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Title: | "I am not human without my phone": How the socio-cultural realities of Liberia shape Liberian mobile youth culture | Authors: | Togar, E Antheunis, ML DE LEYN, Tom Vanden Abeele, MMP |
Issue Date: | 2023 | Publisher: | Source: | Mobile Media & Communication, 12 (1) , p. 95 -111 | Abstract: | Mobile youth culture (MYC) is a concept that refers to the distinctive ways in which young people adopt and use mobile phones. However, most studies on MYC are situated in the Global North, where the lived realities of teenagers are different from teenagers in the Global South. Through an investigation of how MYC manifests in Liberia, this article adds to the growing literature on mobile communication in the Global South. By doing so, the study responds to scholarly criticisms of the assumption that young people everywhere experience the use of mobile phones in similar ways. Based on qualitative semi-structured interviews with 38 Liberian teenagers, our findings challenge the western, educated, industrialized, rich, and democratic (WEIRD)-centric suggestion of a worldwide “monoculture,” because our results show that although mobile connectivity gives Liberian teenagers opportunities similar to those afforded to their peers in most WEIRD (and non-WEIRD) societies, it is simultaneously experienced markedly different by them. We therefore argue for a more “inclusive” conceptualization of the MYC concept. | Other: | Authors' note Euriahs Togar, Department of Cognition and Communication, Tilburg University, the Netherlands. Tom De Leyn, School of Social Sciences, Hasselt University, Belgium. Mariek M. P. Vanden Abeele Department of Communication and Cognition, Tilburg University, The Netherlands. | Keywords: | Mobile youth culture;Global South;mobile media;Liberia;south-Saharan Africa;teenagers;adolescents;mobile phone;smartphone;status;identity;belonging | Document URI: | http://hdl.handle.net/1942/42582 | ISSN: | 2050-1579 | e-ISSN: | 2050-1587 | DOI: | 10.1177/20501579231197373 | ISI #: | WOS:001069682200001 | Rights: | The Author(s) 2023 Article reuse guidelines: sagepub.com/journals-permissions DOI: 10.1177/20501579231197373 journals.sagepub.com/home/mmc | Category: | A1 | Type: | Journal Contribution |
Appears in Collections: | Research publications |
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