Types of Mobile Media

I've blogged previously about my defintion of mobile devices. Suprisingly, there is little consensus in industry and academia on exactly what is a mobile device, so I hope my definition will be of some use in this regard.

While research the usage and potential of mobile devices, I have found a tendency to view mobile devices as the first form of mobile media. And thus, many writers further the sense that what we are experiencing with mobile device usage is an entirely new phenomenon. Humans have a long history of mobile media, pretty much as soon as written language was invented, texts were carried around whether in clay, vellum, or papyrus.

So since I love lists and typologies, I thought I'd offer a list of other forms of mobile media.

I think it is important to distinguish between portable and mobile. Portable means that a medium is capable of being moved, while mobile means easily moved (see Dictionary. com).

So although a television set can be moved around (hence portable) it isn't easily mobile.

Ghetto blasters, for example, blur this distinction - as this picture from Wikimedia, circa 1987 demonstrates.  Carrier pigeons while helping extend communication over large distances at least since 2000 years ago are not that easy to carry with one so were probably one of the first portable communication mediums were not quite mobile.






Mobile mass media:

• books (paperback more so than hardcover)
• newspapers
• maps
• magazines
• transistor radios (e.g. to beach)
• print-outs & photocopies
• wristwatch televisions (launched in 1982) and possibly smartwatches soon
• Walkmans & MP3 players
• game consoles
• GPS devices
• e-readers
• tablets
• netbooks

Mobile communication media:

• personal digital assistants
• walkie-talkies
• CB radios
• pagers
• car phones (they had them on Charlie's Angels, remember?)
• cell phones

Let me know if I missed any...

McLuhan Centenary

Due to the centenary of media theorist Marshal McLuhan, there has been a flurry of recent coverage and events on his work and life.

As a fellow Torontonian, media junkie, and as a student at the faculty now housing his program (University of Toronto's Faculty of Information) I feel connected to his work. I therefore attended three events this week hosted by the McLuhan Legacy Network and the McLuhan 100 that helped me decipher McLuhan and consider his ongoing relevance to understanding media and to my studies in particular. 

I thought of writing a long post to summarize my take-aways from these events and how McLuhan work sheds lights on current digital tech and trends. But other sources (including my post excepting Bob Logan's insightful article on McLuhan) have already done this effectively.

In the spirit of Marshall McLuhan, I'll share one-liners or aphorisms from these events. McLuhan was famous for these, such as "the medium is the message" and "if it works, it's obsolete".  As the sessions were panel discussions and invited audience participation capturing the speaker's name proved difficult - so my apologies for not attributing sources. All were quotations or rephrasings of McLuhan or commentary inspired by McLuhan.

• Art is an early warning system. Artists are antennae of a race and prepare us for the coming onslaught.
• With pervasive media are we amoebas pulled and stimulated by environment but ultimately torn asunder by it?
• McLuhan is the patron saint of art schools for championing lateral thinking. 
• If it ain't broke; break it!
• Northrop Frye on said he avoided McLuhan as 90% of what McLuhan says is original and I'm not used to it!
• An obsolete medium becomes art.
• Media provides both a service and disservice. (So mobiles can help us stay in touch with elderly relatives but can be used as reason to avoid meeting them in person.)
• McLuhan liked to use paradoxes to provoke discussion, but these vex and confuse people.
• The next killer app is user experience.
• Is the iPad a medium? It's amorphous. At one moment it can be an reader like a book or a keyboard like a piano. Is it a medium of its own or a mimic?
• I don't do theories, but rather break molds.
• Page turning on tablets is bad user experience. It's a transitory technique from an old medium that limits the new medium.
• I don't necessarily agree with everything I say.
• We now have a distributed medium with the Internet now we need distributed participation.
• McLuhan conspired for his centenary be hottest day in Canada's history! Is this a sign of new hot medium coming?