Research Collaboration: Media & Communications (MFJS & Lund University)

Media and Communications researchers from Lund University and DU build a network of global scholars collaborating to develop the theoretical framework of “mobile socialities.”

The primary aim of the collaboration is to critically examine the emerging concept of mobile socialities across international perspectives in order to establish a new theoretical framework in our field.

The Mobile Socialities network critically examines the concept of mobile socialities across international perspectives, ensuring dialogue on the connections between media and culture, mobilities and mobile communication research. The project involves collaboration between scholars from the University of Denver and Lund University, as well as other senior and early career researchers, working to critically examine mobile socialities through empirical case studies and critical social and cultural theories. Key research questions include: 1) What forms of socialities do we find in mobile times? 2) In what ways are time and place critical to mobile socialities? 3) How do we research the mobile nature of screen content for transnational audiences, users and publics? DU and Lund U draw on joint expertise in media and communication studies, specifically combining research from Lund University on media and mobilization, migration, transnational audiences and everyday life, and from University of Denver, media and social class, mobilities, and migration, in order to critically examine people and media on the move.

Researchers address mobile socialites through empirical and theoretical analysis of different cases, including media and migration, mobile media and the homeless, mobile media and urban spaces, the blurred boundaries between work place-space within mobile communications, and transnational audiences for global drama. Their work explores the concept of mobile socialities as something concerned with not only fluidity or scale, but also the possibilities and barriers to being mobile. Researchers explores different methods for studying (im)mobilities, e.g. contextualization or staying close to the research object or subject. In such a way, the researchers address the flow and stillness of digital technologies and our lived realities, and the power dynamics of emerging forms of the social in mobile times. Mobile socialities is a bridging concept that addresses the phenomena of people on the move and the role of mobile media in everyday life.

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Some of the proposed outcomes of the collaboration are: 

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1.      an international research and writing workshop on Mobile Socialities (October 2019, Lund University, Sweden);

2.      an edited volume on Mobile Socialities, and

3.      develop research funding for a network grant involving international scholars in this new area of study.

Project Details

DU Departments

Media, Film, and Journalism Studies

DU Project Contacts

Dr. Erika Polson

Dr. Lynn Schofield Clark

Dr. Carlos Jimenez

Partner Departments

Lund University Department of Communication and Media

Project Status

Ongoing

Began Spring 2018 with Symposium in Lund; Members presented at ICA Conference in Prague, May 2018 and at a Mobile Socialities IAMCR PostConference in Segovia, Spain, July 2019. Upcoming projects include a workshop in Lund, Oct. 2019; hoping to co-host a Mobile Socialities pre-conference at ICA Conference in Denver, May 2021

Project Photo Gallery

Photos courtesy of Dr. Erika Polson