Defining Mobile Television: The Social Construction and Deconstruction of New and Old Media

Abstract

This article explores the circumstances surrounding the launch of mobile television services in the United States during the early 2000s. It draws on Rick Altman's method of crisis historiography to contextualize the fragmentation of mobile television's technologies and the confusion that this fragmentation has bred amongst consumers, industry professionals, analysts, and academics. To examine mobile television's “identity crisis,” I trace how this identity crisis has impacted and has been impacted by changing conceptions of the identities of the two media that mobile television endeavors to merge: the cellular phone and television. Based on this case study, I argue that the identity crises that accompany the arrivals of new media technologies do not take place in isolation, but rather have consequences that influence our attitudes toward and engagements with other, more established media.