ABSTRACT
The first part of this entry delivers a brief overview of the history of mobile technologies, beginning with the emergence of rudimentary mobile telephones in the late nineteenth century through the development of modern mobile phone systems in the 1970s and ending with the concurrent emergence of mobile broadband and smartphones in the early 2000s. This overview provides the foundation for a discussion of how mobile technologies have evolved into Internet-capable computers that give access to a range of tools including messaging services, social media, photo and video capture/editing, mobile content streaming, and specialized mobile applications. These tools have blurred the lines between previously distinct concepts such as public/private, work/leisure, and presence/absence and led to expectations that people be constantly available. At the same time, these tools have enabled people to generate and share their own media content, including personal content made to share with friends and family, to social commentary and political content. This entry will incorporate a case study of the Occupy Wall Street movement and ‘influencers’ on Instagram. Those involved in the Occupy movement used mobile technologies for both political and personal objectives, including to livestream protests, sometimes as a form of sousveillance; to share comments, images, and videos on social media via mobile apps; and to create a variety of specialized mobile apps that would, for example, notify a pre-selected list of friends and family if the user was arrested during a protest. Instagram allows users to share selfies, images users take of themselves using a mobile phone and uploaded to a social media site, and other photos, and thus publicly share ‘private’ moments. However, so-called ‘influencers’ can use Instagram to ‘self-brand’ and profit from that crafted image.
