The Digital Nexus of Post-Automobility

Finally, I am happy to report that our first CeMoRe report from the 'Alternative Automobility Futures' project is available as a pdf download:

The Digital Nexus of Post-Automobility by Kingsley Dennis & John Urry


ABSTRACT

Rapid dynamic changes in several key areas are transforming the physical geography of global regions as well as their interrelations. In this Report we set out a list of processes that we consider pose significant influence upon future mobilities, lifestyles, and social relations. We identify these as global climate change; global security and the ‘War on Terror’; digital technologies and pervasive computing; and the rise in complexity thinking. This Report demonstrates how their possible combination and synthesis could impact upon mobility trends within technologically developed regions, specifically upon automobilities. Taken individually they pose significant impact; taken together they have the momentum, power, and potential to create major shifts in how socio-technical mobilities are framed. By taking automobilities, and their transformation, as the focus we outline how we conceive a possible shift occurring that would take individualised automobility use from a series to a nexus system, particularly one framed within physical/digital networks. Principally we frame these dynamic systemic changes as shifting the car system from being autonomous to becoming post-car automation. This transition would take place within a parallel shift towards increased digitisation of physical movement whereby coded environments and software-sorting systems would frame such future mobilities.

This online paper may be cited or briefly quoted in line with the usual academic conventions. You may also download them for your own personal use. Any comments welcome!

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Mobile Media and Communication

'Mobile Media and Communication' is the current special issue of the PsychNology Journal (Volume 5, Number 1, pp. 1-99) that includes the following papers as full pdf downloads:

Is It Fun to Go to Sydney? Common-Sense Knowledge of Social Structures and WAP by Ilpo Koskinen

Texters not Talkers: Phone Call Aversion among Mobile Phone Users by Ruth Rettie

Discourses on Mobility and Technological Mediation: The Texture of Ubiquitous Interaction by Giuseppina Pellegrino

Mobile Fantasies on Film: Gathering Metaphoric Evidence of Mobile Symbiosis and the Mobile Imaginary by Kathleen M. Cumiskey

And we should point out that Giuseppina Pellegrino was recently a visiting academic to CeMoRe who gave some talks and shared the office with the hoster of this blog!


Thanks to Smartmobs for the link
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LECTURER/SENIOR LECTURER in NEW MOBILE MEDIA

Our own home site of hot-research and hive-activity is advertising for a new member - see below:

LANCASTER UNIVERSITY

FACULTY OF ARTS AND SOCIAL SCIENCES

LECTURER/SENIOR LECTURER in NEW MOBILE MEDIA

Applications from outstanding individuals are invited for a new post to develop synergies between Lancaster's Mobilities.lab and imagination@lancaster. The person appointed will have a strong academic record in researching new media based on mobile platforms, past achievement or good prospects of externally funded research, and a capacity to develop and teach, particularly on new postgraduate programmes. The person appointed will be based in the Institute for Advanced Studies and returned in either the Sociology or Creative Arts RAE.

Closing date: 30 March 2007
Starting date 1 October 2007
Further details see: http://www.personnel.lancs.ac.uk/
Salary information: Lecturer (Grade 8) - £32,795 - £39,160 pa
Senior Lecturer (Grade 9) - £41,544 - £46,758 pa

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Digital Communities 2007

The IGU Commission on the Geography of Information Society and Digital Communities announces its 2007 joint meeting in Tallinn, Estonia and Helsinki, Finland.

Digital Communities 2007 - Mobility/Mindset/Maturity: Call for Papers

After sixty years of electronic computing and a decade of commercialized Internet use, it is valuable to evaluate the influence of information technologies on our lives and to plan for an ICT enabled future. Among the emerging applications of ICT are its growing mobility and influence on our movements, and widespread adoption in many societies. The potential of ubiquitous information access and maturity of the basic technologies prompts consideration of our past experience and future preparedness.

While all topics associated with the spatial and social context of ICT are welcome, general topics of interest include:

* Mobility: The social, economic, and spatial implications of emerging information technologies that span the spectrum from enhanced mobile phones to ubiquitous computing, and shape our
ability to move and access information.
* Mindset: The way that individuals, organizations, and governments understand ICT and exploit and plan for future advances in information technologies. How do we conceptualize ICT; and do we need to change the way we perceive these technologies? What changes in mindset accompany the transition to ICT enabled intelligent development?
* Maturity: ICTs are no longer emerging technologies but, in many societies, well established elements for government, business, and social interaction. What does the maturity of ICT mean for development, policy and communities?

More details available online at www.digitalcommunities.info