Media students/10/c 3/2/06 8:34 am Page 350
CASECASE STUDY:STUDY: RESEARCHING RESEARCHING MOBILE MOBILE PHONE PHONE TECHNOLOGIES TECHNOLOGIES 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
• Getting started • Academic research into phone use 8 • Using Wikipedia • Googling 9 • Company websites • References and further reading 10 • Keeping your eyes and ears open 11 12 13 A common media debate concerns the impact of new Getting started 14 media technologies. In this case study we will consider 15 There are many ways to approach this kind of question ways of accessing and using research material for such 16 (including using proprietary software packages to help a debate. Depending on your course, you may be 17 you order your ideas) and you should use the way that asked to give a short written answer to a relatively 18 suits you best. Here we will use a ‘spidogram’. The simple question or to explore a more complex set of 19 questions in a longer essay in which you discuss your question is about ‘text and image messaging’, so we’ll 20 research methodologies. In both cases you will need put that in the centre. We want to know about its 21 to prepare by undertaking background research. impact on two separate entities, industries/producers 22 Let’s begin by considering a relatively and consumers/users. In effect, the three are linked 23 straightforward question: together in a kind of triangular relationship. Now we 24 can see a dynamic relationship between the three, 25 Q How has the development of ‘text and image what will we need to do to explore how it works? 26 messaging’ on mobile phones affected the media 27 industries and the media consumer? audiences 28 representation definitions history 29
You may feel that you can get straight to grips with text and image messaging products 30 this question because you are probably one of those 31 ownership digital technologies consumers who have enjoyed using your mobile phone 32 synergies and have upgraded to get new features. However, if institution 33
you want to answer the question effectively, you will Figure 10.6 Spidergram of producers, consumers and texting. 34 need to stand back and ‘distance’ yourself from your 35 own experience to make sure you take account of the 36 wider question. You can then use what you know in A definition of each of the three would be useful as 37 conjunction with what you find. well as some further understanding of media industries 38 (ownership) and media consumers (how do we 39 describe/classify them?). The relationship will have 40 developed over time so we need to consider its 41 ‘history’. We would expect all our key concepts to be 42
350 Media students/10/c 3/2/06 8:34 am Page 351
CASE STUDY: RESEARCHING MOBILE PHONE TECHNOLOGIES
1 important in some way so it would be good to check The page tells us that the official term for texting 2 through ‘representation’, ‘audience’, ‘institution’, etc. is SMS (short message service) and it offers links 3 Our final spidogram (Figure 10.6) will give us a sense to ‘mobile phones’ and to ‘GSM’ (global system for 4 of the possible ground to cover. Some concepts may mobile communications) and ‘3G’ (third generation 5 be less important than others, but it is useful to have mobile phone technology) – we’ll decide if we want 6 a checklist to make sure we don’t miss any obvious to pursue these a little later. It also suggests that the 7 points. first text message was sent in 1992 to a phone on a 8 Let’s look at how we might pursue one or two of Vodafone network. The rest of the Wikipedia entry 9 these. We might be texting every day, but do we know tells us something about which country has the most 10 what kind of technology it is, when it started and how frequent ‘texters’ (Singapore) and about the swift 11 it developed? We will need a workable definition of growth of a valuable business. In 2004, there were 12 terms. 500 billion texts sent worldwide, a business worth 13 around $50 billion. Several other related technologies are mentioned as well as some indication of news 14 Using Wikipedia 15 stories involving text messages. At the bottom of the 16 Wikipedia is a good starting point for definitions. page we find references and links, to both other 17 Type
351 Media students/10/c 3/2/06 8:34 am Page 352
THE MEDIA STUDENT’S BOOK
Communications) – digital telephony systems
technologies operating in GSM systems enabled the customers. O2 claims 14.38 million so we know that 18 spread of the practices of texting and image messaging we have found two of the biggest companies. What 19 that the question requires us to discuss. We’ll now else do we learn about the mobile telephony business? 20 focus on: • Both companies list their operations in other 21 • the telephone companies (‘telcos’) – which countries – Vodafone has operations in ‘27 22 companies, how do they hope to make profits, how countries, across five continents’, making it a 23 are their activities regulated? global player (see comments on other similar 24 We could continue to explore Wikipedia, but a companies such as Telefónica in ‘Case study: 25 better bet may be to use selected specialist websites The media majors’. 26 associated with the telcos and the news organisations • The major announcement about technology 27 which report on consumer behaviour. We also need involves the move to ‘3G’ and the new media 28 to bear in mind that we are interested in ‘messaging’ services this will make available. 29 as a media form. This means that we are thinking Vodafone’s site provides a very sophisticated ‘flash’ 30 about mobile phones as a new form of distributing and presentation which creates a future world of science 31 displaying both traditional media texts and ‘new media’ fiction-like communication. This will give us plenty of 32 (‘texting’ could itself be described as new media). ideas that we could follow up. Let’s stick with just two 33 aspects of this for a moment: 34 How do the telcos relate to the media industries? Company websites • 35 • Why are they discussing 3G? 36 UK readers will know about most local phone service If we go back to Wikipedia, we can find out pretty 37
providers and it shouldn’t take long to find two of the quickly that O2 began life as part of BT, once British 38
biggest, O2 and Vodafone. Telecom, a public sector corporation that was 39
Vodafone’s website is at www.vodafone.co.uk ‘privatised’ in 1984. O2 is part of the much wider 40
and O2’s at www.o2.com (but don’t forget they may process described in Chapter 7 and ‘Case study: The 41 change website details). Just type
352 Media students/10/c 3/2/06 8:34 am Page 353
CASE STUDY: RESEARCHING MOBILE PHONE TECHNOLOGIES
1 started to look for investment opportunities in new looking after media as well as telephone services. Of 2 goods and services. Vodafone, on the other hand, was course we don’t need to use the internet to make 3 created by an electronics group which applied for the the connection between media and telephony via 4 first licences to operate mobile phones in the UK in Ofcom. The index in a book like this one will take us 5 1985 (along with British Telecom). The company to appropriate chapters and case studies. 6 became independent in 1991 and has grown very So what is the important connection? Presumably 7 quickly through mergers and acquisitions. The it concerns G3, since G3 licences were the last to be
8 ‘application for licences’ refers to the UK situation awarded. If we return to O2’s site, we can find a press 9 where a government regulator grants access to radio release announcing a trial in which sixteen television
10 frequencies used for all kinds of services. You could channels will provide material to download to O2 11 follow this line of enquiry through Wikipedia, but it’s customers in Oxford. The companies’ websites will 12 easier just to ‘Google’ for
353 Media students/10/c 3/2/06 8:34 am Page 354
THE MEDIA STUDENT’S BOOK
we tie this to media use? Here are two examples of actually faster in the rural areas than in the cities, since 1 interesting observations that appeared in UK media people really need communication technology to live – 2 in 2005. it isn’t a luxury related to extra consumer spending. 3 • Mobile phones save lives and promote small This is an interesting story, but is it relevant to media 4 businesses in Africa. use? We might need to think about it as an example of 5 • ‘Texting’ is the most popular phone service for the ways in which ‘users’ can change the perceptions 6 ‘teens’ – to the dismay of service providers who of industry planners. It could also be important for 7 hope to sell much more lucrative services. broadcasters and other media producers trying to 8 The first of these stories was broadcast on Radio 4’s reach audiences scattered across large countries with 9 In Business programme (9 June 2005) – not perhaps the a poor communications infrastructure. Let’s consider 10 station most listened to by readers of this book, but it the second story and see if there is a link. 11 is important to note relevant stories whenever you A report on texting by teens worldwide was 12 hear them and try to check back to sources. (In fact, used as the basis for an article in the Guardian by 13 the importance of texting in Africa came through Natalie Hanman (9 June 2005). The original report, 14 strongly on Radio 4’s ‘Africa Day’ in May 2005 when the Youth Report, came from: www.w2forum.com/ 15 people from all over Africa were contacting the BBC.) view/mobileyouth_2005_report and included some 16 BBC broadcasts can often be tracked down via the interesting facts and figures: 17 BBC website on www.bbc.co.uk, where you can find 18 a programme home page. The programme in this case Much to the chagrin of operators keen to see 19 was actually ‘podcast’ and downloadable as an mp3 file. early adopters of mobile technology hooked 20 Searching for the programme via Google also turned on more lucrative functions, such as picture 21 up this page: www.textually.org/textually/archives/ messaging (MMS), mobile music and mobile 22 cat_mobile_phone_projects_third_world.htm. internet, teenagers are keeping things simple – 23 There are links to similar stories around the world and cheap. . . . Among those teens who text the 24 that all refer to the same basic point. People in many most, boys outnumber girls by 3:1. 25 parts of Africa, where there is a limited electricity ...After texting, the next most popular 26 supply, a lack of ‘landlines’ for telecommunications, mobile tool for teenagers – particularly girls in 27 etc., have been excluded from the supposed ‘global their mid-teens – is taking photographs. But 28 village’ and all that means in terms of telecomms and instead of sharing these photos by sending a 29 media (the ‘digital divide’ between rich and poor – picture message (MMS), young girls prefer the 30 see Chapter 15). To put landlines or any other physical cheaper option of comparing them in person. 31 infrastructure in place would be very expensive, but a 32 wireless mobile phone system means much easier These findings question some of the stereotypes that 33 access. In Kenya the number of telephone users has might exist (i.e. that girls text most) and they point to 34 increased dramatically since a mobile company started a crucial problem for the telcos who have paid very 35 a network in 2001. Safari.com is a Kenyan company dearly for 3G licences (Chancellor Gordon Brown 36 owned by Vodafone (40 per cent) and Kenya’s state- auctioned these licences in 2003 and made a 37 owned Telcom Kenya (60 per cent). Mobile users far considerable sum for HM Treasury). They hoped to 38 outnumber those with landlines. The image of African target the traditional ‘early adopters’ of new 39 street markets in which traders and customers are technologies (usually older males with high incomes) 40 exchanging information about prices by mobile phone but instead are servicing younger consumers who 41 is not one we think of in the West. Growth is now won’t pay for the expensive aspects of the service. 42
354 Media students/10/c 3/2/06 8:34 am Page 355
CASE STUDY: RESEARCHING MOBILE PHONE TECHNOLOGIES
1 looking for telephone technologies, telephone usage, 2 ACTIVITY 10.5 etc. You could browse library shelves covering 3 ‘communications industries’, ‘sociology of mass 4 Survey phone users communications’, etc. (Check the Dewey Classification 5 • Find out which of your friends have 3G phones and System to find where these might be.) And you 6 what they are prepared to pay for. could look to see which academic journals and trade 7 • Try and ask the same question of people in different publications your reference library stocks. In university 8 age/gender groups. libraries these holdings should be extensive and you 9 • What conclusions do you draw from your findings? may also be able to use research databases which give 10 you access to journal articles online. Access to these 11 services is restricted so we can’t expect all readers to be able to use them. Instead, we’ll look at more limited 12 Academic research into phone use 13 searches freely available via the internet. 14 These two stories throw up leads which could be FindArticles is an American web portal at 15 followed up by reference to other chapters in this www.findarticles.com. Its ‘front page’ offers the 16 book and other books and journals. Phone use has possibility of searching for ‘free articles’ in various 17 clearly changed dramatically since the mid-1990s. categories or from a general search box. The articles 18 The new services and the new ways ‘consumers’ have in question come from general interest magazines, 19 discovered to use their phones have created new academic journals and trade publications – all with 20 ‘media forms’. We can demonstrate: some kind of reputation as credible sources. When 21 • the convergence of technologies and organisations we searched on the site we found these articles quite 22 which exploit them in combined quickly using search terms such as
355 Media students/10/c 3/2/06 8:34 am Page 356
THE MEDIA STUDENT’S BOOK
websites and bloggers around the world, these 1 ‘citizen reporters’ now represent a significant 2 challenge to the compromised intermediaries of 3 corporate journalism.’ 4 (www.findarticles.com/p/articles/ 5 mi_m0FQP/is_4689_133/ai_n6156736) 6 7 Both these articles refer directly to the new role 8 of phone technologies in relation to news – in the 9 first case, gaining access to news and in the second 10 to the possibility that images taken on mobile phones 11 by members of the public could challenge traditional 12 reporting (the article deals with stories about the 13 torture of Iraqi suspects by US military personnel). 14 This raises the question of whether we should be 15 searching more widely for material on the internet – 16 even if we must expect to question the authenticity of 17 our findings. We’ll conclude our research by thinking 18 a little more about using a search engine such as 19 Google. 20 Figure 10.9 Page of Google hits for ‘media studies’ ‘mobile phone’. 21 Googling 22 or Asia, partly because many ‘landline’ calls are free.) 23 Google is a general search engine or ‘crawler’. Rather We can also limit searches to ‘UK sites only’. 24 a speedy crawler, it finds keywords on millions of It looks as if our decision to use these phrases in 25 pages in a few seconds. Enter
356 Media students/10/c 3/2/06 8:34 am Page 357
CASE STUDY: RESEARCHING MOBILE PHONE TECHNOLOGIES
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 Figure 10.11 Revised page of Google hits. 17 18 19 Figure 10.10 Google Advanced Search facilities. 20 ACTIVITY 10.6 will go off into interesting tangents, spending time 21 exploring all the fascinating things that people do with 22 Essay planning mobile phones. Don’t forget your original research 23 Outline an essay plan for the initial question given at the question. Focus on what the question asks for and 24 beginning of this case study. then find one or two good examples (mini case 25 Use the research materials referenced here and studies?) you can explore in more detail, using 26 decide which lines of research you would follow. Google’s Advanced Search facilities and seeking out 27 library resources to complement what you find on the 28 internet. Make sure you keep track of all your 29 references and you should have enough material to 30 write your essay. 31 32 33 References and further reading 34 For this case study, you should simply explore the 35 various research resources cited and make sure that 36 you know how to make the best use of them. 37 38 39 40 41 42
357