ABSTRACT
This chapter will investigate the evolving approaches to mobile communication research. First, it is necessary to understand just what it is that constitutes the unit of analysis in mobile communication. Starting from the landline phone, this has developed and changed as the mobile phone has entered the scene and as multi-SIM devices (that is, phones that house several subscriptions) have flourished in the Global South. Given these changes, there are two broad areas under the umbrella of mobile communication research. The first is the social consequences approach that examines how society is being restructured by the adoption of mobile communication. The second approach sees the mobile terminal, and its various traces (phone calls, text messages, location markers), as a type of probe that can be used to gather data that again can provide insight into society and indeed other phenomena.
