MOBILE AND DIGITAL COMMUNICATION: APPROACHES TO PUBLIC AND PRIVATE

The types of communicating vessel systems that form public and private “spheres” constitute a multifaceted, complex system that is connected to an almost intractable range of issues. The fact is that the facets of mobile technology – ubiquity, multimediality, multidirectionality – form a new context in which trends to renegotiate, defend, adapt or challenge notions of public and private are developed by individuals in their everyday lives and by social institutions through their rules and goals. This book, which brings together presentations from the conference “Public and Private in Mobile Communications”, held in March 2015 at Beira Interior University, Portugal, particularly favors discussions on the uses that individuals make of mobile devices in their everyday practices. However, as a background issue, it also includes the sometimes implicit approach about the transformations that connect new technologies to certain cultural practices, forms of interaction and political uses. In fact, as happened in the past with other technological innovations, it is practically impossible to discuss the penetration of mobile devices and their social appropriations without the perspective of a historical side, even if it is “only” an epistemological background.