ABSTRACT

This chapter is positioned in the new literacy studies and it views literacies as multiple and changing social practices and identities around a diversity of textual forms. In this instance, the analysis begins with an object, an iPhone, focusing on its particular design features and materialities. It then shifts focus to the role of the object in Roxie’s everyday life, in this case using interview data of Roxie’s discourses about the phone to understand the relationship that Roxie has constructed. The iPhone was also emblematic of global production and distribution: Schuman (2011) notes that the iPhone is constructed in China from parts created by companies located in China, South Korea, Taiwan, Japan and the United States and then shipped to eager consumers in all parts of the world. The jail-broken status of the phone allows Roxie to customise the app icon display and the selection and arrangement of apps is in no way random.