Moving Circles: mobile media and playful identities Michiel de Lange, Erasmus University Rotterdam, 2010 ISBN: 978-90-5335-332-5 cover design: Mylène Jonker This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 Netherlands License. Moving Circles mobile media and playful identities Bewegende cirkels mobiele media en speelse identiteiten Proefschrift ter verkrijging van de graad van doctor aan de Erasmus Universiteit Rotterdam op gezag van de rector magnificus Prof.dr. H.G. Schmidt en volgens besluit van het College voor Promoties. De openbare verdediging zal plaatsvinden op Dinsdag 16 november 2010 om 13:00 uur door Michiel Lodewijk de Lange geboren te Haarlem Promotiecommissie Promotoren: Prof.dr. J. de Mul Prof.dr. V. Frissen Prof.dr. J. Raessens Overige leden: Prof.dr. J. Jansz Prof.dr. J. Katz Dr. S. Aupers 4 Table of Contents List of figures............................................................................................................9 Acknowledgements.................................................................................................11 Introduction. Identity, mobile media, and play........................................................13 i. Identity and the mobile phone: in search of another mediation...........................................13 ii. Research question, arguments, and aims.............................................................................23 iii. Approach and outline..........................................................................................................24 1. Setting the stage: mobile media, narrative identity, and play................................27 1.1 Understanding mobile media technologies........................................................................27 1.1.1 Four dimensions of mobile media...............................................................................27 1.1.2 Approaches to the relation between technology and identity....................................28 1.1.3 What is ‘mobile’ about mobile media?........................................................................32 1.2 The storytelling self: narrative identity...............................................................................35 1.2.1 Idem and ipse identity.................................................................................................37 1.2.2 Threefold mimesis.......................................................................................................39 1.2.3 Narrative identity: character and promise...................................................................41 1.3 In search of play..................................................................................................................46 1.3.1 Play and games: the classics........................................................................................47 1.3.2 Game, play, playability and playfulness.......................................................................52 1.3.3 Communicative play....................................................................................................54 1.3.4 Play as mediating metaphors: life as play....................................................................55 1.4 Connecting media and play................................................................................................60 1.4.1 Media ambiguities.......................................................................................................60 1.4.2 Pleasure, humor, and joking........................................................................................63 1.4.3 Media as playful learning spaces.................................................................................64 1.5 Conclusion: outline of the play framework.........................................................................65 2. Entering the stage: mobile media and modernity in Jakarta .................................69 2.1 Handphone mania in Indonesia..........................................................................................69 2.2 The shaping of modernity in urban Jakarta........................................................................72 2.2.1 Jakarta’s metropolitan setting.....................................................................................72 2.2.2 Jakarta as the center of the modern nation................................................................74 2.2.3 Unity in diversity?........................................................................................................79 2.3 From old media to new media: a short media history of Indonesia....................................82 2.3.1 From old media...........................................................................................................82 2.3.2 ...To new media...........................................................................................................83 2.3.3 Physical nodes of new media......................................................................................88 2.3.4 New media’s new modernity.......................................................................................90 2.4 The ‘production’ of the handphone....................................................................................92 2.4.1 Market and numbers...................................................................................................93 5 2.4.2 Wartel as precursors to mobile telephony...................................................................95 2.4.3 CDMA technology: bridging high-tech and low-tech...................................................96 2.4.4 The ‘design’ of the mobile phone................................................................................99 2.5 Conclusion: four play levels..............................................................................................102 3. Playing the stage: mobile media, mobility and identity in Jakarta.......................105 3.1 From gengsi to gaul: how to become a proper handphone user......................................105 3.1.1 Handphone gengsi.....................................................................................................105 3.1.2 Handphone gaul........................................................................................................109 3.2 Three handphone mobilities.............................................................................................114 3.2.1 Corporeal mobility.....................................................................................................114 3.2.2 Socio-economic mobility...........................................................................................117 3.2.3 Imaginative mobility..................................................................................................119 3.3 Moving forward: contesting modernities..........................................................................121 3.3.1 Conceptualizing place: locality and the global...........................................................122 3.3.2 Spatializing identities.................................................................................................125 3.3.3 Contesting mobile media modernity.........................................................................128 3.3.4 Reconciling differences..............................................................................................133 3.4 Conclusion: four play types...............................................................................................135 4. Locating the media: mobile media and urban plays ...........................................137 4.1 In search of locative media...............................................................................................137 4.1.1 Location-based technologies.....................................................................................137 4.1.2 Locative media practices...........................................................................................140 4.1.3 Locative media classification.....................................................................................145 4.2 The city and the media.....................................................................................................151 4.2.1 What is a city? Three approaches..............................................................................152 4.2.2 The media city, or the death of the city?...................................................................160 4.2.3 Mobile media as interfaces to hybrid space..............................................................163 4.2.4 Why the city?............................................................................................................166 4.3 Bliin: A locative playground in hybrid space .....................................................................167 4.3.1 A playground for boundary play................................................................................167 4.3.2 Playing with spatiotemporal boundaries...................................................................169 4.3.3 Playing with social boundaries..................................................................................175 4.3.4 Playing with boundaries of the self...........................................................................177 4.3.5 One more thing: the end of serendipity?..................................................................182 4.4 Conclusion: playing the boundaries..................................................................................183