ABSTRACT
This part introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters. The part explores questions of how socialities are changed for better or worse through our mobile phones or through platforms such as WeChat when mobility is either enacted, forced or curtailed. It considers the extent to which socialities, leveraged through the affordances of digital media platforms, can support social, economic and political developments. The part describes socialities and social relations at the centre when considering how people and societies come to attach value within situations of mobile socialities. It addresses broad questions of value. The part focuses on where, when, why or how the relationships between communication technologies, people and places – or the relationships of mobility and sociality – are rendered valuable, and for whom. It describes situations of unequal access, either to resources or to control over one’s own mobility.
