As mobile phones evolve into smartphones equipped with mobile operating systems, the modes of mobile communication are changing. When smartphones incorporate the Internet into their multimedia functions, they enable people to access various mobile social communication spaces in which existing forms of mobile communication, such as calls and text messages, coexist with forms of Internet communication such as instant messengers, emails, and social networking sites (SNSs) on the move. This study attempts to focus on the newly emerging mobile communication practices that have resulted from smartphones allowing people to access their SNSs anytime and anywhere. To understand how the mobility and immediate accessibility of smartphones have affected the communication practices of SNS, the study will pay particular attention to the use of Twitter via smartphones. This study will explore this through 49 Korean Twitter users’ everyday practices of communication and social interaction via their smartphones. Based on qualitative interview data, this study discusses how mobile social media forms a pseudo-aural space for volatile but self-expediential social networks and how it shapes a new sociality. It suggests that this sociality strays from existing social practices and has a new cultural significance.
BarnesS. (2008). Understanding social media from the media ecological perspective. In KinijnE.UtzS.TanisM.BarnesS. (Eds.), Mediated interpersonal communication (pp. 14–33). New York: Routledge.
3.
Boydd.EllisonN. (2007). Social network sites: Definition, history, and scholarship. Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, 13(1), article 11. Retrieved from http://jcmc.indiana.edu/vol13/issue1/boyd.ellison.html
4.
Boydd.GolderS.LotanG. (2010, January). Tweet, tweet, retweet: Conversational aspects of retweeting on Twitter. Proceedings of HICSS-43. IEEE: Kauai, HI. Retrieved from http://www.danah.org/papers/TweetTweetRetweet.pdf.
5.
BrunsA.BurgessJ. (2011). New methodologies for researching news discussion on Twitter. Paper presented at The Future of Journalism 2011, 8–9 September, Cardiff University, UK. Retrieved from http://eprints.qut.edu.au/46330
6.
CrawfordK. (2009). Following you: Disciplines of listening in social media. Continuum, 23(4), 525–535.
7.
EvansE. (2011). Transmedia television: Audiences, new media, and daily life. London: Routledge.
8.
GiddensA. (1991). Modernity and self-Identity: Self and society in the late modern age. Cambridge, UK: Polity.
HargittaiE.LittE. (2011). The tweet smell of celebrity success: Explaining variation in Twitter adoption among a diverse group of young adults. New Media & Society, 13(5), 824–842.
11.
HoneycuttC.HerringS. (2009, January). Beyond microblogging: Conversation and collaboration via Twitter. Proceedings of HICSS-42, IEEE: Los Alamitos, CA.
12.
HumphreysL. (2008). Mobile social networks and social practice: A case study of Dodgeball. Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, 13, 341–360.
13.
ItoM.OkabeB. (2005). Technosocial situations emergent structuring of mobile e-mail use. In ItoM.OkabeD.MatsudaM. (Eds.), Personal, portable, pedestrian: Mobile phones in Japanese life (pp. 257–273). Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press.
14.
JavaA.SongX.FininT.TsengB. (2007, August). Why we Twitter: Understanding microblogging usage and communities. Proceedings of the Joint 9th WEBKDD and 1st SNA-KDD Workshop ‘07, San Jose, CA.
15.
KatzJ.AakhusM. (2002). Perpetual contact: Mobile communication, private talk, public performance. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
16.
KeenanA.ShiriA. (2009). Sociability and social interaction on social networking. Library Review, 58(6), 438–450.
17.
KimY. (2003). Sahoe yeongeolmang iron: Sahoejuk gwangyeowa hyogwa (Social network theory: Social relationship and effects). Seoul, Korea: Bakmungak.
The Korea Internet & Security Agency (2010). Smartphone iyongsiltaejosa(II) (Survey on the smartphone usage[II]). Seoul, Korea: The Korean Internet & Security Agency.
20.
The Korea Internet & Security Agency (2011). 2011nyeon smartphone iyongsiltaejosa (2011 survey on the smartphone usage). Seoul, Korea: The Korean Internet & Security Agency.
21.
KwakH.LeeC.ParkP.MoonS. (2010). What is Twitter, a social network or a news media?Paper presented at WWW 2010, April 26–30, Raleigh, NC.
22.
LangeP. (2008). Publicly private and privately public: Social networking on YouTube. Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, 13, 361–380.
23.
LicoppeC.SmoredaZ. (2005). Are social networks technologically embedded?Social Networks, 27(4), 317–335.
24.
LingR. (2008). New tech, new ties: How mobile communication is reshaping social cohesion. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press.
25.
MadrizE. (2003). Focus groups in feminist research. In DenzinN.LincolnY. (Eds.), Collecting and interpreting qualitative materials (2nd ed., pp. 363–388). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
26.
MarwickA.Boydd. (2011). I tweet honestly, I tweet passionately: Twitter users, context collapse, and the imagined audience. New Media & Society, 13(1), 114–133.
27.
NaamanM.BoaseJ.LaiC.H. (2010). Is it really about me? Message content in social awareness streams. Proceedings of CSCW 2010, February 6–10, Savannah, GA.
28.
OldenburgR. (1991). The great good place: Cafes, coffee shops, community centers, beauty parlors, general stores, bars, hangouts, and how they get you through the day. New York: Paragon House.
29.
OngW. J. (1967). The presence of the word: Some prolegomena for cultural and religious history. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.
30.
OngW. (1977). Interfaces of the word: Studies in the evolution of consciousness and culture. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.
31.
OngW. (1982). Orality and literacy: The technologizing of the word. London: Methuen.
32.
ShimH.HwangY. (2010). Micro-blogging on Uses and Gratification Perspectives: Twitter. Hankookbangsohakbo (Korean Journal of Broadcasting and Telecommunication Studies), 24(2), 192–232.
33.
Van ManenM. (1997). Researching lived experience: Human science for an action sensitive pedagogy. London, ON: The Althouse Press.
34.
YeeJ. (2000). The social networks of Koreans. Korea Journal, 40(1), 325–352.
35.
ZhaoD.RossonM. (2009). How and why people Twitter: The role that micro-blogging plays in informal communication at work. Proceedings of GROUP ’04, May 10–13, Sanibel Island, FL, 243–252.
