Mobile communication research in Asia: changing technological and intellectual geopolitics?

Abstract

This article reviews Asian mobile communication research since the mid-1990s. First, it identifies key research institutes and funding agencies, not only in Asia but also worldwide public (e.g., the Canadian IDRC) and private (e.g., Microsoft) organizations. It then summarizes the areas of research at micro, meso, and macro levels, including their main topics, methods, and findings, and debates that result from the interaction (and lack of it) among diverse scholarly traditions such as survey, policy analysis, ethnography, action research, and comparative studies. Young as it is, mobile communication research is now a most eclectic area of inquiry, reflecting both the diversity of Asian societies and the growing heterogeneity of communication research itself. What is to remain? Are there centripetal forces that may lead to the confluence of the field in the next 20 years? How does Asian mobile communication research speak to European and American colleagues? Is the trend of changing what Mizuko Ito calls ‘techno-logical and intellectual geopolitics’ already under way? This article is designed to be first an overview, before more systematic discussions are provided on selected themes of research. The purpose is to piece together the big picture of a burgeoning field in order to identify key development trends and inform future research.