ABSTRACT
The diffusion of mobile media devices has exploded on a global basis in recent years, even as the gadget itself has been transformed as a convergent technology that includes a mobile phone, a digital camera and an mp3 player, and provides an Internet portal. One reason for the commercial success of the latest generations of mobile devices is the inclusion of an imaging tool—for most users, camera phones are no longer the poor cousin of standalone cameras. Through the capacity of the camera to capture, edit and share everyday experiences, we are seeing the development of new forms of visual culture that foreground user agency, and through user-created content (UCC) traditional consumers have been transformed into “prosumers”. This term, coined by Toffler in The Third Wave, suggests the fusion of producer and consumer enabled by new technologies. 1
