Mobile Dream Telling

Private Public

The lobby area of Customs House also functions as a public reading room for newspapers and magazines. Consequently people congregate to read the worldwide dailies, sometimes for a few minutes, other times up to a few hours. This means that though it is a public area, it is relatively quiet as people concentrate on their reading. Curiously this creates an interesting dynamic for MDT, as trying to negotiate a publically private space has initiated some interesting interactions. It is worth to note that mobile phones are not prohibited for use in this area which means that there is a certain tolerance. The question appears to be how the mobile phone is being used, not in terms of level of speaking, which one might expect but content of conversation, that is ‘intimate talk’ as opposed to ‘public speech’.

It prompted me to revisit Jurgen Habermas’ notion of the public sphere and the possible challenges of mobile phones. According to Habermas the public sphere is a partly mediated sphere of rational communication and social regulation. Public forms are sustained through their communicative practices that aim at teaching consensual action and intervention. Matters from the private sphere of home and work can be debated as long as the debate is kept on a general level. In this context, mobile communications pose challenges to received notions of what constitutes ‘proper’ communicative issues in different areas of society. It follows on to the ideas of French Marxist philosopher Henri Lefebvre, one of the most influential writers on the city this century. He considered space as one of the most fundamental aspects of the city and sees it not as a natural or god given commodity but as a historical and social product. That is it is continually produced through our social interactions, our way of moving and living and communicating within public space.

posted by joanna @ 3:03 PM