Discursive Practices and Creation of Identity Using the Mobile Phone

Purpose And Methods

The purpose of the larger project this chapter draws from was to analyze emerging discourses of new communication practices using mobile phones. This would answer the question of how existing discourses were negotiated and new ones created as people 18 to 35 in Australia’s Hunter region used mobile phones. Knowledge of both intrapersonal and interpersonal uses was needed, to explore this purpose fully. The research design adopted three different methods to reveal the complexities of emerging discourses and afford multiple comparisons and opportunities for validation of evidence. The methods were used concurrently: the collection of cultural artifacts referencing mobile phones (advertisements, newspaper articles, radio broadcasts, Podcasts, official statistics, laws, online forums etc.), a Research Journal kept for two years and four months, and semi-structured interviews with 18 adults.

This chapter draws mainly on Discourse Analysis of the 18 interviews. Within the methodological writing about Discourse Analysis, interviews are not always classified as ‘good’ or ‘naturally occurring data but, rather, as researcher-instigated discourse’ (Philips & Hardy, 2002, p. 72). However interviews are considered a practical and valuable tool for Discourse Analysis if the study is about the individual (and their phone uses, in this case). This is because ‘the way in which individuals construct themselves in an interview with a researcher may be similar to how they construct themselves in other arenas of talk’ (Philips & Hardy, 2002, p. 72). In the interviews for this study there was a special interest in how discourses of the self and the mobile phone were related, and in physical and social actions using the mobile phone. Interviews were analyzed for this constructed talk as well as the description of social interaction. Interviews lasted from 78 to 108 minutes and were sound recorded using a digital mini-disk and then later transcribed. Participants were asked questions about their uses of the mobile phone, its features, their personalization of it and their communication with others. Participants were selected using convenience or purposive sampling to gain a diverse group of 18 to 35 year old people living in the Hunter Region (an area 2 hours drive north and north west of Sydney that includes coastal and regional, inland towns). As can be seen from the table below, a wide variety of people in the chosen age group were recruited, with a balance with regard to men (10) and women (8), a range of occupations including tertiary students, professionals, skilled workers, full time carers and those without work. Some had few resources; others were wealthy. One third were well educated for their age group.