ID unknown? You must be from UNAUSTRALIA: Exploring the significance of the mobile phone to Australian identity

Abstract

This paper investigates and analyses the significance of mobile phone communication to an Australian identity. Mobile phones are now ubiquitous in Australia, so is it UNAUSTRALIAN to not own a mobile phone? To what extent is Australian citizenship now connected to the ownership and use of a mobile phone for communication in everyday life? Without a mobile phone does one lack access to an Australian identity? Do you live in UNAUSTRALIA if you do not own a mobile phone? Are you invisible in Australia without a mobile phone? Are you able to exert cultural and social agency without one? What does your choice not to own a mobile phone mean?This study examines the discursive processes of communication in which the mobile phone is used. It then links this use to the broader socio-cultural constructions of the mobile phone and Australianness. It analyses how discourse is part of a generative process in the lives and practices of young Australian adults and outlines how a mobile phone is the mechanism of agency as we use the mobile phone to construct our identity and engage with the wider world. Conversely the mobile phone constructs who we can be. How does being Australian influence the function, context of use, and the processes of communication via a mobile phone?