Futures of Learning

Mobile “Graffiti Advertising,” Beijing, 2007 ** Bandit Phone Display, Shenzhen, August 2008

As mentioned in my previous post, China’s mobile phone market has seen tremendous growth in a relatively short period of time. With the diffusion of cell phones in China, certain distinctive (though not wholly unique) traits of mobile phone use have emerged. The first is that although business people in China make voice calls frequently, the majority of mobile phone users, including youth, communicate primarily via text message. The sheer volume of text messaging in China is astounding. In 2007, 592.1 billion text messages were sent, for an average of 1.6 billion/day and a daily revenue of 160 million yuan (roughly US $21 million) (http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2008-02/08/content_7581868.htm). In most cases, text messaging is not necessarily used for reasons of courtesy to those occupying the same public space (as in Japan). On the contrary, loud mobile phone conversations on public transport, in restaurants, and on elevators are not uncommon. I have even heard people answer their cell phones in movie theaters. Rather, one reason for the prevalence of texting is it is cheap: about US 1.4 cents per message.

Text messages in China are often self-written, but the use of pre-written messages is also common. These types of messages are widely available and can either be copied from inexpensive books for sale at kiosks and mom and pop stores or downloaded from the Internet, though most people merely forward messages they have received. The contents are usually jokes, sentimental poems, erotica, or holiday greetings. For example, during the 2008 Chinese New Year period, approximately 17 billion text messages were sent. Though people from all walks of life send pre-written messages, among the rural-to-urban migrant women I met during my fieldwork in 2006-07 there was a large reliance on such messages. One reason was in order to compensate for low literacy levels (especially difficulty with inputting characters) (Wallis, 2008).  Another was to communicate emotions the women felt they could not properly express in their own words and to explore their sexual identity (Lin, 2005; Wallis, 2008). However, the flowery language of many such messages means that they are often disparaged by those who are more educated (Wallis, forthcoming). There is also a growing awareness in China that most pre-written messages are meant to cater to the tastes of lower social strata (Cartier, Castells, & Qiu, 2005).

Though most cell phone users in China use pre-paid cards due to their flexibility and convenience, mobile phone calling plans in China are not merely innocuous economic configurations based on rational market forces. Like so many other products and services that have arisen in the past decade or so, they bear distinct attributes intended to bestow status and to differentiate among users. One of the most noticeable examples of this distinction derives from mobile phone numbers themselves. First, cell phone prefixes are linked to a specific provider, with more prestige going to China Mobile. As the incumbent in the mobile phone market, China Mobile tends to offer better coverage and more service options in most areas (though the recent telecom restructuring might change this). Second, one’s number also reveals the type of service plan one has. For example, China Mobile’s “GoTone” brand provides subscribers with a variety of services, including international roaming, mobile Internet, mobile banking, MMS, GPS, and a “mobile secretary.” Beyond phone services, GoTone, as the package for “high-class customers,” also offers VIP clients “distinguished” airport service and a professional style golf club (http://www.chinamobile.com/gotone/profile/). On China Mobile’s website, the company boasts GoTone’s “intangible assets” that are “symbolized in success, self-confidence, and high taste” (http://www.chinamobile.com/gotone/profile/intro/). The blurb for the service even indirectly invokes the language of quality (suzhi) through comparing GoTone customers’ level and quality of “development” to its own. This information is not only available to subscribers or those who have perused China Mobile’s promotional materials. Because it is widely known that GoTone uses the 134 through 139 prefixes, these three-digit prefixes confer status on their users (This is perhaps somewhat akin to area codes in certain parts of the U.S., as in Los Angeles, for example, where a 310 area code, which signifies a Westside residence, carries more prestige than an 818 area code, which is used for phone numbers in the San Fernando Valley).

Regardless of provider or service plan, one’s mobile phone number itself is a mark of prestige. Unlike in the U.S. where numbers are usually randomly assigned to a cell phone subscriber, in China SIM cards with mobile numbers must be purchased separately in order to use a phone. Since mobile numbers in China are rather long (11 digits), numbers that have repeating digits are more expensive because these types of numbers are easier to remember. Numbers are also more costly based on whether they are considered lucky or unlucky. A phone number with a large amount of eights, for example, will be more expensive, and again confer status, since eight is an auspicious number in Chinese culture. On the other hand, a number ending in four (a homonym for death in Chinese) will be inexpensive and possibly create discomfort for a caller.

Mobile phones have now become a personal necessity for a vast majority of China’s city residents and they seem to be everywhere. Whole city blocks full of cell phone shops exist in cities as diverse as Beijing in the north and Nanning in the south. Urban metro stations, bus stops, and rooftops have all become display sites for ubiquitous cell phone advertising. Radio and TV shows, Internet portals, and advertising companies all vie for attention on and through people’s cell phones, and for those who don’t have the money to promote their services by such legitimate means, spray painting one’s mobile number on walls or sidewalks has become a new kind of guerrilla advertising (often for quasi-illicit services), as in the image above on the left.

Mobile users in China, particularly urban youth, tend to change handsets quickly. One reason is that the mobile handset industry in China consists of both global brands as well as a number of domestic manufacturers that release new models much more frequently than in other parts of the world. Another factor is that the heavy use of pre-paid phone cards means users are not locked into a contract with a particular phone. A recent trend has been the popularity of “bandit” phones (shanzhaiji), so-called because they fall into a grey zone in that they are not black-market phones, but they are not fully legal either. They are manufactured by small companies in southern China and are distinguished by being relatively cheap and loaded with functions. Sometimes they look like replicas of popular models, such as the iPhone, but come with a name such as “Hiphone.” Other bandit phones have cool or kitsch designs (see image above right). Bandit phones are popular among low-income groups such as migrants as well as trendy, geeky kids, but also among those who buy them to express a nationalist sentiment by not buying a global brand such as Nokia. Ironically, however, in purchasing a bandit phone, they are undercutting China’s legitimate domestic phone market (Zheng & Chen, 2008).

In terms of in-depth research on mobile phone use, thus far the focus has been on either the urban or the rural-to-urban migrant population, though exceptions where both populations have been included in the same study do exist, such as in the work of Fortunati, Manganelli, Law, and Yang (2008) and Yang (2006). This split in research design is in line with what are perceived to be vast gaps between these two populations in terms of material resources, life conditions, and opportunities. Both bodies of literature have found, not surprisingly, that young migrant workers in southern factories and “cool” (linglei) urban youth in Beijing voiced similar connections between owning a mobile phone and perceived social status or maintenance of “face” (Yang & Chu, 2006; Wang, 2005). In addition, gendered differences in preferences of mobile phone types as well as discourses about mobile phones have also been found among both groups (Yu & Tng, 2003; Wallis, 2008).

Perhaps because of the particular position they occupy within Chinese society, more in-depth research has been done on mobile phone use among rural-to-urban migrants than among urban residents. Cartier, Castells, & Qiu (2005) argue that “working class ICTs” such as the xiaolingtong (“Little Smart”), a less expensive mobile phone with limited geographic mobility (it runs off the fixed-line telephone system), as well as pre-paid calling cards enable migrants to become part of the “information have-less” (as opposed to have-nots). Recently, the popularity of Little Smart phones seem to be declining as the costs of standard mobile phones also decrease. Cell phones have become crucial tools for migrants, who often have minimal access to landlines outside of public call bars (huaba), to maintain as well as expand their social networks (Chu & Yang, 2006; Law & Peng, 2006). Dating via the mobile phone – where a relationship is initiated and sustained through text messaging and voice calls with a face-to-face meeting not taking place for several months – has also become a common feature of mobile phone use among young adult migrants (Law & Peng, 2006; Wallis, 2008). In using mobile phones to autonomously establish intimate relationships, young migrant women in particular challenge parental authority in such decisions. However, I noticed that they also engage in practices that blend the traditional as much as the technological, through, for example, relying on intermediaries for introductions (Wallis, 2008). However, more widespread availability of QQ (a chat program) on cell phones may be changing this situation, as QQ has become a popular venue for anonymous sexual solicitations. Still, whatever the means, those migrant women who establish intimate relationships outside of parental approval are not always able to follow through on their plans for the future, for reasons of self-protection, filial obligation, and financial security (Ma & Cheng, 2005). Thus, the long-term effects of such autonomy remain unknown.

Due to the nature of Chinese social relationships and the distinctions made between friends, colleagues, classmates, and the like, several studies have found that many rural-to-urban migrants do not have anybody they consider a “real friend” in their immediate vicinity (Law & Peng, 2006; Ma & Cheng, 2005). Thus, the cell phone emerges not so much as a “supportive communication technology” (Yoon, 2003) for relationships that are primarily maintained through face-to-face contact, but as an “expansive communication tool” used for maintaining ties with friends and lovers who are spread all over China (Wallis, 2008). In other words, many migrants have a number of close relationships that are maintained almost strictly through their mobile phone.

A final body of research on mobile phones in China has examined how cell phones, particularly via text messaging, are increasingly used for popular mobilization and subverting the dominant discourse. Such usage first became widespread during the SARS outbreak in 2003, when ordinary citizens used SMS to counter the government’s attempt to block dissemination of information about the epidemic through traditional media channels (Castells, et al., 2007). Yu (2004) argues that such usage constituted a “third realm” in state-society relations and a means of “informed citizenship” (p. 31). Since that time, SMS has been implicated in everything from organizing protests to block the construction of a toxic chemical plant (Nanfang Dushibao) to mobilizing “angry youth” during anti-Japanese riots in 2005. Though the government has tried to keep pace with the information spread via text messaging through devising new filtering and tracking techniques, it certainly cannot control all of the content sent through SMS (Qiu, 2007). For this reason, it uses both “hard power” techniques such as periodically arresting users for spreading “malicious rumors,” as well as softer measures, including sponsoring contests for ordinary citizens to write “red” (“healthy” or encouraging) messages and quash so-called “yellow” (sexual or pornographic) messages (Zhang, 2006). Because text messages often contain politically and morally subversive content, He (2008) argues that SMS, as a “fifth” media channel, has become a “major carrier of the nonofficial discourse” in China. This certainly was the case during the 2008 Olympics, when I received SMS jokes skewering the skills (or lack of) of China’s soccer team and praising the athletic as well as sexual ability of China’s gymnasts. The role of text messaging in China in creating a space for alternative discourse and a virtual public sphere is clearly a fascinating topic for further research.

References
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Castells, M., Fernandez-Ardevol, M., Qiu, J. L., & Sey, A. (2007). Mobile communication and society: A global perspective. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

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