Just Press Send: Text messages and Youth Culture
Singapore Youth & Media Conference Paper
Carlo Velayo is in his final year of a BA in Communications (Media Arts and Production) and BA International Studies.
Just Press Send is the paper that Carlo presented at the Singapore Youth and Media Conference – a biennial event aimed at discussing pertinent issues that affect the media and the youth of today’s global village.
Carlo aims to produce documentaries and films that inspire the human spirit and plans to live on all seven continents of the world, in order to find an antidote for the travel bug.
Download the full paper: Just Press Send (pdf, 212kb)
Download the conference presentation (ppt, 8.0mb)
Summary
This paper looks at two separate events that connect society, in particular the youth, as well as technology, focusing on mobile phones. The first event provides context for the pertinence of mobile phones in shaping the personal and political voices of the Philippine youth. It revisits People Power II in which President Joseph Estrada was ousted by a non-violent army of protestors, armed with mobile phones. The second event juxtaposes the use of mobiles in the recent race riots on Sydney’s beaches. While text messages were used to organise anti-racism rallies after the events at Cronulla beach they were initially used to incite racial violence, resulting in swift and terrifying attacks on innocent members of the community. These events, almost five years apart, highlight the pervasive nature of mobile technologies in assembling a large group in a small amount of time. Both events also present the propensity of the media to polarise societal divisions within the nation-state at a time of moral panic. Keeping in mind that a majority of developed and developing societies have access to mobile phones, this topic is not only relevant for the youth in Australia and the Philippines but also the youth throughout South-East Asia and the global community. While a majority of the research has been conducted on the Internet, with the aid of online journals and periodical resources, the paper also utilises the academic framework of some of the forerunners in the field – Rheingold, Rao and Pertierra, to name a few.
Ultimately this paper looks at how young people have used mobile technologies to invent new customs and modes of expression. It investigates the benefits and pitfalls of mobile technologies and how these external forces have affected the lives of the youth in the twenty-first century. It is hoped that this discussion will incite further debate into the limitless domain of mobile phones and challenge the reader to consider how the way in which the technology evolves will affect future generations.