media in accordance with its unique characteristics. The seven common uses and gratifications themes are:
1. Social interaction; 2. Information seeking; 3. Pass time; 4. Entertainment; 5. Relaxation; 6. Communicatory utility; and 7. Convenient utility.
These seven themes, therefore, are adapted with respect to mobile phones. The data gained from the three ethnic communities also suggest another important uses and gratifications theme of mobile phones, namely, Fashion and social status. This theme is also discovered in the uses and gratifications study of Leung and Wei (2000), who research the uses and gratifications model specifically for mobile phones. The mobile phone use in this area is discussed as the eighth theme. Besides this, other uses and gratifications motivations proposed by other scholars such as immediacy, efficiency and image are considered and adopted. However, they are presented under other names in the proposed eight themes of this research study.
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Mobile phone uses and communication practices of Thai, Hmong and Rohingya: similarities and differences
1. Social interaction
As communication is a precondition for human social behaviour and mobile phones are primarily designed for a communication purpose, it is not surprising that the use of mobile phones for social interaction is considered their first and foremost role. Mobile devices are intensely utilised for the purpose of maintaining and enhancing effective existing relationships, and also creating new and meaningful relationships. A hundred per cent of Thai, Hmong and Rohingya research participants from both in-depth interviews and surveys acknowledge this prime mobile phone capacity even though the frequency of use varied. Figures 16, 17 and 18 below present the use of mobile phones for social interaction of survey participants of each community. Comparing the three charts of the Thai, Hmong and Rohingya, it can be clearly seen that an overwhelming majority of participants from the three community groups similarly rate that they use their mobile phone very often or often in order to maintain and develop their relationships within and outside their collective community. The use of the communication devices to maintain transnational family relationships is among the most important mobile phone use for social interaction as the results reveal the highest rate of very often rating (88% for Thai, 78% for Hmong, 96% for Rohingya).
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Thai
Develop relationships with wider society 24 60 16
Strengthen intra-community relationships 42 48 10
Maintain transnational relationships 42 58
Talk to family overseas 88 12
0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100%
Very often Often Sometimes Hardly ever Never
Figure 16: Thai: The use of mobile phones for social interaction
Hmong
Develop relationships with wider society 56 32 12
Strengthen intra-community relationships 66 30 4
Maintain transnational relationships 46 54
Talk to family overseas 78 22
0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100%
Very often Often Sometimes Hardly ever Never
Figure 17: Hmong: The use of mobile phones for social interaction
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Rohingya
Develop relationships with wider society 32 40 12 12 2
Strengthen intra-community relationships 42 48 10
Maintain transnational relationships 42 58
Talk to family overseas 96 4
0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100%
Very often Often Sometimes Hardly ever Never
Figure 18: Rohingya: The use of mobile phones for social interaction
For the purpose of maintaining diasporic connections with people other than family members overseas, the results of the three communities are comparable, as the participants rate only within two scales, very often and often in nearly half and half proportion (Thai: 42% and 58%), (Hmong: 46% and 54%), (Rohingya: 42% and 58%).
In terms of the use of mobile phones to develop relationships with wider community, a majority of Thai participants rate often (60%), and most Hmong rate very often (56%).
Interestingly, the Rohingya is the only community that presents the low level of use:
12% rate sometimes, 12% rate hardly ever, 2% rate never. I also tried to find an explanation on this matter, which I will discuss in the section called ‘1.2 Connecting to host country’s population’.
Personal perspectives on mobile phones obtained from the qualitative in-depth interviews regarding the use of mobile phones for social interaction are presented and categorised into three usage aspects as follows:
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1.1 Connecting to their native homeland
In the circumstances of displacement and living as minority groups in the unfamiliar landscape of Australia, Thai, Hmong and Rohingya participants indicate that they sometimes feel isolated and vulnerable. In order to overcome such feelings, they strongly reveal their need to access various means of communication as an important approach to maintain and sustain connections with their familiar networks in their place of origin. Corresponding with the survey results, in-depth interview participants also state that they enjoy using mobile phones as a means to provide close connections between them and their family, friends, acquaintances and diasporas. A combination of communication tools such as emails, voice calls, Skype calls and social networking sites is used to increase social contacts with friends and family in homeland countries.
The voice call feature is utilised by many participants such as Krataijan and Anne from the Thai community, Vue V and Saykao from the Hmong, and Ullah M and Zaman from the Rohingya, as the most significant function for diasporic communication and to rescue themselves from homesickness. However, with the introduction of smartphone technologies, the research participants are also influenced to develop their mobile phone skills in accordance with the expanded mobile phone capabilities. I find that other non- voice functions available in feature phones and smartphones are intensely employed by many research participants as a fallback communication method to remain connected to distant family and friends. The action is observed even within a group of research participants who have less prior exposure to communication technology including Ullah
M from the Rohingya and Krataijan from the Thai.
Ullah M (2015, pers. comm.) reveals that his new skill in using communication applications such as Skype, Line, WeChat, Tango and WhatsApp allows him to
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communicate more effectively with his family members. During the interview, Ullah M keenly showed me a number of photos and video clips he received from his family members, who are now living in a refugee camp in Bangladesh. Ullah M (2015, pers. comm.) also says that, after becoming more proficient in modern mobile communication, he is grateful for facilitating the capacity of his family members and other Rohingya people to learn and use mobile phones. In addition, he teaches his wife, his mother and his wife’s neighbours how to use Skype and how to send photos and video clips via mobile phones and laptops. According to Ullah M (2015, pers. comm.), the more intense ways of interacting via smartphones he has experienced support and enhance his emotional well-being despite his distress while he is living away from his loved ones. Ullah M (2015, pers. comm.) says:
I have two daughters. They’re in the camp with my wife and my mother. The little one, she has never seen me. I fled the camp before she was born. I call them every day. Sometimes, I video call them. I miss them very much. I miss them desperately. It’s so sad. They are my family but I can’t be beside them. I can only talk to them, see them growing up from afar ... One time, my youngest daughter tried to get inside the phone to come to see me. She said she wanted to hug me. I was so heartbroken ... But it is better than never see and talk to them.
Participants across the three groups also report many non-voice communication behaviours, particularly the widespread use of social media and internet browsing over mobile phones to communicate with family, friends and others in their homelands.
These ways of communication were regarded as important and enjoyable forms of social interaction. Many participants such as Ullah M (Rohingya), Kalpana (Thai) and
Vang (Hmong) assert that the visual, interactive and real-time characteristics of the applications like Facebook and Skype enable greater depth of emotional interaction, and could facilitate the increased connectivity as well as reinforce social ties between diasporic communities and those in their home countries.
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It is important to note that due to the oppressive experience of having no nation-state of their own and residing as refugees in one or many countries, the terms ‘homeland’,
‘home country’, and ‘country of origin’ could be perceived differently from one to another within the Hmong and the Rohingya communities. Some recognise their country of asylum as their homeland while others refer to the ancestral homeland. The different perceptions, thereby, allow the Hmong and the Rohingya to interpret the use of the mobile phone in terms of homeland connection from a different angle. As a consequence, rather than focusing on the matter of place, an aspect of shared common identity is a key subject. For example, within the Hmong community, I discover that the
Hmong younger generation, who indicate a low level of social connectedness and engagement with Laos, reveal their mobile phone use in searching for their ancestors, connecting to their non-biological brothers, sisters and relatives, and establishing relationships with Hmong friends who are in the same situation of being diasporic migrants in different parts of the world. In addition, staying updated on news and current affairs about the Hmong native homeland did not seem to be considered as important. Some of the participants’ accounts were: “I do it just when it makes headlines in world news”; “I don’t feel really attached”; and “If the Australian-Hmong community is talking about it, I will then go find out more”. Smith (2015, pers. comm.), for example, says:
I believe mobile phones perform the same function within the Hmong community as with any other members of society. In case of the Hmong people, I think it does help with staying connected. But I’m not sure whether it’s more or less significant than the rest of society ... Through Facebook, I’ve been able to connect with many relatives living in different countries like France, USA and Thailand as well as interstates of Australia. We’re keeping in touch and supporting each other. It’s how we find strength in our community.
Although many young Hmong participants usually reveal their mobile phone practices in reconnecting with ethnic links, Vue V (2014, pers. comm.) stresses the use of mobile
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phone for the purpose of maintaining and reconnecting with attachments to the historical location of the Hmong community in a different way. Vue V (2014, pers. comm.) is an Australian-born Hmong, who recognises himself as “a person of Hmong heritage, residing in Australia”. Vue V (2014, pers. comm) states:
It doesn’t seem right to me to say ‘I’m an Australian or I’m a Hmong’. I feel like I am not truly one of those. I usually just say ‘I’m a citizen of the world’. I live in Australia and I like this country. But I also do care about the Hmong people as well.
During the interview with Vue V, I observe that the aspect of bridging the transnational connections between Hmong diaspora and Hmong people in the native homeland is his issue of concern. He frequently mentions the concept of the nation which has long linked the Hmong people as a whole. To him (Vue V 2014, pers. comm.), even though the Hmong people had been hurt and suffered in the form of genocide in their native homeland and maybe in the lands of asylum, it is still important for the Hmong of every generation to sustain and ritually celebrate the diasporic links with the homeland. Vue V
(2014, pers. comm.) says:
Now, many of us are living in civilised and developed countries. But we need to remember that many more of us are still living in poor conditions in poor countries. And those poor countries are actually where we have our roots. They’re our references. We can’t forget this. To develop our community, we need to include our roots.
As a consequence of his commitment to develop good connections among diasporas and natives, Vue V, his brother and friends from both Hmong and non-Hmong backgrounds came together and established a non-profit organisation named Australia Providing
Across Borders (PAB). The organisation aims to provide support to ethnic minority groups including the Hmong people in South-East Asian countries and enable them to sustainably promote community development. According to Vue V (2014, pers. comm.), the organisation’s projects not only provide benefits to those unfortunate minorities. The project’s volunteers themselves could also benefit from learning to
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develop strong and positive relationships with the people and the particular places.
Moreover, Vue V (2015, pers. comm.) says that the connections will become more meaningful to those who come from a Hmong cultural background because they contribute directly to other members of their own local, national and international communities.
Although all research participants across the three communities indicate their awareness and utilisation of mobile phones to stay connected and to retain a sense of common identity and place of origin, it appears that, among the three communities, the Rohingya reveals the greatest appreciation of the mobile phone in performing this role. This ethnic group encounters notable difficulties and inconvenience in travelling back to their homeland. The capability of the mobile phone to provide social interaction with friends and family was considered paramount. Ullah M (2015, pers. comm.) states that the mobile phone was his only means of communication for contacting his daughters, wife and friends who are now living in a refugee camp in Bangladesh. Alam A’s account
(2014, pers. comm.) affirms the point:
I’m so grateful that I am here [Australia]. Australia gives me a new life. It’s a life without fears. It’s good but there is one thing I need to accept, which is that after I arrived, I won’t be able to go back again. I can’t see my family anymore ... Luckily enough, my friends have a phone. I can call them sometimes and ask them about my family. It’s so good. Good to know they’re fine and happy.
Zaman (2014, pers. comm.) also comments:
I’m an Australian citizen. But I don’t think I can fly back to Burma. It’s impossible. I may not be able to come back to Australia. I don’t know. That’s why it is important to have a phone. It’s convenient. I can call my friends to ask ‘what’s going on there?’; ‘are they safe and sound?’, and something like that.
The qualitative interviews with the Thai, Hmong and Rohingya participants also show that mobile phones are not only employed as a communication means to maintain the
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connection with their family, friends and acquaintances regarding personal matters; they are also utilised to correspond with others across the globe to request assistance with particular issues as well as to keep abreast of the latest news. This use of mobile phones is founded intensely within the Rohingya community.
Karimuddin’s account explains how he uses his smartphone to provide important social, cultural and practical support to his own ethnic communities in countries of origin and those providing asylum. Karimuddin (2014, pers. comm.) says:
The world is changed. We’re in the information technology society. It can’t help that mobile phones have become an important part of our body ... I run lots of events on my mobile phone. Some activities such as running a school in Bangladesh, are running solely through the phone ... I use Skype to give training and instructions. I asked teachers to keep the application on so I can listen to lessons they are teaching. When I need reports, I ask people there to send me. Everything is easier with mobile phones.
Karimuddin (2014, pers. comm.) also asserts that, in order to communicate with active
Rohingyas in many different countries, there is a discussion group named ‘Rohingya
Information Sharing’ established in Line, a communication application. It is a major platform that members use to share and discuss current news and information around the
Rohingya community. The news and information may be shared in a variety of forms such as voice audios, photos and plain text. The group chat is actively used by its members to advocate for community needs. The members of communities consist of the
Rohingya people in Australia, Thailand, Indonesia, India, Malaysia, Philippines,
Bangladesh, Pakistan and the US. Karimuddin (2014, pers. comm.) says:
When something happens, or something worth sharing, we will post details of it in the group. Then, we will come together to discuss what we can do ... Like when we know the Burma government says something, we post and consider what is going to happen to our fellow friends. We then work out the strategy or actions together.
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Ullah M (2015, pers. comm.) also highlights the use of mobile phones as a communication means to contribute to the greater opportunities available for the development of the Rohingya community. He (2015, pers. comm.) states that, during his time in the Bangladeshi refugee camp, he actively participated in a variety of activities to support his own ethnic community. One of his proud actions is being one of the founders of ‘the Rohingya Refugee Student Association’ which has been continuously operating until the present. The association is set up for the purpose of increasing the number of educated Rohingya in the refugee camp, by establishing education networks and environments within the community. While living in Australia, Ullah M (2015, pers. comm.) employs his mobile phone to remain in contact with the association and to keep informed about the association’s circumstances and outcomes.
1.2 Connecting to host country’s population
In order to settle into life in Australia, Thai, Hmong and Rohingya people need to communicate, interact and develop friendships and trust with others in the wider
Australian society. Having friendships with the population of the host country provided the new migrants opportunities to impart better knowledge about their own community to the wider public, which could result in reducing mutual preconception and negative attitudes of the new migrants as well as providing a sense of belonging.
Realising the capacity of mobile phones to increase communication and interaction, participants in the three minority groups adopt and exploit their mobile phones in connecting with the host’s population including members of different ethnic communities in Australia. They indicate similarities in mobile phone behaviours including emailing, texting and/or calling to invite people from outside their community
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to join an organised community event, contacting in-country organisations to apply for a job, distributing community news, and calling cultural and settlement support workers.
Social media are also utilised in the process of developing and cementing relationships with others. Many research participants declare that they regularly leave comments on their new friends’ Facebook pages, an action that is perceived as an easy and productive way to keep in touch with others.
Zaman (2014, pers. comm.), the president of the Rohingya Community in Brisbane, highlights the effective role of mobile phones as bridge-builders to mainstream populations.
Not many people know about our community. We’re basically called Indians or Muslims. I am a community leader. I need to work very hard to make the Rohingya people feel connected ... When I organise events, I want people to come, not just the Rohingya. So, I generally call MDA and invite them to join. I call, text or facebook my Aussie friends. I also post on Facebook and email some organisations. They’ll help share the news. Although in-depth interview participants across Thai, Hmong and Rohingya communities described similar mobile phone behaviours and similar usage patterns in connecting a host country’s population, the survey results of the Rohingya community presented earlier show that the Rohingya people present the lower level of enthusiasm and interest in establishing relationships with people from outside their own ethnic community compared to the other two. Fourteen per cent of the Rohingya indicate that they hardly ever or never use their devices to develop their relationships with others outside their collective community, while no one in the Thai and Hmong rates those two scales. In addition, I find that many Rohingya favour seeking help from their family, relatives and friends in their diasporic community rather than contacting the wider host community. I, therefore, investigate further by considering the Rohingya cultural norms of communication practice and by examining the cultural sensitivity within the
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community. The actions suggest to me that the past torture and trauma suffered by the
Rohingya refugees may continually and negatively impact on them. As a consequence, there may be issues of trust with other people from outside their own community as those people could be construed to have been involved in some kind of torture in the countries of asylum and origin. It somehow could lead to the lack of appreciation of the role of the mobile phone in maintaining social relations with other people outside the
Rohingya community.
The suggestion is later confirmed by Huda (2014, pers. comm.). Working closely with
Rohingya refugees, Huda realises that previous traumatic experiences of the refugees had a corrosive impact on their capacity to trust other people outside their community.
Huda (2014, pers. comm.) states: “they’ve never learnt to trust anyone. They’ve never ever practiced. The bad experiences in their entire lives tell them not to”. She gives an example of her Rohingya client who preferred to keep his savings at home rather than deposit the money into a financial institution because of the issue of trust. However, in her case, Huda (2014, pers. comm.) states that she is not a Rohingya person by birth but she successfully gains trust and respect from the Rohingya because of her thorough understanding of the Rohingya background and language. Huda (2014, pers. comm.) concludes that the imperative part of working with Rohingya refugees is building trust and developing a relationship of trust. Huda (2014, pers. comm.) suggests that outsiders should learn and develop an understanding of acculturation and the continuing impact of the experiences of suffering of the ethnicity before interacting with the Rohingya community. It would importantly enable the Rohingya people to feel more comfortable and more willing to open themselves to the wider society.
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The issue of language is another crucial aspect which influences less use of mobile phones in terms of making contact with the outside world of the Rohingya people.
Karimuddin (2014, pers. comm.), who previously worked to provide cultural and language support for the Rohingya migrants, notes that the inability to speak good
English has stopped many Rohingya people from contacting people and building relationships with others outside their community. It results in growing difficulties in the process of integration into a new social environment in Australia as they feel powerless and disadvantaged. According to Karimuddin (2014, pers. comm.), a number of
Rohingya in Australia, especially women, tend to live in isolation from the outside world. Karimuddin (2014, pers. comm.) adds that, due to insufficient English, the
Rohingya people primarily utilise their own ethnic community to help them cope and to adjust to their new way of life. The strong bond of intimacy among people in the community allows them to comfortably ask for assistance, advice and suggestions. More to the point, a shared language crucially ensures the accurate understanding of messages and also encourages the people to become more confident to engage and fully participate in particular events.
The issue raises a question to me that why the Hmong community, a community which has also had an historical narrative of persecution, although not as recently as the
Rohingya’s, do not indicate a low level of enthusiasm and interest in establishing relationships with people from outside their own ethnic community. Accounts of
Hmong interview participants suggest that rather than the matter of tough life- experiences, the low competence in the English language and the low level of digital literacy, which are more like problems of the older generation Hmong, not general issues of the community, can be counted as main barriers that prevent the Hmong from establishing relationships with others outside their community. For instance, Thao
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(2015, pers. comm.), an Australia-born Hmong, refers to his parents, who are among the first generation of Hmong refugees in Australia, when talking about the issue of mobile phone adoption. According to him, aspects of age, language proficiency and digital skills emerged as important obstacles for his parents to fully embrace the modern communication technologies. Thao (2015, pers. comm.) says:
I was born here. So, it’s common for me to learn and accept social values. It’s how it should be and is supposed to be. But for my parents, everything is hard. One of the hardest problems they have faced is understanding English language. When they can’t do well in English, it’s hard for them to learn new things. Technology is also a problem. They were never ever exposed to modern technology before when they were in Laos and in Thailand. But as time passed, my parents have slowly adapted ... they learnt to use mobile phones but only just normal features like calling and taking photos. Vue T is also a second generation of the Australia-Hmong community. He (2015, pers. comm.) says with reference to the first generation that his parents and other Hmong refugee migrants, who experienced disadvantage, generally have low level or non- digital literacy. As a consequence, they tend to employ minimal and “not very fancy” mobile phone activity in their everyday lives. This makes Vue T believes that non-prior exposure to mobile communication technology and English language emerge as a great barrier for those older Hmong people to access and learn communication technology.
They experience the lack of confidence and doubt of their ability to understand complex technology. Vue T gives examples of his parents’ accounts to explain the issue. His parents’ words include “it’s too difficult for me”; “I don’t think it’s necessary”; and
“it’s too much for me”.
Despite the fact that the issue of trust and a low competence in English language are denoted as factors which impact on the facilitation of relationships with other people, I found that the Hmong and Rohingya seem to disregard those obstacles when it came to the promotion of the understanding and value of their own community to the wider
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public. It is interesting that all Thai, Hmong and Rohingya participants reveal the same strong desire to create new relationships with others in the wider host community when they see the possibilities in promoting the cultural understanding of their own community. This matter is evident among the Rohingya and Hmong while it is not so evident in the Thai community. Analysing the qualitative data by doing keyword search and context analysis, the phrases such as ‘promote our community/culture’, ‘know more about us’ and ‘develop cultural awareness’ were more frequently mentioned by Hmong
(27 times) and Rohingya (31 times) than Thai in-depth interview participants (19 times).
1.3 Connecting with their imagined community
Another important benefit which research participants from the three community groups enjoy from using their mobile phones for social interaction is creating and enhancing intra-community connections and networks. Living as minority communities in the diaspora, the Thai, Hmong and Rohingya similarly illustrate their need to stay close to people within the same groups and to create community networks with others who have similar backgrounds and interests.
Different functions and features of mobile phones are utilised to increase connectivity between people of the same community group. However, I find that the voice call function is principally adopted when communicating within the Rohingya community.
There are many factors that influence the prevalence of the voice call function among the Rohingya people. The first aspect is the perceived conditions of use of the
Lycamobile network. The Rohingya indicate their wide adoption of the Lycamobile mobile phone network which promotes itself as providing unlimited free national calls from Lycamobile numbers to Lycamobile numbers in Australia. Due to this condition,
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the Rohingya are encouraged to use the voice call when contacting within their community. However, it is important to note that this use of voice call function could be influenced by pressure from their peers. The Rohingya individuals may not intend to adopt voice call function as their major method communication.
Another aspect is that the use of the voice call function importantly enables the circulation and dissemination of cultural materials. The ability to read, write, hear and speak in their own language through the use of mobile phones is frequently mentioned by a majority of the research participants across the three communities. Some of their comments were: “I feel more comfortable talking in my language”; “it’s how I celebrate my identity while I am here [Australia]”; and “it [communicating in my own language] creates some private and special zones”. Karimuddin (2014, pers. comm.) asserts that as the Rohingya language is just a spoken one, the ability to communicate in their native language allows the Rohingya to draw strengths from their shared identity. It facilitates a culturally safe and secure Rohingya environment, where the Rohingya feel more comfortable and confident to consume, produce and publicise their identity.
Furthermore, a sense of a Rohingya public sphere is developed. Karimuddin, therefore, expresses that communicating within the Rohingya community (both mediated and non- mediated) is common for the Rohingya people who take pleasure in using their own convenient language to communicate, discuss, express and negotiate their cultural identity in Australia.
Ullah M (2015, pers. comm.) also comments on the development of a sense of community through the use of his native language. To him, the use of Rohingya spoken language certainly is embracement of the culture and identity. Ullah M (2015, pers. comm.) reports:
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I mainly talk to my friends in Rohingya, sometimes, in Bangladeshi. When I text, I text in Rohingya, using English alphabets. We don’t talk in English. We learn English to communicate with the outside world. But for our friends, we use our language. We can say things better and deeper in meanings.
In communicating within their own community, the Thai and Hmong similarly reveal an increasing exploitation of social media and mobile applications over their mobile phones. As the two communities have been established in Australia for a certain period of time (classified as established communities), the size and the level of dispersion of the communities arguably develop to a greater degree than for the Rohingya (classified as a new and emerging community). Opal (2014, pers. comm.), a Thai participant, is an example of the participants who illustrate the need to build and develop friendships with a much wider circle of friends, not only just those whom they have known before. She
(2014, pers. comm.) says that one of the critical aspects she has learnt from her nine years living in Australia is the importance of connectivity among people of their community. This aspect inspired her to establish a website entitled Mabrisbane. The main purpose for the establishment of the online site is to provide Australia’s Thai people with critical information about life in Australia, particularly in Brisbane, which is important in helping Thais to begin a happy and smooth life in their new home in
Australia. Moreover, the website aims to be a principal channel where Thai people can produce and consume their own local cultures in their own local vernacular. The contents presented on the website cover a wide array of topics. Audiences can find useful and necessary information to adjust to a new country in order to become established and independent.
In addition, Opal (2014, pers. comm.) explains the reason for establishing an online forum, instead of other forms of communication, reflects how she considers the growing trend of mobile phone use among Thai people:
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Now, people use mobile phones a lot. The mobile phones are not used for just making calls, but significantly for surfing the internet. And I believe that the mobile phone use will keep growing. That’s why I thought of creating a website. Beyond that I think that the online platform offers me great ability to reach more targeted audiences. Now, the Mabrisbane also has its expansions into Facebook, Flickr, Twitter, Instagram and YouTube channel, making it easier for our fans to interact with us and other Thais in the Brisbane community.
According to Opal’s account, it could be clearly seen that Mabrisbane is doing well in preparing for substantial growth in the use of the internet among the Thai target audience. A wide variety of platforms are created to be available as a consequence of the recognition of the growing popularity of internet use via mobile phones.
The purpose of maintaining and creating community connections and networks is also the principal reason for the establishment of the Facebook page entitled Thai Culture
Events Management, which is presented in Thai language. Berge (2015, pers. comm.), one of the three management members of Thai Culture Events Management, explains her idea:
It’s the sense of community that draws us together. We love to be around people who think the same way and enjoy the same stuff. The community engagement and connection is really important, especially when we are away from home. It importantly raises our mental health.
According to Opal and Berge’s accounts, on the online vernacular language media platforms, local dialects and languages, local issues, and local codifications of social reality have come to acquire their own status. The emergence of the Thai community media, particularly in the form of social networking and new media, underlines the customary use of modern technology to communicate with other Thai people. The openness and opportunities for wider engagement provided by social media were recognised as well suiting the desire for expanding intra-connections, allowing the wide adoption of social media within the Thai and Hmong communities. The survey results on the use of social applications presented earlier also validate the point.
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2. Information seeking
The qualitative data reveals that the research participants from the Thai, Hmong and
Rohingya ethnic groups demonstrate similar mobile phone behaviour in their use of mobile phones to search for and utilise information and knowledge. The majority of the survey participants indicate that they often use their phone to search in the information seeking process (see Figure 19).
80
70 68 60 60 54 50
40
30 22 22 20 16 20 14 10 10 6 4 2 2 0 0 0 Very often Often Sometimes Hardly ever Never
Thai Hmong Rohingya
Figure 19: The use of mobile phones for information seeking
The results from the qualitative method are also consistent with the survey. The use of mobile phones to go online and access news content is frequently cited by all research participants. They reported their online information seeking activities including finding a job, finding directions, finding information about the upcoming events in their own community and the wider society, and finding information about available resources
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and services in Australia. For example, Theemuenvai (2014, pers. comm.) explains her motivation for acquiring a mobile phone for the information seeking process:
The mobile phone’s very important. I’d love to have it everywhere and every time with me. During my initial settlement, I used my phone to reach important information about services available to help people like me get started. I also used Google Earth to have a preview of buildings at uni, made my part-time job search, accessed my email wherever I want and many more. I don’t think I could come this far without my phone.
Furthermore, they also demonstrate their appreciation of the notification feature on mobile phones. Through incorporating this feature with the mobility of the mobile phones, they can enjoy keeping up with the latest news and staying abreast of events and activities.
Apart from going online to gather information about issues of concern, I find that research participants also actively engage in communication activities as another important approach to information gathering. The communication activities which the research participants report included sending an email to acquire more information about a particular issue and calling organisations and/or friends to stay updated with news. For example, Anne, a Thai participant (2014, pers. comm.), indicates that calling her friends is an approach she usually employs to keep up with the news about the Thai community in Australia. Similarly, Vang (2014, pers. comm) uses Facebook and
Facebook messenger application to communicate with her friends in order to stay informed about Hmong community events. As a consequence, I would argue that, in the process of information seeking, people do not clearly distinguish between information seeking and social interaction.
In the Rohingya community, I also notice the extensive use of mobile phones for information seeking in terms of self-education. Many Rohingya participants such as
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Akram, Karimuddin, Ullah and Zaman report the use of different English learning applications and Islamic religious applications. In this sense, I suggest that the limitations on their religious freedom as well as restrictions on their education that the
Rohingya encountered in the past may encourage them to devote themselves to self- education when they have newfound freedom to indulge in information seeking. The use of mobile phones for self-educating may occur within the Thai and Hmong community; however, it is rarely mentioned by the Thai and Hmong participants.
3. Pass time
To identify the use of mobile phones for passing time, it is essential to critically analyse the context and intention of mobile phone usage along with a search for actual keywords. That is because there are the other two correlated uses and gratifications themes, entertainment and relaxation, often found overlapping the pass time uses and gratifications theme. The use of mobile phones under those three themes — pass time, entertainment and relaxation — allow people to gain the same end result that is pleasure.
Although research participants do not directly report the use of mobile phones for passing time, I observe that many of them enjoy using their mobile phones on this basis.
For example, Theemuenvai from the Thai community (2014, pers. comm) reports her everyday mobile phone use which illustrates that the mobile phone has redefined and expanded many dimensions of her everyday life:
It’ll be very weird having no phone. It’s the first thing I reach for when I wake up. I use it as an alarm. It’s also my mp3 player. Then, I use it to search my bus schedule and check the weather. When I’m on the bus, I might go through my friends’ Facebook pages, get my songs played, or call my mom. Can you see? These are just examples of morning
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activities and all involved the use of mobile phone. I use it till I go to bed.
The use of mobile phones when waiting for a bus and/or on a bus could be identified as use for passing time aspect. It suggests to me that passing time is one of the important reasons for mobile phone use. The need to have something to do to occupy time encourages the participant to take her phone out of her pocket. Then, she further enhances her needs and motivations in other aspects such as finding entertainment materials and accessing news content.
4. Entertainment
This category of uses and gratifications is defined as the use of mobile phones as an entertainment. The term ‘entertainment’ in this sense could be described as pleasure, fun and enjoyment. As a consequence, the dimension of entertainment in this research does not include relaxation.
The survey results of the use of mobile phones for entertainment purpose reveal that, among the three communities, the Rohingya has the least preference for playing games and using other entertainment applications on mobile phones (16% rate hardly ever, 6% rate never). On the other hand, the Thai and Hmong show a more comparable level of mobile phone usage preference for entertainment purpose (see Figure 20).
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90 80 78 70 60 58 50 40 40
30 26 22 20 16 20 14 12 8 10 6 0 0 0 0 0 Very often Often Sometimes Hardly ever Never
Thai Hmong Rohingya
Figure 20: The use of mobile phones for entertainment purpose
Qualitative data obtained from in-depth interview approach is corresponding with the surveys. Research participants from Thai, Hmong and Rohingya communities report extensive mobile phone use on entertainment platforms such as mobile camera, music, games and videos. The use of mobile phones to browse the internet for fun and other entertainment activities is also popular among the participants. Moreover, social networking sites, particularly Facebook, are largely recognised by research participants as an entertainment hub as well as a virtual social network platform. As numerous entertaining, interactive functionalities and content are incorporated into social networking sites, the research participants like Theemuenvai (Thai), Vang (Hmong) and
Zaman, Akram and Ullah (Rohingya) report that they can enjoy many entertainment activities along with maintaining relationships with other users. Such activity is regarded as entertaining because it offers the availability of interesting comments on social networking sites, investigating how people self-reveal on Facebook, playing games with Facebook friends and sharing fun activities with Facebook friends.
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Although many in-depth interview participants appreciate their mobile phones for providing enjoyment, some Rohingya participants including Ullah M (2015, pers. comm) indicate the less than favourable need to utilise the mobile phone for accessing entertainment materials. He recognises the activity as a waste of time because it does not help cultivate any good things in his life and the wider society. Ullah M’s perspective on the unnecessary need to acquire personal enjoyment by playing games on his mobile phone illustrates the close relationship to his past experiences. Ullah M (2015, pers. comm.) says:
I don’t play games. Not at all. It’s wasting my time. The Australian life is my special gift. I don’t want to use my time for playing games. I want to retrieve what I’ve lost ... I rather spend time doing something else to help others and to give back to Australia ... What I faced in the past was so terrible. Nothing here can make me feel stress. I don’t need to relax.
According to Ullah M’s interview account, the past oppressive experiences he encountered while living in the refugee camp played a role in influencing his perspective on this issue. I would argue that the traumatic of the Rohingya community affect their attitude towards mobile phones in providing entertainment materials.
5. Relaxation
This mobile phone usage theme is mainly and generally driven by the tension release needs of individuals. In order to classify the research data in the right context, I use terms such as ‘relaxation’, ‘relax’, ‘escape’, and ‘relieve stress’ as keywords to identify the relaxation usage theme among the correlated uses and gratifications themes which are to pass time and entertainment. I find that a majority of Thai, Hmong and Rohingya participants do not seem aware of mobile phone use in this sense. In addition, they tend to associate such a theme with the entertainment concept. The account of Ullah
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presented in the previous section is an example. He (2015, pers. comm.) states that “I don’t play games … I don’t need to relax”.
However, I argue that the two themes are different, and I am able to identify the relaxation dimension in the research participants’ usage. Research participants including
Theemuenvai (Thai), Thao (Hmong) and Akram (Rohingya) give details about how they use Facebook and other social networking sites from their mobile phones as a way to escape from reality for a short period of time. Scrolling through their Facebook feeds and emails is perceived as a relaxing activity as it keeps their mind off work or any stressful situations, allowing them to rest and relax.
6. Communicatory utility
The mobile phone use as a communication facilitator is related to the two previously discussed uses and gratifications themes: information seeking and social interaction.
However, in this research, the communicatory utility theme mainly emphasises the usefulness of the mobile phones in terms of a facilitator of interpersonal communication. This theme encompasses the idea of social motivation.
There is one self-rate question in the questionnaire designed to capture the use of mobile phones in this aspect: I use my mobile for finding some new things to talk about with others. The results of this question show participants across the three selected communities value this affordance of mobile phones and often use it (see Figure 21).
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80 76
70 68 60 60
50
40
30 22 20 20 20 14 10 10 6 4 0 0 0 0 0 0 Very often Often Sometimes Hardly ever Never
Thai Hmong Rohingya
Figure 21: The use of mobile phones as a communication facilitator
In-depth interview participants also recognise the value of mobile phones as an influential communicatory facilitator. As mentioned above in the information seeking section, participants in the Thai, Hmong and Rohingya communities perform a variety of mobile phone activities in order to seek out information as well as self-educate. The information they gain from such activities later became material for communication within one’s social network. The use of social media such as Facebook and Instagram via mobile phones is frequently mentioned by many participants such as
Wirojwaranurak, Berge and Anne (Thai), Vue T and Saykao (Hmong), and Alam A
(Rohingya) as an enjoyable and preferable approach to keep up with the latest trends, to watch people’s activities and to learn about others. The action allowed them to have topics about which to talk, to gossip and to discuss with friends, family and others which were important in supporting the management of social relationships and strengthening bonds within an intimate sphere.
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7. Convenience utility
During the interviews, participants were asked ‘How difficult would it be for you to do your job and live your life in Australia without a mobile phone?’. This question aims to explore the necessity for using mobile phones in everyday lives and also the level of disruption that would be caused by the absence of this communication technology. I find that the majority of research participants in the three groups report their great attachment to mobile phones. Kalpana (2014, pers. comm.), for example, expresses that he has become dependent on his mobile phone. During the interview, his high involvement with his iPhone5S obviously provides evidence of his dependence. I observed that he frequently interrupted our conversation to respond to his phone.
Furthermore, I find that he liked to check his phone regularly. Kalpana (2014, pers. comm.) says how much a mobile phone has penetrated his daily life:
I’ve got complaints from people near me about my cell phone overuse. But it’s hard to change. I think it’s already become my deep habit and a part of my personality. I’ve grown up with it. I love and live by my phone. To me, it’s quite normal. We’re now in the world of technology. It’s the world of personal computers and mobile phones. So, it is absolutely normal to me that lots of day-to-day activities need the involvement of mobile phones. It’s the way it should be.
According to Kalpana’s account, the increased mobile phone use throughout the day should not be viewed negatively as addictive behaviour. In contrast, he considers people reveal the high attachment to their mobile phones because they eventually learn about and adopt the innovation to change their normal practices.
Berge (2015, per. comm.) is another person who enjoys using her mobile phone. She reveals that her mobile phone has helped improve her quality of life in a number of aspects.
My phone is my everything. I think if I don’t have it with me, I will go crazy. It’s like an important part of me now. I use it for sending and receiving emails, going through Facebook pages, storing my important
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information, accessing my bank account. It makes my life a lot easier. I can’t afford losing my phone. It’s not because of the actual price of the phone itself. But it’s because of the high value of the information storing in the phone.
Other comments from other participants across the three ethnic groups including “I’d love to have it [a mobile phone] everywhere and everytime with me”; “it’ll be very weird having no phones”; “I think if I don’t have it [a mobile phone] with me, I will go crazy”, “I like to be accompanied by phones”; and “it [a mobile phone] has been an important part of my life for so long now” also indicate the singnificant use of mobile phones as a convenience utility. In this research, the term ‘convenience’ is viewed from two separate angles: reachability and mobility.
7.1 Reachability
In this thesis, I use the term ‘reachability’ to express a dimension of convenience. The reachability element mainly engages the concept of directness and instantaneity. It is used to convey the user’s ability to directly contact or be contacted through their mobile phones regardless of time and space. Such convenience enables the emergence of social connectedness among people in the society, which can translate into a more secure and happier life (Goggin 2006).
The use of mobile phones as a means of providing convenience in terms of reachability is significantly acknowledged by a majority of the research participants across the three communities. The participants similarly indicate their desire to be mobile but still to be
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always within reach of others anywhere and anytime. The need is perceived as an important initiative, driving them to purchase a mobile phone. For example, Saykao
(2014, pers. comm.), from the Hmong community, says that while mobile phones have become much more affordable and available for the masses, he did not hesitate to buy himself a mobile phone in order to allow himself to be instantly reachable and available for work-related purposes as well as for personal matters. In addition, many research respondents also affirm that they are empowered to coordinate effectively and conveniently in their lives through their mobile phones. They indicate the great importance of using the mobile phone for arranging a specific place and time for meetings, informing people about the time of arrival in a particular place, and changing plans at short notice. Without a mobile phone, the majority of the respondents say that it would be difficult to coordinate with others properly. Vang’s account below (2014, pers. comm.) summarises her appreciation of mobile phones:
I can’t imagine my life without the mobile phone. It’s such an essential tool. Being in this position, I need to contact a lot of people and find some information. I rely on social media a lot to contact, communicate and keep in touch with others. Communication is the main thing that keeps culture alive. I have my phone with me all the time. So I’m able to contact and be contacted 24/7.
The condition of always being reachable via mobile phones is perceived to be even more important and necessary as they are diasporic migrants in Australia living away from their loved ones. Almost all participants from the three communities consider that the reachability afforded by mobile phones is an expression of intimacy. Through mobile phones, the participants are encouraged to feel comfortable and intimate in their precarious relationships with family members and friends. Kalpana is an example of respondents who enjoy the benefit of always being reachable via a mobile phone. He
(2014, pers. comm.) says that the instant availability and reachability that the mobile phone offered is an important benefit for his mobile phone adoption. By having his
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mobile phone within reach, he could maintain the quality of his family relationship while geographically separated. Kalpana (2014, pers. comm.) also states that the mobile phone has become so thoroughly indispensable that his life may be unimaginable without it.
The reachability via mobile phones also plays a crucial role in assuring a 24/7 social network support (Goggin 2006; Gorgon & Richard 2006). Many participants indicate that they can develop a peaceful state of mind because they know that they can contact others during times of need, thus erasing feelings of loneliness and isolation during their displacement. In other words, the mobile phone enables and empowers the participants’ emotional wellbeing. This issue is mentioned by all research participants across the three groups during the interview. However, it is important to note that the Rohingya frequently refer to the reachability benefit in terms of their increased safety and security.
The terms or phrases including “personal security”, “safety” and “protection” are often used as an expression and description of the reachability benefits of mobile phones.
Those contexts are mentioned more than twenty times within the seven in-depth interviews of Rohingya participants. For example, Akram (2014, pers. comm.) reveals his everyday mobile phone use, indicating the intimate need for security and protection:
My mobile phone is more than a friend. If I lost it, I lost my very best friend. It’s my everything. I use it for working, for relaxing myself and for contacting someone ... It’s very good. If I were hit or had got a car crash, I could call emergency or call someone to help. If I have no phone, I will die. No one knows. It’s my life security.
The story of Zaman (2014, pers. comm.) also shows a similar perspective on mobile phone use:
I use the camera too. The phone is not just good for calling someone. If something happens to me or someone around me, I can take photos or video clips. I’ll show them to the police. I have evidence to show so no one can blame me.
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In contrast to the Rohingya, the Thai and Hmong generally refer to the benefit in terms of social connectedness. Doing the keyword/phrase search and context analysis, only four contexts related to the use of mobile phones for security purposes are cited by the
Thai and Hmong. As a consequence, I suggest that the refugee trauma experiences and the difficulties of being victim to many unlawful treatments, which may be still in the
Rohingya participants’ minds, could influence their strong motivation to feel safe and secure.
Although almost all the research participants appreciate the reachability which mobile phones provide, there is one participant from the Hmong community, Vue V, who reveals a different perspective. Vue V perceives the reachability as a threat rather than a benefit. Vue V (2015, pers. comm.) says:
I don’t have smartphones. I’m using my tough Nokia one. I don’t call or text often. The reason I have the phone is just for my parents to contact me ... Actually, I used to have one [smartphones] and I didn’t like it a lot. I found it’s very distracting. Turning back to the old style phone, the moment is all mine.
According to Vue V’s account, instead of feeling less stress and being happier, the great features and functionalities of smartphones encouraged him to feel more stressed and worried due to the high degree of unwanted distraction and interruptions. As a consequence, he prefers to turn to less distracting, basic cell phones in order to allow time for himself and his thoughts.
7.2 Mobility
The term ‘mobility’ is used to define the convenience in terms of the ability to perform a wide variety of tasks other than voice communication, allowing independence of time and space. According to this explanation, the concept of mobility encompasses two
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important aspects: the sense of physical travel and the function of efficiency resulting from using the mobile phones in a mobile context (Barney 2007). Having a portable size that fits well into people’s pockets, the mobile phones could be carried everywhere and
“attached to users’ bodies like watches” (Castells et al. 2007, p. 77). Moreover, being incorporated with other media such as television, the computer, camera and radio, the mobile phone has become an important, on-the-move, cognitive tool and integrated into people’s lives.
Acceding to the description above, I find that the mobility afforded by portable mobile phones is another important factor leading to research participants allowing mobile phones to become part of their lives, not just for communication purposes but also for many other functions in both public and private spaces. Just as suggested by Leung and
Wei (2000), the participants agreed that, because of the mobility of the mobile phones, they could possibly remain plugged into the information and communication world without being tied to a single location. Consequently, they are empowered to stay connected, make their commuting time more productive, whilst enjoying their mobile lifestyles.
Advances in mobile technology have enabled a wide range of task-specific mobile phone applications to be developed that can be used by people on the move (Flueckiger
2012). Moreover, a massive number of mobile versions of websites have been generated to coincide with the growing access to websites via mobile devices. The less complicated and easy-to-navigate design is one of many reasons that encourage many research participants including Opal and Kalpana (Thai), Zaman and Alam A
(Rohingya), and Thao and Vue T (Hmong) to enjoy searching and browsing on their mobile phones while on the move. They similarly indicate that the mobile phones are
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useful and practical for accomplishing small tasks within short periods of time. Besides this, the action can be performed anywhere and any time they desire. Examples of the use of mobile phones to suit the participants’ mobile lifestyles included transferring money, turning their phones into a high-quality navigator, using their mobile phones as a meeting room, doing online shopping while on the move, and engaging in a conversation without location constraints.
8. Fashion and social status
The use of mobile phones as a fashion statement are reported by many research participants. This perspective is obvious in those from the Rohingya community. They suggest the close relationship between mobile phones and social status.
Within the Rohingya community, participants largely reveal the social implication of mobile phones in terms of its aesthetic dimension. The majority of participants indicate that mobile phones are more than just a communication tool. They are additionally viewed as a symbolic representation of the greater freedom in life. Through discussion with the Rohingya participants in the field, I find that most participants wish to talk about and share some of their past experiences. The sharing experiences predominantly include many trauma stories, where the narrative under the scope of ‘life without security’ appears to be the most frequently mentioned theme. Those stories are often revealed in association with greater levels of well-being, freedom and security that they experience while living in Australia. Such responses suggest that the refugee trauma experiences, which may be embedded in the Rohingya participants’ minds, could influence their strong motivation to feel safe and secure. Inevitably, the use of mobile phones among the Rohingya participants demonstrates the link to the sense of security.
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Many Rohingya people in Australia experience the true freedom to live their lives for the first time while they are living in this country. Greater freedom without limitations of strict laws is one of the main factors that drive the Rohingya to adopt mobile phones as a means of communication. As a consequence, it is common that as soon as the participants were free from the restricted access to communication technologies and any other outlawed restrictions, they tended to adopt such technologies available to them regardless of whether they had no or poor literacy skills in technology. To other people, having ownership of a mobile phone is perhaps not extraordinary. However, to many
Rohingya participants, being able to have and enjoy their freedom of choice and to use mobile communication available to them is paramount. It is even appreciated as ‘a life event’. Zaman (2014, pers. comm.) states:
For my whole life, I don’t know what should be considered illegal and what should be legal. I was subjected to too many regulations just because I was born as a Rohingya. Now, I live in Australia. It is a shine of my life. Finally, I can live my life like others, like I am a human ... Many things that once were just my dreams, now I can make them happen: I have a place to live comfortably, I can talk on the phone without hiding, I can drive a car, going anywhere I want. I’m so happy.
Ullah M (2015, pers. comm.) also reports his strong need to obtain a mobile phone, particularly a smartphones, after arrival in Australia. He reveals that he did not know much about what the smartphone could do and how to use it. However, he desired to buy one and aimed to eventually learn how to use it as time went by. To him, the smartphones are recognised as a symbol of prestige, associated with people from the upper classes in society. This perspective is important in driving him to seek that favoured position. Ullah M (2015, pers. comm.) says:
I had a phone before when I was in the camp in Bangladesh. But I was never able to carry it around freely. It was illegal for people like me to have a phone. Back then, smartphone was my dream. I always saw rich people have it and use it. So when I am here [Australia], I bought myself a smartphone. It was beyond my expectation. I never think that one day I could own it. I like it very much.
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Other Rohingya participants such as Zaman and Salaudin are also somehow motivated to adopt and use a smartphone to express their preferred self-image and to signify their achievements and freedom in life. Arguably, the use of mobile phones to represent social status or as a fashion statement of the Rohingya people is associated with their refugee background in which they were subjected to many oppressive laws and regulations, including a ban on ownership of mobile phones. Although there are only a few participants in the Thai and Hmong groups who declared the use of mobile phones as a means to communicate symbolically about themselves, I could not suggest that this aspect of mobile phones use is not important within the communities.
Summary
The findings of this current study reveal that motivational needs of people are important and directly influence the use of mobile phones. Due to the technological convergence of the communication process through mobile devices, mobile phones are able to be used in a much more wide variety of everyday tasks and complete against other media in some ways (Ling 2004). Consequently, I can observe the intersection of uses and gratifications themes of other media such as social media and those of mobile phones.
In this research, there are eight identified uses and gratifications themes of mobile phones in which seven out of eight are a shared set of motivations and gratifications which people could obtain from using social media.
The way in which research participants from three communities in Australia, Thai,
Hmong and Rohingya, use their mobile phones are correspondingly categorised into eight common themes. However, when further analysing with the consideration of
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cultural factors of each community, I am able to investigate the relationships between cultural dimensions and mobile phone uses. By comparing and contrasting the use of mobile phones of the three communities which are upholding similar and/or different aspects of cultural background, the three communities demonstrate different levels of acknowledgement of the mobile phone capabilities in those eight common uses. The use and perceived benefits of mobile phones in some aspects of different groups of research participants reveal dissimilar degrees to which their cultural elements have an effect on.
The important findings, which affirm that there are cultural dimensions in mobile phone uses, are concluded below.
For social interaction purpose, the findings show that research participants across the three ethnic communities use mobile phones as a means to provide close connections between them and their family, friends and acquaintances. Besides this, this communication technology is employed to create an awareness of belonging to the diaspora. The notion can also be seen within the Rohingya community in which most members generally reveal a very low level of technological literacy and have less experience with mobile phones due to the difficulties of being victim to unlawful treatment from their homelands as well as other places where they seek asylum.
However, in terms of using the devices to connect with the wider society, the Rohingya shows the lower level of enthusiasm and interest. I find that previous traumatic experiences have a corrosive impact on the Rohingya’s capacity to trust others outside their community, resulting in the lower awareness to use the mobile phones in this manner.
For information seeking purpose, Thai, Hmong and Rohingya ethnic groups demonstrate similar behaviour in their use of mobile phones to search for and utilise information and knowledge. However, the use of mobile phones for self-educating
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among the Rohingya participants is more obvious. I suggest that the limitations on their religious freedom as well as restrictions on their education that the Rohingya encountered in the past may encourage them to devote themselves to self-education when they have newfound freedom to indulge in information seeking.
For entertainment purpose, the Rohingya community has the least preference for playing games and using other entertainment applications on mobile phones. The historical narrative of oppressive experience of the Rohingya is again found influencing this mobile phone usage aspect.
Using mobile phones as a convenience utility, the Rohingya frequently refer to the reachability benefit in terms of their increased safety and security. On the other hand, the Thai and Hmong generally describe this usage in relation to social connectedness.
This research explains that the subjected experiences of humiliations of the Rohingya people, which may be rooted in the Rohingya participants’ minds, could influence the
Rohingya to value and use their mobile phones to increase their personal security and protection.
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CHAPTER VII
Research analysis and discussion
This chapter integrates and synthesises the findings within the existing body of knowledge in the discipline of media and cultural studies which I reviewed in Chapter
III and Chapter IV. It begins with the analysis of the influential factors on mobile phone uses in which the historical and cultural factors are the main focus. The following section introduces the discussion on the Australian public sphere and other alternative public spheres. It is to reinforce the idea that ethnic migrants as subordinated groups need to create their own public spaces in the society they live in. There are the co- existence of the Thai public sphere, the Hmong public sphere and the Rohingya public sphere along with the Australian public sphere in multicultural Australia.
Moreover, this chapter discusses the role of mobile phones as community media or ethnic media. Mobile phones are important channels of communication with friends and family who are in the homeland countries and also with diasporic people of the same ethnicity in Australia. After that, this main thesis’s research question is answered by the analysis of the three key roles that mobile phones play in diasporic communities: connecting with remembered and/or imagined homelands, places and communities; developing restoration of independence and integrating in the new country of residence; and constructing and managing their own identity.
Then, how these three migration groups use mobile phones compared to Australian people who are living in the dominant public sphere is revealed. This last section reinforces my previous argument that cultural backgrounds and diasporic experiences are heavily influential mobile phone usages among migrants, and that on makes these
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people create their own ways of mobile phone communication in the Australian public sphere.
As previously discussed in Chapter IV, cultural factors have an important relationship to mobile phone behaviours of people (Palen et al. 2000; Lindholm et al. 2003; Muk 2007;
Tenhunen 2008). In line with the literature, the findings of this research highlight that there are cultural dimensions in mobile phone uses. The differences in mobile phone use are found directly related to various cultural elements, which exist in people’s background and identity. Therefore, it could be stated that this study provides evidence to support the importance of cultural factors on mobile phone use.
Analysis of the influential factors on different mobile phone uses
Thus far, I have presented the ways in which research participants from Thai, Hmong and Rohingya communities in Australia used their mobile phones in their everyday lives and have categorised the uses into eight common uses and gratifications themes. Those eight themes include social interaction, information seeking, pass time, entertainment, relaxation, communicatory utility, convenient utility and fashion and social status. In using the mobile phones under those eight themes, the Thai, Hmong and Rohingya participants indicate the influence of demographic, motivational and cultural factors.
This research particularly examines the impact of cultural factors in the use and perceived benefits of mobile phones of the three different ethnic minority communities in Australia; the explanation on the impact of different cultural and historical values on mobile phone use is given more weight.
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In relation to the demographic factors, this research supports suggestions of Coen et al.
(2002), Ziefle and Bay (2004), Pedersen (2005), Alafeef et al. (2007) and Navabi et al.
(2016) that people in different age groups have different levels of interest and familiarity with mobile phones, and people in the same age group are likely to have similar mobile phone behaviours. According to the research findings, the 20-year-old
Kalpana (2014, pers. comm.) reveals distinctive mobile phone behaviours when compared to other participants across the three communities who are older, such as
Vang (27), Alam M (25), Theemuenvai (26) and Wirojwaranurak (24). Kalpana shows a higher level of mobile phone attachment and presents that the mobile communication technology has significantly altered his social interactions and perspectives on innovation culture. In addition, I notice that he develops a high expectation of availability that exists among members of his social network. I suggest that Kalpana may base such a perspective predominately on his own heavy mobile phone consumption.
The use of ‘not very fancy’ mobile phones of the older generation of the Australian-
Hmong people which was frequently mentioned by many Hmong research participants such as Vue T and Thao also reveals the effect of demographic variables on the adoption and utilisation of mobile phones. This supports Navabi et al. (2016) that older adults usually consider their mobile phones to be too difficult to use. Therefore, they tend to adopt a basic model with only basic and simple features. However, it is important to note that not only the condition of age, but the cultural and historical narrative of being refugees in many places before settling and emerging in Australia, of the older Hmong could also be found having an effect on this aspect of mobile phone usage. This matter is also pointed out by Vue T (2015, pers. comm.). He asserted the first generation of Australian-Hmong refugee migrants like his parents and people he
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knows generally experienced disadvantage and demonstrate very low levels of digital literacy. As a consequence, those people are not very interested in using new mobile technologies.
As suggested by Lindholm et al. (2003), Ling (2004), Tamminen et al. (2004) and
Biljon (2006), the findings of this research reinforce that the use of the mobile phones are directly associated with motivational needs. Apart from biological and physiological needs, which are the most basic physical requirements for human survival, other needs such as safety, belongingness, esteem, cognitive and transcendence (Maslow 1943) emerged in mobile phone usages. For example, participants across the Thai, Hmong and
Rohingya communities in Australia reveal that the needs to feel a sense of belonging and companionship drive them to use their mobile phones for social interaction to create and sustain their social relationships. The need of safety and security also significantly emerged in mobile phone usage of many participants, especially those from the
Rohingya ethnicity. The reachability and mobility of the mobile phones allow people to have a sense of assurance and confidence that they are able to reach and be reached in difficult situations (Ullah 2014, pers. comm.; Zaman 2014, pers. comm.). Besides this, other non-voice features like camera and voice recorder are recognised by some participants including Zaman (2014, pers. comm.) as having a great ability to ensure his personal security and to defend himself for being blamed from something he did not do.
Cultural factors are another important aspect that influence mobile phone usage in people’s everyday lives (Paten et al. 2000; Lindholm et al. 2003; Muk 2007; Tenhunen
2008), and are the main focus of this study. By researching the mobile phone uses among the three different ethnic communities that have different cultural and historical backgrounds, I reinforce that mobile phone uses certainly conforms to the cultural context of mobile phone users.
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The historical and cultural contexts presented in Chapter II show that among the three cases of analysis, the Thai community has a distinguishing characteristic. Members of the Thai community in Australia are predominantly voluntary migrants who have decided to move to Australia and realised that they have a choice to return back to their home country. Besides this, the history of the migration of the Thai people to Australia is not very complicated. The community has been established in Australia for a long period of time and has been welcomed by the wider Australia society. Considering the definition described and used by the Ethnic Communities’ Council of Victoria (2012), the Thai community is considered as ‘an established community’. The stable and secure social condition of the home country as well as the pleasant status in the new host country had somehow encouraged members of the Thai community to incorporate
Australian aspects into Thai ways of life without fear of losing their own identity. In addition, the action was widely recognised by all Thai research participants as necessary and acceptable. I suggest that the aspect may happen as a result of the sense of adaptability and openness for change, which has been cultivated in Thai people’s identity. As discussed in the Thai community section in Chapter IV, Thai people have learned, understood and developed the benefits of being open and adapting themselves to alternate ways of life since the European colonial era (Numnonda 2011).
The growing awareness and recognition of the Thai community in Australia also enhances the Thai people’s ability to embrace their own tradition and culture and aim at contributing to the multicultural atmosphere of Australia. Arguably, the perceived secure and steady position of the Thai community in Australia impacts the use of mobile phones of the Thai participants. They reveal their mobile phone use in personal and public areas as connecting with their homeland, promoting their identity, sustaining connections with their imagined community and adapting themselves to the new
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environment of Australia. Those mobile phone behaviours of the Thai participants are reported performing without indirect purposes and implications. Their reported actions allow the research to conclude that the mobile phone uses of the Thai participants reflect the community identity and background.
On the other hand, Hmong and Rohingya communities are somewhat similar in their community backgrounds as they both are ethnic communities with no nation or home country of their own. Besides this, they mutually hold the long tradition of being refugees settling in many foreign countries before coming to Australia (details in the
Hmong and Rohingya sections of Chapter II). Their community backgrounds as well as direct and/or indirect past experiences of the individuals are found to affect the level of acknowledgement of the mobile phone capabilities in some aspects. One interesting point that this research discovered is that it is necessary to understand the communities’ different political and historical contexts, which have possible impacts on the development of a collective ethnic consciousness in terms of a yearning for their homeland as it can affect the use of mobile phones in the circumstance of connecting diasporas. While the Thai diasporic people have a clearly defined homeland where they can collectively develop their longing around, the Hmong and Rohingya imagine their ethnic homeland differently and in a more complicated manner (Lee 2010). Within the
Hmong community, Lee (2010), a Hmong anthropologist and author based in Australia, asserts that due to the violent attacks and persecution which later became known as the
Hmong genocide, many Hmong people experienced the horror of fleeing from Laos and seeking protection from third countries. As part of the immigration process, the Hmong people, therefore, face the problem of a blurred national identity. Some lived most of their lives in refugee camps in Thailand before resettling in Australia, while others had their lives and identity rooted firmly in Laos. Therefore, to the Hmong people, it may
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not be accurate to define their identification in terms of the national identity. Instead, it is much more preferable and specific to classify their identity in the notion of ethnic identity. This notion is also found in the Rohingya community as they experienced the ethnic cleansing which similarly led to the circumstances of fleeing violent attacks and persecution and residing in Bangladesh and other countries. The words ‘home town’ or
‘home country’ used in the Hmong and Rohingya contexts, as a consequence, could not refer to one specific place throughout the study. That is because different Hmong and
Rohingya people may consider their nation-state society differently depending on their levels of attachment to and involvement in the particular place (Levitt 2004). Besides the political and historical contexts, the stability of community is also another crucial factor to acknowledge because it can affect the use of mobile phones in connecting diasporas. For example, I suggest looking at that of the Hmong due to its distinctive characteristics. In the next paragraph, the review of Hmong historical and cultural background is referred to.
In 2015, the Hmong community in Australia marked their forty year history of resettlement in Australia. Residing for a reasonable period of time, it is customary to see changes in the Australian-Hmong population size and better living conditions and social status. According to Lee (2010), the majority of the Hmong population in
Australia were initially accepted into Australia as refugees or under the family reunion programme. These people are the first mechanism who draws and generates the future of the Hmong community in Australia. They have been adapting themselves to a new society, and also re-established themselves economically and socially. However, the forty years of living in Australia allowed the Hmong to establish and evolve in Australia for only several generations, and the second generation is now taking the lead. Lee
(2010) asserts that instead of having more new immigrants arrive, the Hmong
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population in Australia gradually increases due to the new generation who are
Australian born. In addition, the younger generations of the Australian-Hmong community generally are born and/or raised in the Western environment of Australia, allowing them to tend to become more comfortable with and embrace social and cultural norms of Australia and are less familiar with their Hmong culture.
Consequently, it could be argued that the second and the younger generations of the
Hmong may experience a low level of social connectedness and engagement with their country of origin. This circumstance is also observed in immigrant communities in the
US by Waldinger (2010) who finds that the effort to secure a better future and to live their lives happily in the host country usually drives the immigrants to progress towards assimilation, whether they want it or not. The growing number of the younger generation of the Hmong people provides an ideal environment to examine whether the growing attachment to the host country has some bearing on the use of mobile phones among the Australian-Hmong people, especially the younger generations like Vang,
Thao and Smith, in terms of diasporic connections with their community.
For the Rohingya, the ‘new and emerging community’ in Australia, this research finds comparing to the Thai and Hmong communities, Rohingya participants clearly reveal the possible impact of cultural factors in the use and perceived benefits of mobile phones. I argue that this happens as a result of the unique political and cultural background, particularly the discrimination and persecution against the Rohingya people, which is still fresh in people’s minds and still continuing until the present day.
The findings also show that the Rohingya people indicate a lack of recognition of the essence of mobile phones in maintaining and facilitating relationships with others outside their own community. This matter is believed to happen due to the historical and cultural factors in relation to trust of others from outside Rohingya community. In
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addition, people from the outside Rohingya may be considered to have been involved in some kind of torture in the countries of asylum and origin. The issue of language is another crucial aspect which influences the low level of mobile phone use in terms of making contact with the outside world. Low ability to communicate well in English has obstructed many Rohingya as well as many Hmong people from contacting and building relationships with others outside their community.
According to the previous chapter, I find that when it comes to the matter of promoting the societal and cultural understanding of their own community to others, the Hmong and Rohingya communities interestingly express their great willingness and enthusiasm to use their mobile phones in this sense. In my consideration, the level of eagerness of the Hmong and Rohingya people is noticeably higher than that of the Thai. The high frequency of keyword mentions by the Hmong and Rohingya presented in the findings chapter also underlines the matter. I suggest that the historical background of having no specific place to call home could be a factor. To them, the mobile phones are considered a great tool to promote community awareness. By using the communication devices, they are empowered to ensure their own meaningful space in the multicultural atmosphere of Australia and generate the feelings of welcoming and belonging.
The use of mobile phones for maintaining connection within a community group is also predominantly reported by the participants in the Hmong and Rohingya. Although the
Thai people report the importance of this matter, I notice that the use of the mobile phones in this sense of the Hmong and Rohingya is far more than to fulfil a general desire to connect to their own community in Australia compared to what I find in the
Thai. In addition, the Hmong and Rohingya seem to point towards a goal to redefine and empower their global ethnic community. Their social connections are found to bond to cultural identity and culture rather than bond to a single region or nation. I suggest
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that the identity narrative of being refugees as well as other cultural factors of the
Hmong and Rohingya communities such as the clan structure of the Hmong and the identity narrative of being stateless of the Rohingya, which is presented in the historical chapter, play a crucial role in influencing the use of mobile phones in maintaining connection with their diasporic communities.
The self-reported perceptions and motivations of using mobile phones to increase safety and security in life of Rohingya participants, as well as to elevate their image and social status, are also important. The intense use of the mobile phones for these two purposes among the Rohingya people illustrates the existence of historical and cultural factors in motivating mobile phone use. Using the other two communities, Thai and Rohingya, which presented different cultural and historical backgrounds, as a point of reference, the results gained from the Rohingya participants remarkably stand out. I, therefore, am able to come up again with an assumption that the very distinctive historical background of being stateless people in their own country and the previous traumatic experiences have a corrosive impact on the Rohingya’s capacity to trust others outside their community. Besides this, the experience of suffering may be rooted in the Rohingya participants’ minds. Therefore, it influences the Rohingya people to use their mobile phones differently from the Thai and Hmong communities to fulfil this specific gratification.
The Australian public sphere and the alternative public spheres
In order to build up a more concrete result to be used in understanding the role of mobile communication technology in the diasporic populations’ lives, the eight identified uses and gratifications themes are further analysed in relation to the contexts
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of diaspora and transnationalism. Such an analysis demonstrates how mobile telephony shapes experiences of individuals in the three collective communities while living away from their countries of origin.
As presented in Chapter II, Australia is home to a staggering diversity of people and made up of a majority population from a roughly homogeneous ethnic background together with a number of minority populations, including Australia’s First Nations peoples (Australian, Government, Department of Immigration and Border Protection
2011). Arguably, this nation is a product of a unique blend of established traditions and new influences, allowing this country to be one of the most ethnically diverse societies in the world (Australian Government n.d.). A great diversity of nations is presented through almost every aspect of this ever-changing, multicultural, society such as in migration policies and multicultural organisations (Australian Government, Australian
Multicultural Council 2011). Although relationships in Australian society between the various ethnic groups and those who identify as ‘Australians’ seem to be positive and healthy, minorities to some degree remain at a disadvantage (Zubrzycki 1977, 1995;
Dunn 2003; McLeod & Yates 2003; Booth et al. 2009; Jakubowicz 2010, 2011; Szoke
2012; Joint Standing Committee on Migration 2013). The findings of this research gathered from participants from three ethnic communities, the Thai, Hmong and
Rohingya, also reinforce this notion. Many participants in those three ethnic groups express their concerns about inequality and social disadvantage. This is evident in the following comments from Smith, a Hmong research participant (2015, pers. comm.), who says:
When I’m getting to know someone, it always starts with ‘where are you from?’. It’s a normal question but I feel like they’re judging ‘you’re not an Australian, who are you?’. It’s because the way I look. I look so Asian. Even though I was born here [Australia], I couldn’t call myself an Australian. I’m not white, not having white skin.
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Vang (2015, pers. comm.) says:
It’s quite normal to be called Asian and assumed we’re speaking Chinese. Without knowing us, people already assumed who we are and of course to them, we’re not Australians. For the Rohingya people, according to Karimuddin (2014, pers. comm.), they are often viewed and described by the terms “Indians” and “Muslim” which they find evoke racist references. Karimuddin (2014, pers. comm.) asserts:
There is a time I felt like I’m not welcomed here[in Australia]. Australians have no idea about Rohingya people. They just called us Muslim or Indian. I got a person come to me and ask ‘why are you here?, Are you making a bomb?’. That’s such a stupid stereotyping.
In Chapter VI, I verify some crucial factors including the language barrier, perceived discrimination, isolation and cultural differences, which in some ways negatively affected the social well-being of many Thai, Hmong and Rohingya research participants living in Australia. Due to those challenges and difficulties, many report an intentional and/or unintentional reluctance to participate in the wider society of Australia. On the contrary, they indicate their intention to stay close to others of the same ethnic group, especially during the early years of their resettlement. The action is preferable because it is believed to shelter the minorities from discrimination and exclusion. Moreover, the research participants entirely agree that regardless of the length of community residency in Australia, the shared experiences, language and cultural understandings of a particular community could generate a safer environment, where they are encouraged to feel more comfortable and confident to involve themselves in activities and conversations.
The minorities’ preference to stay among their communities could be explained using the concept of a multiplicity of public spheres (Fraser 1991; Zoonen 1991; Calhoun
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1992; McLaughnin 1998l; Annabelle & Zoonen 1999), a concept criticising the
Habermasian notion of the single public sphere (Habermas 1989). The concept of the public sphere in Habermas’s sense was originally described as a public space where everyone in society can engage in communication on roughly equal terms with one another. However, the findings of this study reveal that the three minority groups are concerned with their inability to fully participate in and contribute to the dominant
Australian public sphere even though some of them have been living in Australia for a long period. As a result of the dissatisfaction, the research participants across the three collective communities decide to move toward the constitution of alternative publics, or subaltern counter-publics (Fraser 1991) where they could freely discuss their common experiences, alternative cultures, challenges and successes with others who share a common interest. Such a reaction challenges Habermas’s traditional public sphere. Yet it supports the idea of multiple public spheres in which each sphere is established “in recognition of the impossibility of keeping societal inequalities out of the public sphere”
(Fraser 1991, p. 123).
In my application of the concept of a multiplicity of public spheres, I conclude that, as the Australian public sphere, which is the dominant public sphere, could not assure access and social equality to everyone, especially ethnic minority groups, the three ethnic communities in this research then constitute their own ethnic public spheres in co-existence with the mainstream Australian public sphere. The minority public spheres are purposely established to serve the needs of their own specific and narrowly-drawn communities (Dreher 2010a, 2010b). At the same time, the spheres are expected to ensure the people have a meaningful space to feel a sense of belonging while living in the multicultural Australian society as well as to escape from supervision by the dominant group. Moreover, the constructed public sphere of each minority community
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could encourage and empower the minorities to freely communicate and discuss issues and interests which are important to them before bringing those issues to the wider public sphere (Couldry & Dreher 2007; Gordon 2008). In this research, I name the three alternative public spheres established by each community as ‘the Thai public sphere’,
‘the Hmong public sphere’, and ‘the Rohingya public sphere’. Arguably, these three public spheres provide evidence of the existence of an enormous number of alternative public spheres in Australia (Fraser 1991; Calhoun 1992).
Fraser (1991) also asserts that although there are an enormous number of alternative public spheres established in co-occurrence with the mainstream public sphere in order to serve specific needs of particular groups of people, it does not mean that people are strictly confined to only one single public sphere. In addition, people have the freedom to engage in any public spheres they enjoy being member of (Janoski 1998; Keane
2000). The findings of this research correspond with the idea of the multitude of overlapping public spheres. I find that the members of the Thai, Hmong and Rohingya ethnic communities in Australia such as Saykao, Ullah, M, Vang and Opal not only perceive themselves as full and active members of their own ethnic groups, they also fully acknowledge their memberships of the Australian society and are ready to be associated with or to be a member of other subaltern public spheres in Australia.
The next section provides more details about the importance of the three ethnic community-established public spheres and the roles mobile phones play in facilitating these alternative public spheres in Australia.
Alternative public spheres: mobile phones as community media
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According to the discussion in the previous section, it can be clearly seen that public participation is at the heart of the public sphere. In the formation of the public sphere or
“a network for communicating information and points of view” (Habermas 1996, p.
360) of Thai, Hmong and Rohingya communities, members of those particular communities are required to move away from their private space and come together as a community to discuss and form public opinion. In the age of the digital era where mobile phones are generally in everyone’s pocket (Goggin 2006), this research finds that minority people in the three community groups are empowered to make a deliberate choice between mediated and face-to-face communication in participating in the alternative public sphere they cooperatively established (Habuchi 2005). Without the mobile phones, many participants such as Saykao, Opal, Zaman, Karimuddin and Alam
M believe that it will be impossible to have such a strong tie between community members as the communities have today.
The previous chapter presents the findings on how the three diasporic community groups use their mobile phones in their everyday lives to satisfy their needs. The uses are categorised into eight common themes. Examples of the most common mobile phone activities included communicating with friends and family, managing day-to-day activities, finding non-personal information such as bus schedules and lotto results, searching news and information about their homeland countries, and entertainment.
According to the extensive uses, the research argues that the mobile phones have become a vital communication channel which the Thai, Hmong and Rohingya use to express, represent, reproduce and maintain their cultures and their cultural ways of life while living in Australia. Participants from the Thai, Hmong and Rohingya communities similarly indicate that mobile phones enable the circulation and dissemination of cultural materials. The great ability to read, write, hear and speak in
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their own language through the use of mobile phones are frequently mentioned. The useful functions that the mobile phone performs in enhancing the lives of ethnic minority people in the three selected communities allow this research to identify this communication technology as an important platform, manipulator and also as a precondition of the existence of the alternative public sphere of the Thai, Hmong and
Rohingya (Gordon 2006, 2007, 2008). Besides this, I am able to evaluate the functions of the mobile phones for ethnic minority audiences and compare them with those of community media.
In Chapter IV, I examined the media and their role in the public sphere and highlighted that community media or ethnic media are one of the most significant foundations of multiple public spheres in society. This is due to the notable ability to deal with the diversity of cultures by providing a space for debating and experiencing alternative viewpoints and lifestyles. Besides this, the media can also ensure accountability in addressing community concerns without entailing commercial interests (Husband 2005).
Referring to the previous studies by Meadows et al. (2007) and Forde et al. (2009), the community media (Australian community radio in their sense) perform important social, cultural and informational roles including maintaining cultures and languages, enhancing community connections and networks, and providing people with community news.
In this research, I present that members of the Thai, Hmong and Rohingya communities in Australia heavily rely on their mobile phones and social media uses as a means of communication with friends and family who are in the homeland countries and also with diasporic people of the same ethnicity in Australia as suggested by Vertovec (2009).
Moreover, the Thai, Hmong and Rohingya people consider mobile phones as an
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essential source of information about their local communities and events. They not only use their mobile phones as channels to pave the way for their identity, language and culture to be part of the Australian society; at the same time, the devices are used to establish and access online social media networking sites in order to allow them to connect to those people who have similar backgrounds and interests. The adoption and utilisation of the media affirms that the mobile phones similarly perform a role of community media in enhancing connections among members of the same community as suggested by Madianou (2016). The significant of the mobile phones in people’s everyday lives is evident even though the majority of the survey participants consider themselves as just moderate mobile phone users (see Figure 15 in Chapter VI). A perspective of life lived in rather than with the media of Deuze (2007) can be used to explain the research participants’ perception. The people may become less aware of the presence of the mobile phones in their consciousness due to the strong relationship and intimacy with the media.
The results of this research also suggest the comparable roles that mobile phones and community media play in the lives of minority people in Australia. I find that through the use of mobile phones, the minorities from the Thai, Hmong and Rohingya communities in Australia could also gain the same benefits as provided by the community media (Matsaganis et al. 2010; Sun 2016). More explicitly, the community media’s primary role of maintaining community networks and connections as suggested by Forde et al. (2009) can also be performed through mobile phones. According to the findings, Wirojwaranurak and Kalpana from the Thai community agree that they need mobile phones to access and remain connected to their friends and family in Thailand.
Ullah M, a Rohingya participant, states that the mobile phone is the most important communication channel he uses to communicate with loved ones in Myanmar. Saykao,
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a Hmong interviewee, regularly uses his mobile phone to keep in touch with his family overseas and to rescue himself from homesickness and loneliness while living in
Australia. Moreover, the results of surveys affirm that one hundred per cent of the participants across the three community groups use their mobile phones to maintain social relations with friends and other people in their collective community both inside and outside Australia.
Orienting immigrants to their new community is another important character of ethnic media that mobile phones can match (Adoni et al. 2006). The findings from the three case studies show that the mobile phones play an important role in connecting the immigrants to information, news and events to help them orientate and become established in their new homeland. Participants perform a number of mobile phone activities such as making phone calls to ask for immigration assistance services, surfing the internet to apply for a job or enrol in educational institutions, and checking information about bus, train and ferry timetables and journey planners. Other activities including streaming video or movies on YouTube, checking personal calendar, setting alarm clock, uploading photos and videos onto social networking sites and using other applications such as internet banking are also reported as being very important in helping the people to recreate a new life in Australia and promote people’s sense of well-being (Matsaganis et al. 2010; Laanpere et al. 2011).
To conclude, I suggest that mobile phones could also be recognised as a kind of community media. They importantly function as a means of communication for ethnic immigrants to stay connected to their homelands in order to maintain their cultural identities. Furthermore, the communication technology is significant in immigrants’ settlement process as it allows an easy and convenient access to localised information and assists them to adapt and accommodate themselves to the new environment. A
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balanced role of mobile phones in providing both connective and orientation information, which is comparable to the role of community media, can contribute to the
“dual frame of reference”, allowing the ethnic minorities to live their lives under the norms of their original homeland as well as the new country of residence (Reese 2001, p. 455). Not only benefits the lives of minority people who are living in Australia; it makes a valuable contribution to the concept of multiculturalism of Australian society.
The role of mobile phones in diasporic communities
This research is not set up to determine only the uses and gratifications themes of the mobile phones of minorities. The ultimate aim is explore the importance of this communication technology in migrants’ lives and the impact which the technology has on them. As a consequence, I analyse the results concerning the notions of diaspora and transnationalism. The literature I look at includes Anderson’s concept of the imagined community and other relevant topics such as the network society and communication technologies and community media, which have been reviewed previously in Chapter
III and Chapter IV.
Arguably, the eight categorised uses and gratifications themes of mobile phones recognised by the participants in this research from Thai, Hmong and Rohingya communities demonstrate no significant difference in common general knowledge.
However, by taking into account their materiality in terms of being diasporic minority communities in Australia, there are obviously phenomena in which mobile phones could impact in their diasporic lives. By critically examining the eight themes, this research discovers three fundamental roles which mobile phones crucially play in the lives of the three diasporic groups. The roles are the answer to the one of the main research questions: What role do mobile phones play in shaping the lives of minorities
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who live in the multicultural environment of Australia? The three roles that emerged from the study include:
1. Connecting with remembered and/or imagined homelands, places and
communities;
2. Developing restoration of independence and integrating in the new country of
residence; and
3. Constructing and managing their own identity.
Role 1: Connecting with remembered and/or imagined homelands, places and communities
As discussed in this research, minority communities in the diaspora are often viewed as being uprooted from their countries of origin. However, a growing body of research in the transnational literature (Gillespie 2000; Bernal 2006; Diminescu 2008; Elias &
Lemish 2009; Kissau & Hunger 2010; Komito 2011) has recognised that new communication technologies have a great potential to facilitate transnational bonds between migrants and their countries of origin and thereby increasing connectivity between diasporic people who share “routes” and “roots” (Clifford 1994, p. 322). As expected, the results of this study are also consistent with those studies. Through the investigation and analysis of the use of mobile phones of participants from three diasporic communities, mobile phones are used as an effective and convenient channel to connect the participants with other people who share the same homelands. Moreover, this communication technology plays a remarkable role as “a community glue” as suggested by Forde et al. (2009, p. 106) in strengthening and sustaining community
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connection and cohesion. This role the mobile phones play is certainly comparable to the role of community media.
Based on Anderson’s concept of the imagined community (1983), a common consciousness significantly arouses deep attachments and holds profound emotional legitimacy for a group of people. Members of the three communities also demonstrate that their awareness of decentred attachment, which comes in different forms such as family relationships, community ties, the memory of place, or the shared memory of trauma suffered by members of a particular community group, stimulates their desire to connect directly and/or indirectly with others of the same group who live in the homeland, in Australia and somewhere else. In order to create transnational social ties, they report the deployment of mobile phones in various ways. Among the eight uses and gratifications themes which are discussed in the previous chapter, the use of mobile phones for social interaction is the most obvious for constructing and preserving community networks. The participants across the three communities utilise a wide range of available communication features on mobile phones such as the traditional features like voice calling and instant messaging as well as the modern features — video calls and message sending via message applications — in order to reinforce their pre-existing relationships with people of the same groups. The action is also to facilitate new and meaningful relationships. Other advanced features and applications such as email and internet browsing are also relied on to different degrees to facilitate social connections.
Moreover, communication and interaction via social media are found to contribute positively to the formation of imagined communities for the three ethnic groups (Bernal
2006; Diminescu 2008; Komito 2011; Pentecost 2011). Through the use of social media via mobile phones, participants reveal increased possibilities for connecting to and consuming content from other individuals or social groups with whom research
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participants believe they share the same background. Their actions are acknowledged because they allow the shared emotional connections to be expressed, represented, reproduced and maintained (Rheingold 1993; Fremlin 2012).
Information seeking and communicatory utility are also important mobile phone activities which could arguably emphasise community solidarity and cohesion. Due to the ability to connect conveniently to online resources, mobile phones are used by almost all participants across the three ethnic communities as information retrieval tools. As discussed, one kind of information that participants report searching for is information related to their own communities in their homeland, in their country of settlement and other places across the globe. Examples of the information include the existence of other Thai, Hmong and Rohingya communities in other countries, the politics of the homeland and the traditional cultural practices of their own communities.
From their actions, I agree that there is certainly a psychological sense of nationality which connects people. By recognising a shared core set of values and beliefs of their own communities, members of the Thai, Hmong and Rohingya communities are stimulated by a sense of belonging and develop an imagined coherence even across space and time. Mobile phones are used in accordance with their common consciousness to seek and consume content which conveys narratives about their own communities, and allowing the users to link themselves to others much more conveniently and effectively (Rheingold 1993; Robinson 2006; Fremlin 2012).
It is evident that mobile phones are used by participants as an important information channel to obtain community content and also as a communication platform to distribute such content to others in their communities. In cross-border terms, participants are empowered to feel more connected to their imagined communities
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(Castells 1996, 2004, 2008; Jones 1997; Papacharissi 2002, 2009; Ubayasiri 2006; Khan et al. 2012). The more information about their own communities they consume and express via mobile phones, the clearer imagination they can create (Appadurai 1996;
Smith 1986, 1998; Wenger 1998). Within their own public spheres in Australia, the use of mobile phones arguably assists the healthy growth of the Thai, Hmong and
Rohingya’s community connections and networks by facilitating communication and interaction between community members. In other words, the mobile phones enable the creation of the atmosphere of a healthy alternative public sphere within Thai, Hmong and Rohingya communities in Australia.
Role 2: Developing restoration of independence and integrating in the new country of residence
In Chapter VI, I report efforts undertaken by minorities in the Thai, Hmong and
Rohingya communities to integrate into their adopted country. The integration is found to be a result of the minorities’ endeavours to interact with their host society and other public spheres (Mandaville 2001; Elias & Lemish 2009). In doing so, mobile phones are heavily utilised by a majority of the participants to smooth out the processes of integration and restoration of independence as suggested by Elias and Lemish (2009),
Redecker et al. (2010) and Laanpere et al. (2011).
I express that the use of mobile phones among research participants in the eight themes can influence the development of a sense of independence of minorities and encouraging integration. However, the eight different uses of mobile phones may facilitate different degrees of benefits. For example, by using mobile phones under the social interaction theme in connecting the host’s population and other interethnic
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groups in Australia, the participants in the Thai, Hmong and Rohingya communities are encouraged to open themselves to the opportunities to get a job or useful training, to promote their unique identity to the public, to develop better understanding about their own community, to cope with familial separation (Robinson 2006; Fremlin 2012), and to navigate their way around Australia, among others. By using the mobile phone for information seeking, the participants are able to stay abreast of the latest news, to become aware of services which are available to them, to access information and contacts which can assist their settlement process, and also educate themselves to become more able to do things for themselves while living in a new and unfamiliar way of living in Australia (Lopez 2000).
The use of mobile phones under the pass time, entertainment and relaxation themes also assists in restoring a sense of independence among the Thai, Hmong and Rohingya immigrants. Although it is arguable that the use of mobile phones to play games, to escape from reality, to relieve stress and other activities may not allow participants to develop any settlement life skills or local connections, the participants assert that they can gain other benefits such as managing their own emotions and engaging themselves in their own sense of satisfaction and pleasure. As well as the use of mobile phones as an individual fashion statement for some Rohingya participants, the mobile phones are found to encourage no life skills but to assist people to develop their self-confidence that is necessary to encourage them to participate more fully in the broader community of Australia (Green 2006).
Role 3: Constructing and managing their own identity
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As suggested by Hall (1996), Leung et al. (2009) and Lopez (2016), this current research finds that the Thai, Hmong and Rohingya communities also express their desire to reinvent their cultural identity in the new homeland. In order to fulfil their needs, the minority people in these three groups not only physically gather together as a community and cooperatively create their own public spheres where their cultural artefacts such as language and practices are produced, reproduced and consumed
(Dorothy 1999; Howley 2010; Forde et al. 2009), they also actively engage with each other through mobile phones to allow a greater level of community engagement and participation (Haythornthwaite 2002; Komito 2011). Besides this, the mobile phones are used as an important channel to promote the community’s cultural identity to the wider public.
In Chapter VI, I reveal how members of the three communities employ their mobile phones as a significant channel to construct, present, negotiate and reinforce their cultural practices and identities while living as small minorities in Australia. The use of mobile phones in social interaction and information seeking themes are among the most important mobile phone uses which contribute to the construction and management of the diasporic identities of the three ethnic communities. Using mobile phones under the social interaction theme, research participants are empowered to stay connected and interact with other people in their own communities in more convenient and effective ways. Moreover, they can create a much wider social network of people through the use of social media over their smartphones. As a result of the increased dynamics of interaction and involvement via mobile phones (Safran 1991; Tsagarousianou 2004;
Erni 2016), it is evident that the articulation of community identities of the three ethnic groups is more intense. Cultural elements such as languages, norms, values and community narratives are allowed to be reconstructed continually in Australia through
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community production, reproduction and consumption. Moreover, the mobile phones also significantly enable the promotion of those identities to the wider public of
Australia (Sun 2016).
Using the internet via mobile phones for the purpose of information seeking, participants report an enhanced ability to access, consume and analyse media content related to their own community. The knowledge and information they obtained later became an important material for reinventing their cultural identity and organising community events to generate an awareness and acceptance of their communities’ existence in multicultural Australia (Keane 2000).
Thai, Hmong and Rohingya participants also indicate many benefits from using their mobile phones to seek entertainment materials such as community based-videos and songs in their own language, in relation to the preservation and reinvention of their cultural identities in the diasporic context (Anderson 1983; Scannell & Cardiff 1991;
Wang 2008). Messages in such media content are narrated in a way that conveys culturally symbolic meanings as suggested by Dayan and Katz (1992). Therefore, by consuming the local vernacular media content, they are able to feel connected to their imagined communities. Besides this, the activity is perceived as a way to allow their cultural identity to play some role in their lives while living in Australia.
Australian vs Thai, Hmong and Rohingya mobile phone use
This section is set up to find the similarities and differences between the mobile phone uses of the three selected communities, Thai, Hmong and Rohingya, and those of the general Australian community. In order to compare and contrast the research results, I
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use the data revealing the Australian mobile phone use presented earlier in Chapter III as a benchmark. By doing so, I am able to understand how vital mobile phones are in lives of those diasporic ethnic minorities in Australia. An analysis below supports the idea that mobile phones are generally more important to ethnic migrant people’s lives than the wider native population’s (Ofcom Research 2013; Roy Morgan Research 2017)
As presented in Chapter III, Australia has a distinctive level of mobile phone penetration (ACMA 2015; Deloitte 2015, 2016), and there are two significant reasons driving Australian people to take up mobile phones: using as a means to communicate and being personal assistant and constant companion (Deloitte 2015). The results of this research also suggest similar results. People from the three targeted ethnic groups as well as the general Australian community extensively use different features of mobile phones, both traditional and non-traditional, to communicate and to make their lives easier while living in the country. However, I find that apart from those two aspects, the
Thai, Hmong and Rohingya groups manifest a significant impact of issues of diaspora and distinctive community identity on the adoption and consumption of this mobile communication technology. Such issues promote a more intense use of mobile phones in some aspects such as the use of the communication devices to maintain bonds with geographically scattered family members and to build networks in the area of origin and destination, while they are less valued or recognised by the Australians (Roy Morgan
Research 2017).
Although many studies (ACMA 2015; Deloitte 2015, 2016) present a continuous increase in the use of communication applications (Facebook messenger, WeChat,
WhatsApp and Skype) via smartphones of Australian people, Roy Morgan Research
(2017) contends that the use is far more significant among the Australian migrants. The research findings in Chapter VI emphatically present that migrants from the Thai,
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Hmong and Rohingya communities heavily rely on their mobile phones in the process of maintaining and enhancing effective existing relationships and also creating new and meaningful relationships. The intense use of mobile phones to talk to family members overseas is among the most evident mobile phone behaviours of the three ethnic groups.
A majority of Thai, Hmong and Rohingya participants indicate they utilise their mobile devices for this purpose very often (see Figures 16, 17 and 18). Besides this, the devices have become cherished resources for transnational family communication due to the ability to generate “ambient co-presence” (Madianou 2016, p. 199). The results of this research support the assumption of the current Roy Morgan Research (2017) that the higher mobile phone use of migrants is predominantly driven by the need to stay in contact with their place of origin.
For the purpose of using mobile phones as a personal remote for life, the Thai, Hmong and Rohingya diasporic people indicate that mobile phones have penetrated every aspect of their daily lives, as with other members of Australian society (ACMA 2015;
Deloitte 2015). The ethnic participants also use their mobile devices to undertake a significant number of online activities such as transferring money, using high-quality navigator, using as a meeting room, doing online shopping while on the move and engaging in a conversation without location constraints. However, this research finds that in some usage aspects like the use of mobile phones for entertainment purposes and for self-education reasons, many participants, particularly in the groups of Hmong and
Rohingya ethnicities, demonstrate a lower or higher level of recognition and appreciation. The matter is discussed earlier in this chapter as a conclusive outcome of the cultural and historical factors.
While Brand and Todhunter (2016) point out that playing games is a common mobile phone behaviour of the general Australian population, this research discovers that this
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mobile phone activity is not so prevalent in some ethnic migrants, especially those from the new and emerging Australian-Rohingya community. Although nearly half of the
Rohingya survey participants reveal that they occasionally play games on their mobile phones, there is a noticeable number of the participants who do not use or hardly use their mobile phones in this aspect (22%). In addition, Ullah M (2015, pers. comm.) highlights that the outlawed restriction experiences and tortures of the Rohingya tremendously influence this mobile phone use. According to the findings (see Chapter
VI), other mobile phone activities such as leaving comments on other people’s social networking pages, posting a status update on their own Facebook page and sharing news and/or interesting information on Facebook are instead perceived as a better way to seek pleasure and enjoyment as they promote fun and enjoyment and allow the development of social relationships at the same time. The piece of information suggests this research that people’s particular cultural and historical narrative can influence different mobile phone use and appreciation.
In the previous section, I answered the main research question that there are three essential roles that mobile phones play in the lives of minority people. Those three are connecting with remembered and/or imagined homelands, places and communities; developing restoration of independence and integrating in the new country of residence; and constructing and managing their own identity. Those three roles highlight the significance of cultures and migrant contexts in the use of mobile phones of the three selected groups. At the same time, the three roles provide an explanation on how the three ethnic communities use the mobile phones differently from settled Australian people. While the mobile phones are mainly utilised as a convenient communication tool and daily companion for Australian mainstream population, they play a more strategic role in the daily lives of the Thai, Hmong and Rohingya, and are certainly a
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part of migrant experience as suggested by Glazebrook (2004), Leung et al. (2009) and
Gordana (2013).
This research discovers that through the use of mobile phones, the specific needs of migrants including the need to become integrated with the wider Australian community, the need to maintain bonds with geographically scattered family members and the need to sustain and promote their cultural identity are addressed (Hiller & Franz 2004;
William 2011; Nedulcu 2012; Sun 2016). In sum, the great affordances of the mobile phones in dealing with those special needs of migrants allow the mobile phones to become ubiquitous in the lives of the Thai, Hmong and Rohingya migrants in Australia.
Summary
Although demographic factors and motivational needs importantly influence the use of mobile phones, cultural factors are also an essential part of mobile phone communication, especially to ethnic groups. Because of their different cultural backgrounds and diasporic experiences, the three community groups of Thai, Hmong and Rohingya utilise mobile phones differently to Australians to some extent.
Mobile phones are characterised as multiple public spheres in Australia where subordinated groups like Thai Hmong and Rohingya are able to speak in their own voices and to express their cultures and identities using their own idioms and styles.
Mobile phones similarly perform themselves as community media that are one of the most significant foundations of multiple public spheres in society.
The three groups not only use their mobile phones as channels to pave the way for their identity, language and culture to be part of Australian society, but also to access online
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social media networking sites in order to allow them to connect to those people who have similar backgrounds and interests. Furthermore, orienting immigrants to their new community is another important character of ethnic media that mobile phones can match.
Connecting with remembered and/or imagined homelands, places and communities; developing restoration of independence and integrating in the new country of residence; and constructing and managing their own identity are major roles mobile phones play in the three minority groups. Thai, Hmong and Rohingya are empowered by mobile phones to ensure their own meaningful space in multicultural Australia and also generate the feeling of welcoming and belonging.
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CHAPTER VIII
Conclusions and recommendations
This chapter provides conclusions based on the research findings and also offers alternative explanations that synthesise the various issues raised in this thesis. It re- discusses the role of mobile phones to answer the main research question presented in the first chapter. It also presents theoretical implications to explain what this research means in terms of the theoretical framework of the public sphere (Habermas 1989) and imagined community (Anderson 1983). Furthermore, some recommendations for future research are discussed.
Concluding thoughts
Arguably, mobile phones can be seen as one of the most important extensions of humans of the twentieth century. They are handheld media that put massive communication possibilities into the palm of people’s hands. This research project concentrates on mobile phone use among Australia’s multicultural communities. The ultimate objective is to explore the role of mobile phones in shaping the diasporic lives of minorities in multicultural Australia, by contributing to understandings of the significance of media and communication technologies for diasporic minorities. In answering the research question, I examine the diverse and complex ways in which minorities use their mobile phones to make sense of the world around them.
Motivations for using the mobile media are also investigated to explore whether cultural factors, transnational links and the length of community residency in Australia can
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affect mobile phone usage. Under this focus, this research, therefore, could help develop a better understanding of the different cultural dimensions of mobile phone uses among ethnic minorities. It also provides an insight into how the new communication technology assists those minority people in the process of establishing their lives in a multicultural country like Australia.
In order to answer the research question of what role mobile phones play in ethnic minority communities in Australia, three ethnic communities in Australia, Thai, Hmong and Rohingya, are selected as main units of analysis, allowing this research to be recognised as a multiple-case study. The three ethnic communities are intentionally chosen to stress the central focus of the project which is limited to South-East Asia, the region where I come from. Although the three ethnic communities are selected due to cohesion in one aspect, they significantly present relative differences in community backgrounds and different length of community residency in Australia which make the communities complex enough to appropriately serve as the main units of analysis of this research. The Thai and Hmong communities in Australia are established communities, while the Rohingya is a recently-arrived community or new and emerging community.
In addition, the Thai is the only community group among the three that has no refugee background.
The study is purposely designed to be a qualitative, descriptive study to allow the documentation of the research participants’ experiences and perspectives on using mobile phones. A number of the participants’ quotations and explanations are presented in the research findings chapter. Similarities and differences in the mobile phone use are demonstrated. I also adopt the quantitative research method which is in the form of the short questionnaire-based survey in order to capture some important data and measure participants’ attitudes and behaviours related to mobile phones. The results obtained from
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the quantitative research method are used to verify or dispute the findings from qualitative data.
In the findings, the mobile phone uses between the three communities and wider Australia are similar to a certain extent. They adopt and use their mobile phones to fulfil their needs and address their gratifications in similar ways to the general use of social media. I group eight themes of mobile phone uses under the uses and gratifications theory: social interaction; information seeking; pass time; entertainment; relaxation; communicatory utility; convenient utility, and fashion and social status. However, the difference of mobile phone uses of these three groups comparing to Australian people is discovered.
These three ethnic groups heavily use mobile phone to maintain diasporic connections with people overseas. The findings show that the use of mobile phones to maintain transnational family relationships is among the most important mobile phone uses for social interaction.
In this research, I argue that mobile phones play a similar role to community media or ethnic media to serve the specific needs of these diasporic minority people. Mobile phones are not only communication channels for ethnic immigrants to stay connected to their homelands in order to maintain their cultural identities; they are also significant in orienting immigrants to their new community. This role is another notable character of ethnic media that mobile phones can match. The findings from the three case studies show that the mobile phones contribute to the “dual frame of reference” (Reese 2001, p.
455) by playing an important role in connecting the immigrants to information, news and events to help them orientate to the norms of their homeland norms of their original homeland as well as Australia, and become fully established in the new environment of the new country of residence.
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I also demonstrate two important propositions concerning ethnic background and mobile phone uses and the ways in which they are linked. Arguably, mobile phone uses conform to the cultural context of the mobile phone users. This research finds that their community backgrounds as well as direct and/or indirect past experiences of the individuals are found to affect the level of acknowledgement of the mobile phone capabilities in some aspects. The similar historical backgrounds of the Hmong and
Rohingya of being displaced people with no country of their own and being subjected to persecution and discrimination are found to be important in encouraging the people to use their mobile phones to promote and develop societal and cultural understandings of their own community. Besides this, I highlight that this cultural dimension influences the intense use of mobile phones of the Hmong and Rohingya for developing close connections between people from the same background. It is understandable that the longing for their own homeland, which is one of the dominant identity narratives of the
Hmong and Rohingya, has accelerated the need for a space of which they have possession and feel they belong. While living in the new adopted homeland, they use mobile phones to solidify the desired space that they never previously had. Even though the Hmong established their community in Australia for a much longer time than the
Rohingya, the need to possess a private and meaningful space in the new homeland is paramount. Therefore, this research reveals that the mobile communication technology empowers the Hmong and Rohingya to ensure their own space in the country of residence. Compared to the Thai community in Australia, the use of mobile phones in these matters was less obvious. The reasons are that social conditions in the home country of the Thai are more stable and secure and the Thai community has a longer history of being in Australia than the other two. The perceived secure and steady
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position of the Thai community in Australia can be deemed to cause less use of mobile phones for solidifying a Thai space in the new homeland.
Further evidence affirming the existence of cultural and historical factors in mobile phone use is the use of mobile phones as an emergency tool for security purposes which is acknowledged by many Rohingya research participants. In this research, this mobile phone activity is classified under the convenient utility theme. The Rohingya participants, who report the use of mobile phones to help increase their own safety and security, demonstrate that the cultural background of being subjected to unlawful treatment while living in their homeland and/or being refugees in many places around the world certainly influence them to develop a high recognition of mobile phones in this sense.
The use of mobile phones to communicate symbolically about themselves by some
Rohingya participants also exemplified the existing relationship between cultural factors and mobile phone use. Specifically, within the Rohingya community, mobile phones are not just an effective communication tool, they are also a symbolic representation of greater freedom in life. The perception is widely developed within this ethnic minority group due to an assault on their freedom and human rights which included a ban on mobile phone ownership. Reports of the use of mobile phones as a means to represent the greater freedom in life are not found among any participants of the other two ethnic communities, Thai and Hmong. However, a few of them report the use of mobile phones as a fashion statement.
Such empirical explorations provide a useful insight on how the three ethnic minority communities use mobile phones in complex ways which correlate with their sense of cultural identity and historical background. I proposed three roles of mobile phones in
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which the media liberate potential for the three diasporic communities in Australia.
Those three roles included connecting with remembered and/or imagined homelands, places and communities; developing restoration of independence and integrating in the new country of residence; and constructing and managing their own identity.
1. Connecting with remembered and/or imagined homelands, places and
communities:
The Thai, Hmong and Rohingya communities used various functions on their mobile phones to establish and maintain connections and relationships with people in their communities locally, nationally and transnationally. This research shows that this communication technology creates a space for the minorities to develop a sense of community, a sense of self and also a sense of inclusion within and across the culturally diverse Australian society, facilitating the healthy growth of community connections and networks.
2. Developing restoration of independence and integrating in the new country of
residence:
According to the research, mobile phones empower the Thai, Hmong and Rohingya communities to emerge from their own community boundaries and to connect to the wider society. With the help of mobile phones, the minorities are encouraged to see themselves as part of the Australian society. They could develop their life skills, and develop in relation to the interconnected spaces including the Australian public sphere and interethnic public spheres.
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3. Constructing and managing their own identity:
The research shows that mobile phones function as mechanisms for sustaining and enhancing collective identities which the diasporic minorities have brought with them.
Through the distinct use of mobile phones, those shared, core sets of values, beliefs and practices of particular communities are allowed to be reproduced, expressed and consumed to enrich the diasporic minorities’ lives while living away from their homeland or in the absence of the actual homeland of the Hmong and Rohingya communities.
Limitations of the study
Limitations are found in the process of analysis and interpret the results of this research.
In a quantitative inquiry, interpretations were made based on numerical data to reach the findings. However, qualitative inquiry involved extensively with the interpretation of questionnaire results, interviews, observations, documents and context. One question usually raised is that of how the researchers know that data and interpretation is reliable.
Validity and reliability are main concerns in the quality of research study (Wongrujira
2008).
Another limitation of the analysis is language limitations. This research involved the translation of a language which is Thai. Although the Thai language is the researcher’s mother-tongue, which is understood very well, I found that it was challenging to truly and accurately translate the research participants’ accounts into English. According to
Wong and Poon (2010), in order to translate in cross-cultural research, researchers could not just translate using a word-to-word approach. However, they need to use their own understanding of the meaning, according to their own experience in order to deliver the
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translated text that fully conveys original meanings, tones and intentions of research participants. To maintain reliability of the data, I requested other Thai colleagues to perform an independent double checking. The action was to ensure that the translated texts were as accurate as possible. Furthermore, within the Hmong and Rohingya communities, I found that some participants are struggled with English language in terms of appropriate expression. As a consequence, a choice to have a translator attending the interview session was given to all in-depth interview participants.
This research limits itself to the study of the roles of mobile phones in constructing ethnic identity and enhancing minorities’ lives in Australia. There is a lack of different research angles such as racism in mobile phones and using mobile phones in challenging racist attacks. As previously mentioned, mobile phones play a similar role to community media or ethnic media. The idea of ‘community media interventions’
(Dreher 2010b), that refers to media activities subjected to media racism in order to speak back to mainstream media, could fulfil this research at the deeper level.
In this research, I presented a number of statistics obtained from a wide variety of national and international statistical organisations and services. Those statistics were carefully selected to present as up-to-date information as possible. However, some statistics are scheduled to update in a specific period of time. For example, the
Australian Census of population and Housing collected by the Australian Bureau of
Statistics is produced every five years. In addition, the latest version is the year of 2016 which was officially scheduled to release its first preview on 11 April 2017 before being followed by the launch of a more comprehensive version. As this thesis is set to complete in early August 2017, the updated comprehensive data on community level census data, therefore, could not be included. The data of the previous Census (2011) was presented instead.
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Theoretical implications
I began this current research by exploring the ways in which minorities in the Thai,
Hmong and Rohingya communities in Australia use their mobile phones in their everyday lives. The motivations for their use were also investigated in order to find out the possible impacts of the cultural dimensions of each community on mobile phone use. The proposed analytical approach assisted my understanding of the notion that the minorities in the three ethnic groups used their mobile phones in complex ways to shape their own experiences while living in a diasporic context of Australia.
In many ways, this research demonstrates that mobile phones play an important part as a communication channel as well as an information platform to establish and promote a healthy public sphere for each collective community. Instead of holding on to the space established by groups the Thai, Hmong and Rohingya people do not perceive being part of, they indicate the use of mobile phones as an important mechanism to generate their much preferred spaces where their cultural narratives and identities are supported. As previously mentioned, those spaces are called ‘the Thai public sphere’, ‘the Hmong public sphere’ and ‘the Rohingya public sphere’. Consequently, the research offers evidence to suggest that the notion of the public sphere proposed by Habermas (1989) should not be understood as a static one, but rather a sphere of multiple complexities as suggested by Fraser (1991). Besides this, the current research reinforces that different sets of values, beliefs and practices are the main apparatus which drives the formation of each unique public sphere.
As previously argued, mobile phones create ‘the Thai public sphere’, ‘the Hmong public sphere’ and ‘the Rohingya public sphere’. Culturally appropriate frameworks are
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used to structure mobile phone communication. Then, mobile phones become a part of the ethnic community and a part of local culture. Communication via mobile phones
―public discursive arenas ― are among the most important and under-recognised sites in which identities are constructed, deconstructed and reconstructed. From this point of understanding, I suggest that it is clear that alternative public spheres exist for other ethnic communities or even other social groups including the lesbian and gay community, the vegetarian community or sports community, which can exist with the main Australian public sphere in order to foster specific collective identities. Moreover, it is possible that mobile phones could play an important role as a platform and precondition for the existence of those public spheres as suggested in this research.
Further research is recommended to compare my research results with those of other communities or social groups which were not included in this study.
Anderson’s (1983) theoretical perspective of imagined communities is also chosen as a framework to better understand the ability of mobile phones to create a bond and a national consciousness among diasporic groups. Based on Anderson’s (1983) theory, the research findings confirm that the attachment to the country of origin and the grounding of identity to a particular ethnic consciousness is fundamental to imagine and develop a sense of being and belonging to a community for diasporic people. In the case of the Thai people in diaspora, the two factors including the shared perception of a clearly defined territorial homeland and the shared cultural artefacts were found to play a crucial role in binding and holding the Thai people together into an imagined community. However, in the case of the Hmong and Rohingya who have been living in the absence of a true homeland, the collective, authentic cultures were predominantly recognised as the most important element that captures the emotional and physical connections among the dispersed people as well as emphasising the feeling of belonging
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to the Hmong and Rohingya ethnicities. The indication allowed me to suggest of the matter of place which in this sense means the existence of the territorial homeland is less significant, in relation to the imagination of an imagined community. I argue that people could possibly imagine, develop and maintain their own imagined community even in the situation of a nonexistence of a clearly defined homeland, which supports
Cohen’s statement (1997, p. 26):
Transnational bonds no longer have to be cemented by migration or by exclusive territorial claims. In the age of cyberspace, a diaspora can, to some degree, be held together or re-created through their mind, through cultural artefacts and through a shared imagination.
Anderson (1983) highlights the role of media as the main catalyst for the construction of the imagined community. Media have the ability to unite and harmonise people in a country or ‘imagined space’ by delivering a sense of belonging. Mobile phones as digital media are used to maintain and preserve migrants’ unique cultures and identities.
The research affirms this matter by illustrating how mobile phones are extensively used by the Thai, Hmong and Rohingya to allow daily and vast transnational exchanges and to facilitate social interactions and communication within and beyond the diasporic communities. Through the use of mobile phones, the minorities could live within a specific location, but stay connected in national and/or transnational spaces.
Communicating in the same languages and with similar interests via mobile phones illustrates of important element that transmits a sense of belonging to these people. In this way, these people are allowed create their own kinds of ‘imagined communities’ within the broader concept of the nation while living in Australia. In some ways, it resonates with the multiple public spheres idea proposed by Fraser (1993) which was previously discussed.
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Recommendations for future research
This section outlines some avenues for future research that could follow from this study.
I recommend that other different theories relevant to the field might be useful to this research including the diffusion of innovations. Diffusion is the process by which an innovation is communicated through certain channels over time among the members of a social system (Rogers 1995). It would provide a new angle for this project because this theory sees change as being primarily about the evolution of products and behaviours. As a consequence, the changes become better fits for the needs of individuals and groups. Another possible theory is media ecology communication theory (Postman 1970) that is the study of media as environments. Changes in technology develop the social constructs and shape perceptions, experiences, attitudes and behaviour. Different personal and social environments are created by the use of different communication technologies.
This research studies the use of mobile phones among three different ethnic communities in Australia. It focuses mainly on testing whether cultural and historical factors influence the different use of mobile phones. As a consequence, other influential factors including demographic and motivational aspects, which could also play a role in motivating mobile phone usage, are given less consideration (Bina and Giaglis 2005). I suggest that further research on the use of mobile phones regarding those two factors could provide a greater depth to the existing body of knowledge.
Ddifferent theories might allow the researcher to interpret the research results and data from different angles. For instance, empowerment (Rappaport 1984) could be useful to analyse how people are empowered through mobile communication. Another interesting approach is development communication which is a framework for using media to
The role of mobile telephony in multicultural Australia: A case study of Thai, Hmong and Rohingya communities 260
facilitate social development; as a result, it suggests the researcher should explore more media content in mobile phones, conduct more comparative studies, and study more policy research (Servaes & Malikhao 2005).
As Australia is a multicultural country, further research to explore the role of mobile phones in other ethnic communities would require exploration. Moreover, as this study is mostly based in the Brisbane area due to the great level of accessibility and availability, the investigation of mobile phones’ role in different areas of the country such as Sydney, Melbourne and Perth is also worth researching.
Other research tools such as focus group discussion are also effective in achieving valuable data. Focus group discussion might provide data about a range of ideas and feelings that individuals have about the issues, as well as the differences in perspectives between groups of individuals. Group dynamics will be gained because the group develops its own conversation, raising ideas and issues that might not emerge in interviews with the interviewer alone (Silverman 2004). Meadows et al. (2007) and
Forde et al. (2009) suggest that each focus group can be adapted to suit local conditions by inviting participation using alternative media outlets.
People in different age groups have different levels of interest and familiarity with mobile phones, and people in the same age group are likely to have similar mobile phone behaviours (Alafeef et al. 2007). As historical and cultural factors are the main focus on mobile phone uses, further study on other influential factors such as demographic factors and motivational needs might provide better understanding of mobile phone uses at a deeper level.
The role of mobile telephony in multicultural Australia: A case study of Thai, Hmong and Rohingya communities 261
Additionally, at the time of this thesis submission in 2017, many new social media communication tools and applications on mobile phones are continuously being developed. Such developments merit further investigation.
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Australian Ethic Affairs Council, Canberra. Zubrzycki, J 1995, ‘The evolution of the policy of multiculturalism in Australia 1968- 1995’, Global Cultural Diversity Conference Proceedings, Sydney, viewed 22 October 2013, Appendices Appendix A: Ethical clearance certificate HUMAN RESEARCH ETHICS COMMITTEE ETHICAL CLEARANCE CERTIFICATE This certificate generated on 17-12-2013. This certificate confirms that protocol 'NR: The role of new media in multicultural Australia: a study of Thai, Rohingya and Hmong communities' (GU Protocol Number HUM/22/13/HREC) has ethical clearance from the Griffith University Human Research Ethics Committee (HREC) and has been issued with authorisation to be commenced. The ethical clearance for this protocol runs from 15-05-2013 to 01-03-2015. The named members of the research team for this protocol are: APro Susan Forde Prof Michael Meadows Miss Natcha Krisneepaiboon The research team has been sent correspondence that lists the standard conditions of ethical clearance that apply to Griffith University protocols. The HREC is established in accordance with the National Statement on Ethical Conduct on Research Involving Humans. The operation of this Committee is outlined in the HREC Standard Operating Procedure, which is available from www.gu.edu.au/or/ethics. The role of mobile telephony in multicultural Australia: A case study of Thai, Hmong and Rohingya communities 299 Please do not hesitate to contact me if you have any further queries about this matter. Rick Williams Manager, Research Ethics Office for Research Bray Centre, N54 Room 0.15 Nathan Campus Griffith University Phone: 07 3735 4375 Facsimile: 07 373 57994 Email: [email protected] The role of mobile telephony in multicultural Australia: A case study of Thai, Hmong and Rohingya communities 300 Appendix B: Research questionnaire The role of mobile telephony in multicultural Australia: A study of Thai, Hmong and Rohingya communities 1. Gender: 2. Age: -25 -35 -50 3. Community membership: 4. Do you have a mobile phone: Do not continue doing this questionnaire) If yes, is it a smart phone*? ( ) Yes ( ) No *A smart phone is a mobile device which allows users to download applications, search the internet and use social media sites. For example, an iPhone, Samsung Galaxy and HTC 5. How many mobile phones do you have? ...... 6. What brand is/are your mobile phone(s)? ...... 7. What language do you most often use to speak on the mobile phone?...... 8. Can you connect to the internet on your mobile phone: (Skip question 7 and 8) 9. What feature on your mobile phone do you use most to communicate with others?: (For example Facebook, Twitter Myspace etc.) 10. What application on your mobile phone do you often use for communication purposes?: (You may tick more than one) Pinterest - I do not use communication applications. 11. What application on your mobile phone do you often use for finding out what is going on in your community?: (You may tick more than one) Tumblr (Please indicate)...... - I do not use social applications. The role of mobile telephony in multicultural Australia: A case study of Thai, Hmong and Rohingya communities 294 Please indicate your mobile phone behaviour by marking a cross or a circle over the appropriate block. 1= strongly disagree/ 2 = disagree/ 3 = neither agree nor disagree/ 4 = agree/ 5 = strongly agree/ never hardly ever sometimes often 1 2 very often3 4 5 I use my mobile phone for personal information management. (phone numbers, address) I use my mobile phone to keep in touch with my family 1 2 3 4 5 overseas (transnational relationships). I use my mobile phone for safety (calling emergency 1 2 3 4 5 services when in needs). I use my mobile phone to maintain social relations 1 2 3 4 5 with friends and other people in my collective community in Australia. I use my mobile phone to maintain social relations with 1 2 3 4 5 friends and other people in my collective community outside Australia. I use my mobile phone to maintain social relations with 1 2 3 4 5 friends and other people outside my collective community in Australia. I use my mobile phone to maintain social relations with 1 2 3 4 5 friends and other people outside my collective community outside Australia. I use my mobile phone for managing day-to-day 1 2 3 4 5 activities (arranging the time and place of a meeting). I use my mobile phone for entertainment (listening to 1 2 3 4 5 music, playing games). I use my mobile phone for finding some new things to 1 2 3 4 5 talk about with others. I use my mobile phone for finding non-personal 1 2 3 4 5 information (getting bus schedules, lotto results). I use my mobile phone for internet banking or other 1 2 3 4 5 financial transactions. I use my mobile phone for buying and selling activities. 1 2 3 4 5 The role of mobile telephony in multicultural Australia: A case study of Thai, Hmong and Rohingya communities 295 I use my mobile phone when I have nothing to do. 1 2 3 4 5 I use my mobile phone for finding new things to do 1 2 3 4 5 (New features, new applications). I use mobile phone when I want to escape from the 1 2 3 4 5 reality. My mobile phone makes my life easy. 1 2 3 4 5 Please mark your respond based on what you think will be the most appropriate. Considering mobile phone usage I would describe myself as a...... user. Light Average light Moderate Heavy Very heavy The role of mobile telephony in multicultural Australia: A case study of Thai, Hmong and Rohingya communities 296 Appendix C: Research study information sheet Research Study Information Sheet Project title: The role of mobile telephony in multicultural Australia: A case study of Thai, Hmong and Rohingya communities Student Researcher: Natcha Krisneepaiboon: [email protected] Centre for Cultural Research Griffith University Nathan QLD 4111 Mobile: 0421797785 Supervisors: Assoc. Prof. Susan Forde: [email protected] Centre for Cultural research Griffith University Nathan QLD 4111 Telephone: 07 3735 7229/Mobile: 0438 513 249 Assoc. Prof. Halim Rane: [email protected] Deputy Head of School (Learning and Teaching) School of Humanities, Griffith University Nathan QLD 4111 Telephone: 07 3735 5160 Background If you are reading this, then you one of a number of people who have been invited to participate in a recorded interview about the topic listed above. This research forms an important part of the student researcher’s PhD program at Griffith University. This thesis mainly focuses on new media use (including mobile devices) amongst Australia’s multicultural communities. The research aims to better understand the ways in which various ethnic community groups are using communication via mobile devices and to explore whether communities are using these technologies to sustain and constitute their community connections. The study is also interested in what broader impact this communication technology is having on minority communities in Australia. There are three minority communities; Thai, Rohingya and Hmong that will be explored in the study. In the interview, I will be asking you questions about various perspectives on how you use mobile devices to communicate with your friends, family and others within your community and what impacts this technology is having in your communities in Australia. As either a key person in a community or someone who uses mobile media to communicate with your peers in Australia, you have been invited to share your thoughts on this topic. The information you provide will assist other minority groups, the media industry, The role of mobile telephony in multicultural Australia: A case study of Thai, Hmong and Rohingya communities 297 policymakers, journalists and journalism educators to better understand the role of mobile devices in minority communities in terms of community connection, and in sustaining culture and language. What participation in this study involves If you decide to participate in this study, you will be asked to share your experiences on how you use mobile devices to communicate with your friends, family and others within your community and what impacts this technology having in your communities in Australia. You are not being asked to provide any information that might present a risk for you, your family or your property. The main objective of the study is to explore your media use. If you feel that any information you have provided could place you at risk, you can ask for that to be withdrawn from the study at any time. Your comments will be digitally recorded with your permission so that a transcript can be made at a later time to enable the researcher to analyse your comments. The interview will last 30-45 minutes and is designed to encourage you to talk freely. At any time during the interview, you will be able to raise issues you think are important. Consent to participate Your participation in this research project is voluntary. You are under no obligation to participate if you do not wish to. If you do choose to take part, you may cease participation at any time without penalty or without providing an explanation. We hope that you will consider participation in this study because the information you give us could help in better understanding how immigrant communities use new media including mobile devices to communicate with each other in their communities, to access information, to maintain social networks and community connection, and to sustain community cultures and languages in Australia. Risk Participation in this research involves no risk to you. All you are asked to do is to talk about your experience using new media to communicate with others within your community and to share your views on this. However, if you or other participants raise any sensitive issues that may represent a possible risk to themselves, their families and/or to their property, I as the researcher will ensure that such information will be sensitively handled to ensure that no identification of the source will be possible in the final report or subsequent publications. Moreover, such information will not be used in the research if it is likely to create any risk to anyone involved in the study. All adequate care will be taken with those participating who may be identified as being in an unequal relationship with the researcher (for example, low levels of literacy, education etc) in conducting the interviews. Confidentiality If you wish to be identified, your name may feature in the final thesis and in any publications that result from this study. If you do not wish to be identified, the information collected by this project will be reported in general terms and will not use any words that might identify you in any way. All data will be kept confidential and in a locked filing cabinet in the School of Humanities at Griffith University for five years before being destroyed. As a participant, you will be provided with a copy of the final project report .You may contact any of the Chief Investigators Assoc. Prof. Susan Forde: [email protected] telephone 07 3735 7229/Mobile: 0438 513 249 at any time if you have any concerns regarding the research. You may also contact the student researcher Natcha Krisneepaiboon: [email protected]. If you wish to contact an independent person, you may contact the Manager, Research Ethics, Office for Research, Griffith University, Nathan, QLD 4111, telephone 07-37354375 or email research- [email protected]. The role of mobile telephony in multicultural Australia: A case study of Thai, Hmong and Rohingya communities 298 Privacy Statement The conduct of this research involves the collection, access and / or use of your identified personal information. The information collected is confidential and will not be disclosed to third parties without your consent, except to meet government, legal or other regulatory authority requirements. A de- identified copy of this data may be used for other research purposes. However, your anonymity will at all times be safeguarded. For further information consult the University’s Privacy Plan at www.gu.edu.au/ua/aa/vc/pp or telephone (07) 3875 5585. Griffith University asks you for your consent and participation in this research. The role of mobile telephony in multicultural Australia: A case study of Thai, Hmong and Rohingya communities The role of mobile telephony in multicultural Australia: A case study of Thai, Hmong and Rohingya communities