This paper analyses how mobile phone owners turn from being regarded by the industry as users of an interpersonal medium, to a mass audience along some of the principles for how this “audience commodity” has been constructed in previous mass media settings, centering on the radio, television and the press. One purpose is to critically examine the relation between interpersonal and mass media, such as how technological developments connected to digitization has altered the market for media commodities and contributed to the development of new business models. The second purpose is to discuss the consequences of this shift, and its consequences for our ontological understanding of what it means to use a mobile phone.
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