Technological Imagination of Mobile Phone in Japanese Culture

  • Jongmi Kim (Speaker)
  • Kiheung Kim (Speaker)

Activity: Talk or presentationOral presentation

Description

During the course of developing mobile technology in Japan in the early 2010s, Japanese users tended to have a different pathway of using smart phones. This different pathway of using mobile phone in Japanese demonstrates its derailment from globalization of smart mobile phone which has been led by iphone and Samsung galaxy phones. The majority of Japanese users still stick to old fashioned folder phones and this extraordinary tendency is called as Gara-Keitai, which is mixture of words Galapagos and Keitai (mobile phone). The word, gara-keitai refers to the
intentionally isolated development of mobile technology from global trends.
This paper is to examine how Japanese consumers have construct their own technological imagination of mobile phones in popular culture including films and dramas. Also, the paper provides socio-cultural explanation of why the Japanese has built up their own way of using mobile technologies through the popular culture.
Period16 Dec 2016
Event title11th Association for Cultural Studies Conference: Crossroads in Cultural Studies
Event typeConference
LocationSydney, AustraliaShow on map
Degree of RecognitionInternational

Keywords

  • mobile phone
  • Galapagos Keitai
  • sociotechnological imaginary
  • co-production