Advanced Search

Journal Navigation

Journal Home

Subscriptions

Archive

Contact Us

Table of Contents

Sign In to gain access to subscriptions and/or personal tools.
New Media & Society
This Article
Right arrow Free Full Text (Free PDF) Free
Right arrow References
Right arrow Alert me when this article is cited
Right arrow Alert me if a correction is posted
Right arrow Citation Map
Services
Right arrow Email this article to a friend
Right arrow Similar articles in this journal
Right arrow Similar articles in Web of Science
Right arrow Alert me to new issues of the journal
Right arrow Add to Saved Citations
Right arrow Download to citation manager
Right arrowRequest Permissions
Right arrow Request Reprints
Right arrow Add to My Marked Citations
Citing Articles
Right arrow Citing Articles via Google Scholar
Right arrow Citing Articles via Scopus
Google Scholar
Right arrow Articles by Wilson, T.
Right arrow Articles by Thang, F.
Right arrow Search for Related Content
Social Bookmarking
Add to CiteULike   Add to Complore   Add to Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us   Add to Digg   Add to Reddit   Add to Technorati   Add to Twitter  
What's this?

The hermeneutic circle of cellphone use: four universal moments in a Malaysian narrative of continuing contact

Tony Wilson

Macquarie University and the Australia-Malaysia Institute, Australia, tonyjwilson{at}yahoo.com

Florence Thang

University Malaysia Sarawak, Malaysia

Telephone users are teleological or future-oriented — temporarily apart, anticipatory, they articulate and appropriate meaning. Often, gender and generational cultures are held to differ in their accessing of phone formats and functions (call, data download, email, internet, multimedia and short message services). Drawing upon hermeneutic theory of understanding, the article argues that despite this diversity, there are four underlying universal cognitive moments characterizing the process of receiving and responding to handphone content: (1) perceiving and simultaneously (2) projecting potential narrative; (3) producing a coherent call, message or text; and (4) positioning the significance of cellphone meaning for a life-world. Referring to this fourfold ludology of immersion and inferring content allows us to consider in conceptual detail Malaysian corporate and consumer narratives of employing handphone technology. Philosophically grounded theory shows how culturally concrete experiences of cellphone use during work and leisure instantiate abstract patterns of understanding in reception and response.

Key Words: cellphone • hermeneutics • immersive • ludic • Malaysia • media use • play • phenomenology • reception

New Media & Society, Vol. 9, No. 6, 945-963 (2007)
DOI: 10.1177/1461444807082641
Add to CiteULike CiteULike   Add to Complore Complore   Add to Connotea Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us Del.icio.us   Add to Digg Digg   Add to Reddit Reddit   Add to Technorati Technorati   Add to Twitter Twitter    What's this?