Global Nomads' Network and Mobile Sociality: Exploring New Media Uses on the Move

It is argued that network relationships are reshaped and mobilized through reconfigurations of co-presence, proximity and distance in relation to the use of new media, and can provide a useful insight into the emerging social model of the network and mobile society.

Abstract

This paper explores the convergence of communication and travel and the emergence of a mobile and network sociality, through investigating new communication practices based on the internet and mobile phone enacted by backpackers while on the move. These global nomads produce and maintain mobile spaces of sociality, founded on a complex intersection of face-to-face interaction and mediated communication, co-presence and virtual proximity, corporeal travel and virtual mobilities. Personal communities become a mobile phenomenon, relocalized in a plurality of online and offline social spaces. It is thus argued that network relationships are reshaped and mobilized through reconfigurations of co-presence, proximity and distance in relation to the use of new media. Exploring new media uses on the move can thus provide a useful insight into the emerging social model of the network and mobile society.