Overview

Since the debut of the iPhone in 2007, the mobile phone has become a quick, convenient, and immensely popular gateway for accessing and consuming news. With three billion mobile phone subscribers, Asian countries have led this seismic shift in news consumption. They provide a wide range of opportunities to study how, as mobile technology matures and becomes routinized, mobile news is increasingly subject to societal constraints and impositions of political power that reduce the democratic benefits of such news and call into question the application of these technological innovations within governments and societies.News in Their Pockets explores the societal, technological, and user-related factors behind why and how digital-savvy college students seek news via the mobile phone across Asia's most mobile cities--Shanghai, Hong Kong, Singapore, and Taipei. Situating cross-societal comparative analyses of mobile news consumption in Asia within a digital and global context, this volume outlines the evolution of the mobile phone to its prominence in disseminating news, offers predictors of patterns in mobile news consumption, investigates user needs and expectations, and illustrates future impacts on civic engagement from mobile news consumption. By examining the interplay between game-changing and empowering communication technology and constraining social systems, News in Their Pockets provides the framework necessary for constructive, continuing debates over the promise and peril of digital news and exposes our underlying reasoning behind the adoption of the mobile phone as the all-in-one media of choice to stay socialized, entertained, and informed in the modern digital age.

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9780197523728

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Reviews

If cities are the future, then the four cities covered in News in Their Pockets are the cutting edge of the future. Ran Wei's and Ven-hwei Lo's rich exploration of how citizens in tech-saturated megalopolises use mobile connectivity for news should leave no doubt where the rest of the world will be in the coming years. It is a disorienting time, and we are in luck that they have offered themselves as trail guides to the world to come. -- Lee Rainie, Director of Internet and Technology Research, Pew Research Center, Washington, DC Mobile telephony has brought news to the palms of everyone. With a comparative design using two waves of large-scale survey data, this book is a systematic study of mobile news consumption among college students in Hong Kong, Shanghai, Taipei and Singapore. It is a key reference for anyone interested in understanding how and why mobile news is consumed, and its consequences. Wei and Lo should also be lauded for shedding new light on the interplay between new information technology and social contexts in shaping its use and the production of informed and engaged citizens in this digital age. -- Joseph M. Chan, Emeritus Professor, School of Journalism and Communication, The Chinese University of Hong Kong With smooth, tasteful, and exuberant writing, News in Their Pockets represents a timely and much-needed outlook over the convergence of news and the mobile revolution in Asia. Readers will hone their understanding about the motivations, perceptions, uses, and democratic effects of the ever-evolving world of news gone mobile. -- Homero Gil de Zuniga, Medienwandel Professor, Department of Communication, University of Vienna

With smooth, tasteful, and exuberant writing, News in Their Pockets represents a timely and much-needed outlook over the convergence of news and the mobile revolution in Asia. Readers will hone their understanding about the motivations, perceptions, uses, and democratic effects of the ever-evolving world of news gone mobile. * Homero Gil de Zuniga, Medienwandel Professor, Department of Communication, University of Vienna * Mobile telephony has brought news to the palms of everyone. With a comparative design using two waves of large-scale survey data, this book is a systematic study of mobile news consumption among college students in Hong Kong, Shanghai, Taipei and Singapore. It is a key reference for anyone interested in understanding how and why mobile news is consumed, and its consequences. Wei and Lo should also be lauded for shedding new light on the interplay between new information technology and social contexts in shaping its use and the production of informed and engaged citizens in this digital age. * Joseph M. Chan, Emeritus Professor, School of Journalism and Communication, The Chinese University of Hong Kong * If cities are the future, then the four cities covered in News in Their Pockets are the cutting edge of the future. Ran Wei's and Ven-hwei Lo's rich exploration of how citizens in tech-saturated megalopolises use mobile connectivity for news should leave no doubt where the rest of the world will be in the coming years. It is a disorienting time, and we are in luck that they have offered themselves as trail guides to the world to come. * Lee Rainie, Director of Internet and Technology Research, Pew Research Center, Washington, DC *

Author Information

Ran Wei is Professor at the School of Journalism and Communication, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, and Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Mass Communications at the University of South Carolina, USA. Ven-hwei Lo is Visiting Professor of Journalism in the School of Communication at Hong Kong Baptist University and Editor of Communication and Society, a leading Chinese communication journal.

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