Mobile phones, identity and discursive intimacy

Abstract

This paper deals with the sociocultural effects of mobile phones in Philippine society. In particular it looks at how mobile phones have affected notions of identity and the rise of the sexual subject. It also deals with the political possibilities and implication of this new communicative technology in a society with previously poorly developed telephonic and other communicative technologies. Mobile phones allow absent subjects to exercise a daily presence in their communities of origin. This absent presence generates virtual subjects interacting primarily via the mobile phone.