Open AccessSmartphones as Polymedia
Author(s) -
Madianou Mirca
Publication year - 2014
Publication title -
journal of computer‐mediated communication
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 4.15
H-Index - 119
ISSN - 1083-6101
DOI - 10.1111/jcc4.12069
Subject(s) - exploit , function (biology) , miller , internet privacy , order (exchange) , social media , position (finance) , sociology , computer science , world wide web , business , computer security , ecology , finance , evolutionary biology , biology
This article investigates whether smartphones function as environments of polymedia (Madianou & Miller, 2012) and assesses their consequences for transnational families. Drawing on research with UK‐based Filipino migrants, the article observes that users treat smartphones as integrated environments of communicative opportunities and exploit the differences within media in order to express emotions and manage their relationships with their family members who remain in the Philippines. For smartphone users, being online emerges as the default position and there is evidence that new media become constitutive of relationships in situations of extreme separation. However, technology cannot overcome difficulties that are fundamentally social. Moreover, the article observes the emergence of a new ‘care divide’ between those who own smartphones and those who do not .