A world through the camera phone lens

a case study of Beijing camera phone use

Bo Gai

pp. 195-204

in: Larissa Hjorth (ed), Photo shopping, Knowledge, Technology & Policy 22 (3), 2009.

Abstract

While the camera phone is becoming widely used among mobile phone users, this new technology is changing the perspective from which we see the world and thus changing our thoughts and lives. In order to understand what this convergence means to us, this research makes a case study of 16 mobile phone users in Beijing urban area and attempts to analyze how the camera phone is used in both self-construction and self-identification processes. The case study illustrates that the camera phone is helping people record what they experience at any time and place and thus impacting upon how they experience the world. Consequently, this digitalized copy of life promotes the social reflectivity, which can be seen as facilitating the emerging civil society in China's rapidly transforming technoculture.