Communications and Media

The environment, physical and social settings surrounding a person affects the possibilities that are present for performing an activity and the mobility of a person. In a way we are all mobile people as the information technology surrounding us has completely changed the mobility of people. Part of this change in the mobility of people can also be attributed to the increase in the wireless networks and handheld terminals. We are now considered mobile people who live in a mobile world and our world has now become a global village where we have become a community that has no boundaries.

MEIDA AND MOBILITY
Today we are living in the age of communication technology and the old traditions, cultures, nations and ethnicity have been blurred. In this day and age the cultures and traditions are being reshaped into collective identities that are being referred to as spaces of identity. The cultural traditions are being reshaped to provide cable and satellite broadcasting. The increased availability of communication technology and the cable broadcasting has reshaped the way how the people think and also restructured the cultures of the society. This development in communication technology has con-verged several diverse cultures into collective cultures as the global boundaries are being blurred and we are becoming more mobile people. 

GLOBALIZATION
The increased mobility through the informatics has made globalization a point of discussion as from one point the globalization has increased the mobility of people but at the other end it has challenged the geographic boundaries of nation states that have long demarcated the boundaries of sovereignty and citizenship. Globalization is considered to have created a virtual community where everyone is considered a mobile person but lately nations have tried to restructure boundaries to maintain a level of sovereignty and remain as a nation state.

The globalization of communities does threaten the traditional powers that are held by a state but at the other hand it has largely increased the mobility of people as now a person can operate global business, do global sourcing and procurement, global manufacturing, global distribution and much more. The bone of contention is whether this increase in mobility is a benefit or it threatens the traditional state powers. People benefit from the increased globalizations now we have larger markets and more access to the best available resources and people can interact much more easily. As a mobile person I now have access to a global market and can move easily across boundaries in that I can now work online at another place from mobile terminal and can also sell in a global market.

DIGITAL MOBILITY
The web 2.0 is the next big step in technology and has completely changed the way we use the web today. We have moved from Netscape to Google, and where Netscape was the bearer of web 1.0 Google is the bearer of web 2.0. Google is now providing a service where people are paying to use it either directly or indirectly and through it we have access to a world of knowledge from all around the world. If anyone wants information on any topic the databases present on the web can provide information on it. This service provided by Google has greatly increased the knowledge of people.
Apart from this the websites like facebook, twitter, YouTube, etc. have brought together people from all walks of life that interact beyond boundaries. These sites have brought together mobile people who can interact on such a common platform and share information. Such a platform has us more mobile as I can interact with a person from the other end of the world sitting in my own bedroom. The boundary less web has made this possible and the different platforms that are present also make such mobility easier. This development of the web 2.0 and the various web platforms present has made us more mobile as people.

SONIC MOBILITY
The age of boom boxes and walkmans is over and this is the age of iPods and mp3s.the main idea has been that of music on the go but that is not the fact that has changed. What has changed is the capacity and agency. A person can carry their entire music library with them on the go and listen to the right music at the right time. The portability was present earlier too but the capacity was missing. One cassette could at the most carry 16 songs and it would not be practical to carry cassettes from each artist, whereas now one can carry thousands of songs easily in their iPods. This kind of mobility has been hugely helpful for people in terms of the portable capacity that is available and that we can listen to whatever we feel like based on our different moods.

The sonic mobility that the new age iPods and mp3s have provided us has made music listening a different experience in terms of time and space. We now can link songs to the way we feel and with our different moves. They have brought the private into the public in that we have brought our private consumption into the public realm as we are now more mobile. This concept of sonic mobility is attributed to the developing technology of portable music as we have now moved from boom boxes and walkmans to iPods and mp3s.

TOURISM
The technology changes and the increased flow of goods and information and globalization have made people more mobile. People are now moving from different jobs in different places and are more flexible and mobile. The reutilization of touristic sensibilities in everyday life is created by enhanced spatial flows of people  a shift from cultural tourism to touristic culture (Picard, 1996). It is highly unrealistic in these days to consider that a person can find work in the same place where their parents reside, and it has become a part of life to be shifted from one work site to another. The global organizations that we have often transport employees from one work site to another and people also find work opportunities in different places. The people now look at these work opportunities more as touristic opportunities then just as work as they get a chance to experience different cultures and places.

This shifting of employees between different worksites has also increase the immigration to different countries. The people also immigrate as an aim to gain another market for trade. The mobile technology that has developed and the digitization of phones to 3g phones has greatly simplified this process as the phones act as a mobility catalyst making it easier for people to adapt to different places. Using a 3g phone we can get the maps for any place in the world and easily commute in a new place. Also such phones allow people to easily interact across borders given the wireless networks that are available on these phones.

DIGITISATION
The improved means of information sharing that have been developed and that are constantly being improved have made communication and mobility better and more effective. The development of 3g phones, the web 2.0, etc has greatly improved the information flow and also made it much easier for people to interact. The digitization of media has also made it available to everyone and has increased its mobility as anyone and everyone can now access the information that is provided.

TERRORISM
Up till now we have looked at how the improved information technology has led to higher mobility and people gaining benefits from this, but the other side to this is the increase in organized terror in different parts of the world. Earlier with the weaker communication technology and information technology it was harder to organize terrorist acts across the world but now with the increase mobility it is much easier for terror groups like the Al- Qaeda to use this technology to inflict terror on the people of the world. The information technology that we have today allows such groups to remotely activate a bomb in any part of the world and they also have the ability to break into systems and hack information.

But the problem that we face is that with this technology that is available the terrorist groups have an increased venue to inflict terror. The cvast network of information technology that we have today not only has it provided terrorist with a means of terrorism but has also made the detection of such terrorist a problem as we can only identify the IP addresses and not the person operating it and this too is not an easy task.

There are always two ways of looking at anything and same is the case with information technology. It has made people more mobile and increase their mobility and access, but if used in the wrong way can lead to far greater destruction.