ABSTRACT
Having outlined the context of mobile media and the role of gender within the formation of the region in Part I, it is timely to turn to the location that has gained most attention globally for its innovation of mobile media. Japan’s key role in producing technologies and, more specifically, domestic technologies for global markets since 1970 is well-documented to the point of cliché. Behind the global images of techno-savvy youth adorned with the latest technological gadgets in ‘electric cities’ such as Akihabara, Japan’s role in producing and consuming new technologies – from the Sony Walkman, Atari games console, PlayStation and ‘keitai IT revolution’ – has been pivotal. For Ito et al. (2005), the market success of these technologies can be best explained by characteristics of new media that they call the three Ps – pedestrian, personal and portable. The significance of these three Ps is that they transform technological gadgets into socio-cultural artefacts by relocating them into the dynamic space of cultural production.
