The ability to receive and view television programs (and other moving image material) on the cellular phone should be seen as part of a larger system of asserting private space in an environment that is crowded with both people and technology. I begin with Walter Benjamin’s notion that the rise of the private individual can be indexed to the set of practices that transform the dwelling place into an interiorization of the external world through the collection of images and objects while at the same time acting as a place of refuge from the external world. Linking those observations to Raymond Williams’ notion of mobile privatization, I argue that the contradictory impulses of moving through the world while retreating from it are the product of economic and social structures which act to isolate individuals from each other while connecting them to the products of corporate media, and do not arise from any inherent traits within cellular phone technology.
Benjamin W. ( 1999) Paris, capital of the 19th century (1939). In: Tiedemann R (ed.) The Arcades Project. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 14-26.
2.
Benjamin W. ( 2002a) The storyteller: Observations on the works of Nikolai Leskov. In: Eiland H and Jennings MW (eds) Walter Benjamin: Selected Writings: Volume3, 1935-1938. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 143-66.
3.
Benjamin W. ( 2002b) The work of art in the age of its mechanical reproducibility, second version. In: Eiland H and Jennings MW (eds) Walter Benjamin: Selected Writings: Volume3, 1935-1938. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 101-33.
4.
Benjamin W. ( 2003) The Paris of the Second Empire in Baudelaire. In Eiland H and Jennings MW (eds) Walter Benjamin: Selected Writings: Volume4, 1938-1940. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 3-92.
5.
Bull M. ( 2004) ‘To each their own bubble’: Mobile spaces of sound in the city. In: Couldry N and McCarthy A (eds) Mediaspace: Place, Scale and Culture in a Media Age. New York: Routledge, 275-93.
6.
Dawson M. ( 2007) Little players, big show: Format, narration, and style on televisions new smaller screens. Convergence: The International Journal of Research into New Media Technologies13(3): 231-50.
7.
Friedberg A. ( 2002) Urban mobility and cinematic visuality: The screens of Los Angeles - endless cinema or private telematics. Journal of Visual Culture1: 183-204.
8.
Habermas J. ( 1991) The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere: An Inquiry into a Category of Bourgeois Society. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
9.
Hiestand M. ( 2004) Want more highlights? Just give ESPN a call. USA Today (2 December): C10.
10.
Howe PJ ( 2005) Tune in, walk on: The technology is not perfect, but some phone users are eager to carry shows in their pocket. Boston Globe (23 January): C1.
11.
Humphreys L. ( 2005) Social topography in a wireless era: The negotiation of public and private space. Journal of Technical Writing and Communication35(4): 367-84.
12.
Katz JE and Aakhus M. ( 2002) Perpetual Contact: Mobile Communication, Private Talk, Public Performance. New York: Cambridge University Press.
13.
McCarthy A. ( 2001) Ambient Television: Visual Culture and Public Place. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.
14.
MobiTV (2003) Watch live TV content on your sprint mobile phone. Press release, 13 November. Available at: www.mobitv.com/about/press/releases.?page=press/release_111303
15.
MobiTV (2005) Cingular goes live with MobiTV. Press release, 25 January. Available at: www.mobitv.com/about/press/releases.?page=press/release_012505
16.
Moores S. ( 2000) Media and Everyday Life in Modern Society. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.
17.
Morley D. ( 2000) Home Territories: Media, Mobility and Identity. New York: Routledge.
18.
Orgad S. ( 2009) Mobile TV: Old and new in the construction of an emergent technology. Convergence: The International Journal of Research into New Media Technologies15(2): 197-214.
19.
Spigel L. ( 1992) Make Room for TV: Television and the Family Ideal in Postwar America. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.
20.
Spigel L. ( 2001) Portable TV: Studies in domestic space travel. In: Spigel L, Welcome to the Dreamhouse: Popular Media and Postwar Suburbs. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 60-106.
21.
Tichi C. ( 1991) Electronic Hearth: Creating an American Television Culture . New York: Oxford University Press .
22.
Urry J. ( 2004) The ‘system’ of automobility. Theory, Culture & Society21(4/5): 25-39.
23.
Weintraub J. ( 1997) The theory and politics of the public/private distinction . In: Weintraub J and Kumar K (eds) Public and Private in Thought and Practice: Perspectives on a Grand Dichotomy. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1-42.
24.
Williams R. ( 1989) The problems of the coming period (1983). In: Williams R, Resources of Hope: Culture, Democracy, Socialism. New York: Verso, 161-74.
25.
Williams R. ( 2003) Television: Technology and Cultural Form. New York: Routledge.
26.
Williams R. ( 2005) Advertising: The magic system (1960). In: Williams R, Culture and Materialism: Selected Essays. New York: Verso, 170-95.
