Session 3: Transformations,
Technology and Culture
Chair: Rob Fisher
Virpi Oksman
- Children and Communication Technologies in Everyday Life
Researcher, Information Society Institute, 33014 University of Tampere,
Finland
Media and new communication technologies are an organic
part of the everyday lives of ever younger people. In Finland, alongside
mobile communication, the Internet has become a central medium that
enables children and youth to engage in versatile content production
and independent creation of culture. Children and young people are a
group with their own usage cultures and communication patterns that
differ from those of adults.
In my paper, I will present empirical research on children's relationship
to new media and communication technologies. The work is based on a
material of thematic interviews. I will examine children's relationship
to
technology as a cultural concept: what kind of a cultural symbol does
it constitute, and what are the prevailing attitudes towards technology
as a part of children's everyday life? Like the computer, the appliances
of communication technology may be seen as cultural symbols that are
firmly linked to practical activities. In a culture, the mastering of
communication technologies is defined through a rhetoric of generation
and age: the young generations are automatically expected to be better
skilled at using technologies than the older ones. Children and teenagers'
relationship to the media and communication technologies is often described
as intensive: young people are perceived as having a strong connection
to communication technology; the young are defined as pioneers in the
use of ICTs and they are seen as creative and skillful users, who master
the use of new technologies without effort. As technology has traditionally
been associated with the "masculine world", cultural tradition
is more likely to ascribe technological expertise to men than women.
More than 1 000 people, including children and their parents and grandparents,
have been interviewed for the study since 1997. In 2002, the research
group is coordinating an international comparative study assessing the
communication cultures in Finland, Japan, the United Kingdom and Germany.
Jinbong Choi
& Il Nam Kwon, Understanding
the Culture and Characteristics of Cellular Phone Communication: A Korean
Case Study
University of Minnesota, U.S.A. and Myung-Ji University, South Korea
Recently, we can hear ring of cellular phone in everywhere.
In some short years, the cellular phone has been diffused rapidly. Through
this diffusion of cellular phone, new interpersonal communication styles
and characteristics were occurred.
Therefore, in this research, I am going to investigate what kinds of
characteristics and culture does cellular phone communication have.
To do this, I am going to research theoretical and conceptual characteristics
of cellular phone communication. I am also going to research how these
characteristics of cellular phone (e.g., immediate and direct interaction)
affected to change interpersonal communication style.
Especially, I will investigate the relationship between Korean people’s
cellular phone communication style and Korean culture. In addition,
I am going to look at differences of cellular phone communication style
by sex and age group.
Finally, I will try to figure out possibility of developing cellular
phone as a combining communication system with different communication
methods such as e-mail, satellite, so on.
Asli Tunc
- Internet Regulation A La Turque: Historical and Contemporary Problem
Analyses of the Internet Environment in Turkey
Coordinator, Media and Communication Systems Program, School of
Communications, Istanbul Bilgi University, Turkey
By 1993, the rise of the Internet in Turkey was immediately
welcomed as an environment where the regulatory actions and harsh restrictions
over the free press in a desire of sovereignty, the maintenance of the
state or keeping the status quo intact will eventually lose power. Until
2001, the successive governments showed no interest to regulate the
content of the Internet and assembly did not consider this new medium
a threat to the “indivisible integrity of the State and nation”
(Article 14 of the Constitution). However, by the beginning of 2001
amendments to the media bill - a.k.a RTÜK (Supreme Board of Radio
and Television) Law - brought a new dimension to the debates concerning
regulations of the Internet. In this paper, the author argues that this
law essentially indicates a gross violation of Article 10 of the European
Convention on Human Rights to which Turkey is bound and would also set
back Turkey’s attempts to be a part of the European Union.
In this framework, this paper outlines a socio-political approach to
the growth of the Internet in Turkish society. First, it seeks to provide
a historical overview of the development of the Internet, emphasizing
the unique social and political structure of the country in the European
region. After arguing the role in and the debates of the privatization
efforts of basic telecommunications services in promoting the Internet
culture and in providing an effective Internet infrastructure, finally
the article focuses on the most recent RTÜK (Supreme Board of Radio
and Television) Law, argues how this controversial law contradicts with
the Turkey’s efforts to be a part of the European Union and her
commitment to the Copenhagen Criteria and how this law would affect
the development of the Internet in Turkey and issues related to freedom
of expression.