Shin Don Kim, PhD
Professor, Hallym University, Korea

Five faces of mobility: physical, political, economic, social, and cultural

ABSTRACT
The recent advent of mobile communication seems to have greatly increased the mobility of contemporary society. Or is it the society at the beginning of 21st century that dictates greater mobility upon us? Existing research tend to suggests, implicitly or explicitly, that it usually, if not always, is the technologies of mobile ommunication that are pumping new tides into culture. But the development of modern capitalist society has been unfolded with the increase of mobility in every aspect. From physical mobility to political, economic, social and cultural mobility, it is perhaps not the technologies of mobile communication but the fundamental drive toward higher mobility that has shaped the current situation of mobile use. Like many other technologies, mobile media or the media that are contributing mobility are appropriated by different people for different purpose in different ways. In this paper, I intend to focus on how mobility is constantly promoted through the deployment of new media in five dimensions of social organization. The paper will discuss how the concept of mobility is interrelated among five areas and attempt to show the compromising process of technological adoption and adaptation.

Shin Dong Kim is a professor of communication at Hallym University, Korea, and is also serving as the director of the Institute for Communication Arts & Technology (iCat). His research and teaching interests in the last few years have covered the areas of mobile
communication, transnational media consumption, media and politics, and culture technology. He has held visiting professorships at Dartmouth College, USA; Macquarie University, Australia; Ramkhamhaeng University, Thailand; University of the Philippines, and Sciences Po, France. Kim has published chapters in Contemporary Television (Sage 1996), Handbook of the Media in Asia (Sage 2002), Perpetual Contact (2002 Cambridge),
Mobile Democracy (Passagen Verlag 2003), and so on. He is a founding member of the Asia's Future Initiative (AFI) http://www.asiafuture.org/ where he relates his research and education with global cultural programs. His research institute, the iCat, is now expanding research areas from media technology and transnational culture to teledemocracy and media education. The iCat is wide open to all scholars and students for exchanges, visits, and research cooperation.
http://www.hallym.ac.kr/~icat/
E: kimsd@hallym.ac.kr