Use Of Mobile Phones In The Philippines example essay topic

Chapter 1 Introduction It is sometime in May 2001... Joseph Estrada has just been replaced as the President of the Philippines... In a police precinct somewhere in Metro Manila, a number of Estrada loyalists-mostly young men-are being charged for having committed various acts of vandalism during the riots that accompanied Estrada's downfall. Suddenly, one of them darts out of the precinct and makes a dash for freedom across an empty field. He is pulled up short by the warning shot fired into the air by a pursuing policeman.

On being marched back into the office, the young man is asked by a TV journalist why he tried to escape. He replies in Tagalog: "I wasn't trying to run away. I was only going to buy a cellphone!" General Aim This project examines the use of mobile phones in the Philippines. Cellphones enable their users to maintain and reproduce existing social relationships in expanded spatio-temporal contexts.

They are also able to constitute new relationships involving virtual selves in a cyber and global world. Seldom has a technology so affected the identities and social relationships of its users. Studies (Pool, 1977; Aronson, 1971) have shown that the introduction of telephones had similar consequences on discursive practices as well as on the notion of the self. Mobile phones intrude into and expand their users' private worlds. How this private world is related to the broader public world has never been sufficiently analyzed in the Philippine context. However, research in the West has shown that cellphones radically affect and even alter the relationships between private and public (Persson, 2001; Plant, 2002).

Since much of modern life depends on the clear separation of the private from the public, their possible conflation or transgression can lead to radical change. This radical potential is increased when it is combined with existing computer-mediated realities. In this cyber world, unimagined identities and impossible relationships are part of the hyper real, of which the old world is but a part. How these new virtual realities operate in the Philippines is still unclear, even if we can assert that the modern condition pervades most aspects of local life.

Mobile phones are simply its latest expression. In this study, we examine their use in the contexts of global modernity and complex connectivity. The extraordinary popularity and acceptance of this new technology is due not only to the practical requirements of a modern economy and of urban life, but also to its capacity to redefine and even transform their associated practices. In other words, cellphones are part of a complex of instrumental and generative practices resulting from the extraordinary restructuring of spatial and temporal realities.

These new communicative systems and their associated technologies enable people to establish simultaneous exchanges across space-time hitherto impossible. The spatio-temporal constraints of previous relationships need no longer operate in a world that is globally wired and that allows for perpetual contact. This new world cannot be experienced in the old way but, instead, consists of virtual realities that simulate or replace earlier modes. As this world extends its effects, increasingly more areas of life become determined by its ontologically displaced realities. The result is a world that is largely virtual and often non-locational. Traditional signposts no longer operate effectively and people are frequently left floundering.

It is a world characterized by a surplus of meaning but a lack of sense (Markus, 1997). As Iyer puts it, "never before in human history... have so many been surrounded by so much that they can't follow" (cited in Holmes, 2000, p. 5). What happens to ordinary people in this virtual, non-locational world? How do they relate socially and what cultural meanings shape their lives? How do these conditions apply in the Philippines? In this study, we offer tentative answers to these questions by examining the effects of cellphones on the practices of our informants.

Although claims have been made about the social consequences of mobile phones, so far little academic research has been conducted in this area (Kopomaa, 2000; Panteli, 2001; Persson, 2000; Plant, 2001). More research has been carried out on the effects of the Internet and other computer-mediated activities (Rudolph, 1996; Rheingold, 1994; Turkle, 1995). Preliminary results of this research have shown that certain political and social consequences generally follow the introduction of this new technology. Structures of surveillance are often challenged by the access the Internet offers to its users. Avenues of dissent become available and political mobilization is significantly facilitated. Others (Benedikt, 1992; Kirby, 1997) have pointed out the new possibilities for interaction made available by this new technology.

Projections of the self and notions of corporeality or embodiment are challenged by these new "virtual realities". So-called chat-lines are an example of these new forms of sociability. These consist of regularly intimate conversations conducted in real time involving people from all over the globe. Sometimes participants come from the same city, which allows them to meet one another. However, informants claim that it is precisely the anonymity that attracts them to participate in these conversations. Notions of intimacy, authenticity and veracity are often challenged and conflated in these cyber-exchanges.

Predictions are that, in the near future, the common availability of prosthetic devices will blur the distinction between reality and "virtual reality" (VR). New forms of synthesia or the merging of the senses previously identified as pathological may soon constitute normal experience (Cytowic, 1989). More radical critics refer to posthuman formations characterizing the fusion of technology with organic matter (Penley & Ross, 1991). Cyber cop (the movie character) and other posthuman hybrids represent new forms of selfhood and embodiment.

Post corporeality and trans human subjects merge with earlier identities, blurring the traditional distinction between nature and culture. Brute facticity and purposive agency transform and inform one another. Under these circumstances, former ontologies loosen their grip and are replaced by potential virtual ities. The cyborg comes to represent full normality (Harraway, 1991).

A common response to these shifting materialities is a sense of transgression. According to Turkle (1995): We are able to step through the looking glass. We are learning to live in virtual worlds. We may find ourselves alone as we navigate virtual oceans, unravel virtual mysteries, and engineer virtual skyscrapers. But increasingly, when we step through the looking glass, other people are there as well. (p. 9) But how real are these other people and how do we distinguish them from their simulations? In a world of simulacra, what is real?

Play seems to be the natural mode in this world. Play is the first thing most people do when they find themselves immersed in a virtual world (Rheingold, 1994). Playfulness allows them to get away from the constraints of the real world, to lift off, depart from earth, escape death and turn on the dream (Romanyshyn, 1989). For many, this fantasy is sexualized and subjects are plugged into a massive world of cybersex and teledildonics: Imagine plugging your whole sound-sight-touch tele presence system into the telephone network. You see a lifelike but totally artificial visual representation of your own body and of your partner's... You can find one partner, a dozen, a thousand, in various cyberspaces that are no farther than a telephone number.

Your partners can move independently in the cyberspace, and your representations are able to touch each other, even though your physical bodies might be continents apart. (Rheingold, 1994, p. 131). While no bodies may actually touch, their simulated effects are experienced as real enough. Virtual Organizations in Cyberspace A common claim made about interactive information technologies is their capacity to generate spatially dispersed but closely linked networks. These networks or organizations exist in virtual or cyberspace and are referred to as imaginary or virtual organizations, flexi firms, agile enterprises, etc. (Panteli & Dibben, 2001).

They are generally assumed to bring new efficiencies to the work force by dispensing with the costs of maintaining offices, factories and other physical structures. The workplace and its workers interact in cyberspace unconstrained by locational restrictions. Work can take place anywhere and at any time. As one advertisement explains, ... publications, broadcasts and [the] dissemination of deliberately slanted and overly exaggerated news stories and news commentaries as well as false, vile, foul and scurrilous statements, utterances, writings and pictures through the press-radio-television media and through leaflets, college campus newspapers and some newspapers published and still being published by these lawless elements.

(Maslog, 1999, p. 27) The implications of these new technologies for organizing work and other activities are tremendous. No longer limited by physical and temporal barriers, relationships are disembodied but nevertheless remain permanently connected. Virtual organizations represent new possibilities for establishing networks across space in real time. Distinctions between work and leisure take on new dimensions. The success of globalization depends on these restructurings of space and time.

While all these new possibilities for organizing work and other activities are made available by the new technology, they need not be accepted in the intended ways. Their most important consequences may well be inadvertent. The introduction of telephones in the 19th century was initially meant as an office tool. Telephony was seen as benefiting the businessman. It did, but it also had wide non-economic repercussions throughout society. The domestic telephone affected gender, generation and class relationships (Frissen, 1995).

It expanded communities of intimacy across regions and encouraged more discursive explorations of the self (De Sola, 1977). The telephone quickly became a symbol not only of our connection to the outside world but also for expressing our most private thoughts and feelings. A classic example is Jean Cocteau's play (1930) The Human Voice (La voix humaine), where he uses a telephone conversation to explore the depths of despair experienced by a woman whose love affair is at an end. By only showing us the woman conversing on the telephone, Cocteau is able to construct an effective interior dialogue focusing on her despair. Her lover's physical presence in a face-to-face exchange would have drawn our attention away from her extreme grief and sense of isolation. The play ends with the woman wrapping the telephone cord around her neck and whispering Je t'aime (I love you) at the earpiece.

The telephone becomes both killer and lover, her umbilical connection to the world as well as her total alienation from it. Before the telephone, such a scene would have been situated in the context of madness or melancholy to set the conditions for a self-focused monologue (e. g., Hamlet's soliloquy, Nikolai Gogol's diary of a madman). A telephone conversation is a credible setting for a one-sided dialogue. The much earlier European tradition of letter-writing and diaries may have set the preconditions for this self-exploration and awareness.

But the telephone transformed it from a textual to an oral mode, making it truly dialogic al. Cellphones situate these one-sided dialogues everywhere. The presence of portable tape players (Walkman) a decade earlier set the scene for urban inhabitants immersed in their private audile worlds. This self-imposed isolation in the midst of a crowd exemplified the aporia of the modern condition. Both complex connectivity and increasing alienation characterize modernity, resulting in our only feeling at home elsewhere.

The arrival of the cinema in extending the visual presentation of the imaginary provided more opportunities for exploring the counterfactual possibilities of modernity. The Philippine Setting While these predictions do not appear imminent in a Philippine context, the new communications technology may be having effects beyond our ordinary expectations. Other media such as newspapers, radio and television are increasingly incorporating audience responses into their programs. The distinctions between public views and private responses have become diacritically engaged, threatening the boundaries between collective norms and personal preferences. Opinion polls are examples of the constitution of a public perspective through the simple and direct accumulation of private views (Bourdieu, 1979). Their empirical methodologies cannot account for the transformation of individual positions into collective norms.

The public interest does not consist of the average of individual interests, nor is it necessarily the most common interest. The hysterical attention Filipinos pay their favorite movie personalities (e. g., Nida Blanca, Rico Yan) indicates this problematic translation of the common into the collective interest. Its use in politics has often led to tragic consequences. The public interest arises out of the universalization, rather than simply the summation, of all interests. Interactive technologies such as cellphones have the potential to uncritically transform private opinions into public interests. One of their most significant consequences is the role they play in reshaping the public sphere and its corresponding notions of publicness.

The link between conservative politics and media practices such as talk-back radio is an example of the transformation of common views into public opinion. The role of the media in shaping, transforming, reproducing and reporting public opinion is well known. Its capacity for radical transformation was shown in the 1986 Marcos overthrow (Brisbin, 1988). While mass and interactive media are essential in constituting public interests, other institutions such as universities, political associations and civil groups are equally essential. The former are not always ideal vehicles or channels for expressing the wide diversities of the latter. Other investigators (Plant, 2001) have noted that cellphones are readily integrated in societies such as the Philippines, where constant connectivity is prized above privacy.

This observation is supported by our research. Not only are people often seen having phone conversations in public spaces such as malls, buses, restaurants and sometimes even the cinema, but they also engage in texting, while simultaneously conversing with friends. Other cultures are more protective of their individual privacy. Extensions of Orality The effects of this new interactive technology need not always disrupt existing ties. Rather than necessarily challenging traditional relationships, it may also be used to reproduce them under new circumstances. Connectivity may breathe new life into old associations and revive them.

In modern societies, literacy has replaced orality as the main source of information. Face-to-face oral exchanges are no longer the main avenues for the transmission of information and knowledge. Orality and its forms of consociation become restricted to private and domestic contexts. However, the preference for direct and oral exchanges among consociates remains strong in the Philippines.

Mobile phones have extended the possibilities of orality beyond spatial boundaries. Conversations may now be conducted irrespective of the distance separating interlocutors. These new forms of orality may combine with earlier practices, resulting in hybrid structures with resemblances to both village and global society. Filipinos are well known for their gregariousness and their preference for oral rather than written communication.

Talk generates a sociability characteristic of intimate, small-scale communities. Cellphones enable these communities of intimacy to span great distances. The spread of telephones in American rural communities in the last century produced similar effects. Families were able to maintain close affective ties through regular telephone conversations (Aronson, 1971; Pool, 1977; Umble, 1992).

One can even infer that the private sphere was strengthened and reconstituted through this technology. These new oral ities allow for the reproduction of locality across vast distances while also reinforcing globality. The September 11 (2001) New York bombings illustrated the new configuration involving globality and locality-they became "global" events. On the day of the bombings, we received a telephone call from Australia informing us of the events then unfolding in New York. After watching the tragedy live on CNN, we telephoned relatives in California, rousing them from their sleep, to inform them of what was happening. Similar calls must have been taking place simultaneously all over the world.

This example illustrates the conflation of the global with the local. New York has become a local site in the world of virtual globality. Text as Talk What evidence is there to suggest that cellphone use in the Philippines has significantly altered social relationships? What truth is there in ads that claim an improvement in the personal relationships of phone users? It is commonly claimed that mobile phones in the Philippines are primarily used for sending text messages. Does this usage alter the claims regarding the effects on relationships?

Is texting a new form of communication combining forms of orality with textuality? Texting seems to approximate more the informality of speech rather than the formal norms of writing. It tries to catch the context of "the saying with the said" (Ricoeur, 1971). Hence, the preference for conventionalized expressions and their ritualized uses. The construction and use of text messages invoke an ephemeral quality that more resembles the in formalities of speech than the norms of writing. What are the rules of texting?

What messages are usually transmitted in texting? How is texting related to more conventional writing? Do text messages employ restricted codes of communication? By stressing perlocutionary (context of the speech act) and illocutionary (effects of the speech act) aspects of speech, such restricted codes are more appropriate for conveying affect or phatic communion rather than information or knowledge.

Is it better to see texting as a variant of orality rather than textuality? How essential are images in texting? How do these differ from other communicative modes, e. g., speech, conventional writing and teleliteracy (Mezrach, 1999)? What notion of a text does texting imply?

Are authorship and its intentions crucial to its meaning? Are interpretations fixed or do they depend on the interests and contexts of the receiver? We provide tentative answers to these questions later. Political Implications EDSA 2 is frequently cited as an example of the capacity of cellphones for political mobilization.

Is there any evidence for this perception? We collected both anecdotal and newspaper reports on the use of cellphones in EDSA 2. Other media (TV, radio, newspapers, fax, landlines) also played a significant role in these political mobilizations. EDSA 3, on the other hand, was seen as a movement of the poor; hence, one might assume their members had less access to the new technology. Did cellphones play different roles in these recent political movements? Our research indicates that cellphones were used in both events in much the same way.

But their ultimate significance in causing EDSA 2 and EDSA 3 is open to debate. Are there other political or social movements in which mobile communications technology has played new, significant roles? Has mobile information technology been useful to organizations in the promotion of their interests? Has it fostered the emergence of new organizations or alliances whose interests are in some way connected with that technology? While these questions may require further investigation, our project has at least provided some empirical basis for answering them. Up to now, most of these questions have relied on impressions, anecdotal evidence or empty speculation.

The last question can be rephrased in this manner: Has mobile information technology now become a significant weapon in the political struggles of diverse groups? Since President Estrada's impeachment, one often comes across media accounts of groups resorting to mobile information technology as part of their struggle. For example, before the Supreme Court announced its decision regarding the constitutionality of the Plunder Law under which Estrada is being tried, text messages circulated predicting that the court would decide in Estrada's favor. Another example is the case of the cellphone users who were opposed to the announced plan of Smart and Globe to increase the cost of texting. On learning of this, a number of these users formed a loose alliance and began to actively lobby against the Smart and Globe plan in the media. Their lobbying campaign consisted of various strategies.

For instance, they were planning to organize a boycott of the telecommunication services of Smart and Globe. The case was brought to court, where the judge brought a momentary halt to the Smart and Globe scheme. The cellphone users' lobbying campaign enjoyed momentary success-but an increase in the cost of texting was introduced gradually. We discuss this and similar cases more fully in our case studies section. The last case was noteworthy because it involved cellphone users exploiting the political possibilities of mobile information technology to defend their right to use that technology. Such a right arises from notions of civil entitlements in a democratic society that may be in conflict with the principle of market profitability.

Is this an example of a new political consciousness resulting from the mobilization made possible by cellphones? Has mobile information technology encouraged the emergence of new forms of political expression, including dissent? Or has it merely facilitated the dissemination of such expressions? Does mere dissemination necessarily result in the increased potential for mobilization?

Some celebrants of the new information technology would have one believe that it has been responsible for everything. Thus, the frequent assertion that EDSA 2 would not have been possible without it. We disagree with this claim and our evidence supports us. We think that EDSA 2 would have occurred without the existence of cellphones. What the availability of cellphones did was appreciably facilitate the preparation for the event, the organization of the event itself while it was underway, and the publicizing of it.

It also constituted a novel experience of tele politics with possibilities for further expressions. In this sense, the mobile phone may indeed introduce an added element of political volatility. Much the same can be said of the relation between mobile information technology and forms of political expression. To take the case of political dissent, was there anything particularly novel about the anti-Estrada jokes and drawings that were a staple of e-mail exchanges in the twilight of his Presidency and especially during his impeachment trial? In this regard, we think that the significance of cellphones lies in their ability to disseminate these expressions of political dissent among a great many people much more quickly and interactively-in the process making them feel that they are part of a larger community. Mobile phones may well have encouraged a sense of participation leading to notions of active agency and political empowerment.

In an age of mass communications, an interactive technology such as the cellphone may transform universal and impersonal information structures into personalized messages. It reinforces the notion of the personal being political-public feelings and private messages are linked by feedback and cybernetic processes. The impact that the anti-Erap jokes and drawings had on different mobile phone user audiences is also an important factor that we discuss later. No doubt they were welcomed with glee by Estrada's critics.

But how were they received by the politically indifferent or uncommitted? Did such forms of political dissent merely amuse this category of cellphone users? Or did these expressions challenge them, eventually causing some of them to abandon their neutrality and take a stand? And how did Erap loyalists receive such jokes and drawings?

We asked our respondents these questions and their answers are found in our survey section. An interesting point emerging from our respondents was their opposition to the political censorship of texting. Some indicated their approval of censorship but only of sexually or scurrilously oriented material. While jokes, drawings and ribald and scatological humor have long been political weapons, have they undergone any changes in their adaptation to mobile information technology?

The very nature of texting imposes constraints on the creation of illustrations, for instance. This has been partly overcome by the facility of transferring graphics from computers to cellphones. There are also scores of books and magazines offering texting suggestions, motto's, greetings and other messages. We will examine whether these exchanges help maintain traditional associations or even generate new ones. What are the solidarity-potentials of these new forms of connectivities?

Is there anything particularly Filipino in their expressions? To answer some of these questions, we employed instruments such as questionnaires, focused group discussions as well as in-depth interviews. Cellphones and Cultural Codes Apart from the political and economic uses of the new communication technology, mobile phones are also an important factor in shaping identity. While initially used as an index of status, their current widespread use transcends class. Do cellphone users share a new (trans class) identity? How do gender or generation affect these identities?

It is obvious that mobile phones are important fashion accessories-how do they operate aesthetically? Why do cellphones come in so many forms, shapes and colors? Their ringing tones and screen images can be individualized. Can one separate the instrumental from expressive functions that these preferences indicate?

Or do they constitute an integrated whole? Cellphones are clearly personal items; their owners readily identify with them; they are given familiar and diminutive names such as "buddy,"handy" and "pet". Why is this so? Do cellphones assist in the projection of a persona? If so, what persona or personae do they project? Previously, we pointed out the possibilities that interactive communication technologies generate.

They make possible the complex connectivities that result in global modernity. They allow their subjects to enter and interact in cyberspace unencumbered by spatio-temporal boundaries or corporeal limitations. In a world of virtual realities, almost anything is possible. It is no wonder then that projections of personae and identities have become major features of these technologies.

As we saw earlier, playfulness is a common mode of being in such a world. Tricksters, sorcerers, seducers and other peddlers of multiple identities are among its most frequent characters. It is a true world of simulacra. How do Filipinos navigate in such a world?

Are traditional norms and familiar expectations adequate in this new virtual world? Some researchers (e. g., Cook) are only now exploring its consequences in the Philippines. Cellphone use is as much a cultural response to the dis aggregative effects of modern life as it is an instrumental tool to operate within it. As one researcher (Kopomaa, 2000) puts it, cellphones allow you to put the city in your pocket.

They make it possible once more to navigate urban landscapes in the mode of the flaneur, the idle 19th century wanderer of public spaces. They facilitate connectivity in cities that have long lost their preference for pedestrian meandering in favor of motorized cruising. The rise of shopping malls in Metro Manila may be interpreted as an attempt, in the absence of public spaces, to recover the pleasures of the flaneur. Wandering aimlessly, while engaged in constant cellphone conversation or texting, marks the contemporary urban nomad. Only cyberspace and virtual reality exert an equal attraction. Cellular Identities Sociologists have noted the role of consumption as an aspect of the construction of a modern identity (Iyer, 2000; Pinches, 2000).

Shopping malls are a common site for this consumption and for their corresponding identities. Shopping malls are exemplars of the global condition where commodities and activities are delocalize d and re situated in virtual spaces. Their designs bear little relationship to their outside environment and instead represent globally imagined spaces. Activities in malls are monitored and controlled by the imperatives of consumption. Their inhabitants are constantly on the move-looking for bargains, purchasing commodities or participating in myriad activities. In these sites of ceaseless and globalized activities occurring within imaginary geographies, cellphones are truly at home.

As indices of identity, what role do cellphones play in these patterns of consumption? Is their extension into the public sphere of essentially private communication generative or disruptive of traditional relationships? What importance do cellphones play in the dissemination of gossip and rumor? Do they extend the possibility of reproducing communities of intimate discourse that include strangers and outsiders? As elements in these new virtual realities, are cellphones used to explore novel and even transgressive identities? Do they open new sites for sexualized subjects?

Other researchers have noted the frequent association between telephony and new discourses of the self (Erwin, 2000; King, 1996). The rapid growth of telephone hotlines and pornographic sites indicates an affinity between communicative technologies and structures of desire. The possibilities for fantasy flourish in these new spaces and interfaces of communication. They become sites for new and at times subversive subjectivities.

We have already mentioned the importance of texting in the Philippines. Does its importance mainly reflect economic factors or does it also indicate cultural preferences? If texting is an extension of orality, does it facilitate exchanges with strangers and others outside a circle of acquaintances? Who does one text to and what is texted? Are there rules of reciprocation among texters? Can one ignore text messages or pass them on indiscriminately to other parties?

The ready circulation of text messages gives them a certain social currency. But their exchange value depends on the relationships between texters. Initially, these exchanges may appear trivial but they quickly take on great significance once the exchange is firmly established. Respondents point out their importance whenever they wish to initiate relationships with recent acquaintances. Neither party is initially committed and both have considerable scope in either terminating or escalating these exchanges. Texting is an ideal medium for new, unpredictable, exploratory or virtual relationships.

Overseas Workers and Rural Communities The contribution of overseas workers to the Philippine economy is very significant. Not only do they remit the largest source of foreign currency, but they also enrich the country's skill and cultural base. However, the social costs of migrant labor are less obvious and often undervalued. One frequent social cost is the absence of parents and others with family responsibilities (Pertierra, et al., 1992). Mobile phones may have a positive impact on the quality of relationships between overseas workers and their families at home. For example, domestic workers in Hong Kong often complain that their employers forbid them the use of the home telephone and this lack of access is a major source of their problems.

Possession of a cellphone solves some of these difficulties. Several years ago, one of our informants had to return home prematurely on receiving confusing reports about his wife's behavior in the village. On his return, he was able to sort out the misunderstanding but in the meantime he had lost his overseas job. He now laments the fact that he did not have a cellphone, since this could have allowed him to clarify matters without his having to quit.

We might add that in many rural communities, landlines are unavailable and cellphones constitute the only effective form of modern communication. We have also explored the relationship between cellphones and gender. Many overseas land-workers are women and they frequently complain about being out of touch with their families. This complaint relates not only to instrumental or practical interests, such as the health and education of children, but refers as importantly to the maintenance of close emotional ties between spouses. Some women claim that they are better able to talk about sexual feelings and longings to their husbands on the mobile phone than face-to-face.

In the case of male seafarers, cellphones allow them to be informed about their wives's sexual comportment. The other aspect of this connectivity is that spouses can check each other's behavior. We provide several case studies to show how advantageous and varied the uses of cellphones in rural communities are. They have increasingly become normal possessions in many rural families. Just to give another example of their use: on the occasion of a death, all kin must be notified so that they may assist in the mortuary rituals. Until recently, these deaths were announced in provincial radio stations in the hope that relevant kin would be informed.

Although this practice generally worked, occasionally important kin failed to receive the news on time. Cellphones have greatly facilitated these communications. Communication and Governmentality At a recent social occasion, the Philippine Secretary of Health admitted to us that cellphones have greatly facilitated his ability to communicate with rural health workers. This has been particularly useful in implementing vaccination programs for disadvantaged and isolated communities. However, whether improvements in health care have been sustained following this communicative gain is more difficult to ascertain. This improvement will depend on the capacities of the state's structures of governance.

So far, communicative structures have not received priority as part of the state's appreciation of the needs of governmentality. The Philippine media are mostly privately owned. The capacities of the government to influence or direct their use are presently minimal. Brisbin (1988) has argued that EDSA 1 was the first successful revolution waged through the electronic media.

The fact that significant sections of the media, both print and electronic, remained in private hands facilitated Marcos' overthrow. Gendered Messages While conducting this study, the newspapers reported a health scare involving students in several elite schools. These reports depicted hysterical mothers rushing to pick up their children from school. One informant claimed that some mothers panicked and texted others. Soon the panic had spread throughout the community. Would it have been different had fathers received the initial messages?

Are gender stereotypes more easily confirmed when situations of uncertainty or volatility are quickly disseminated? Apart from certain aesthetic factors, are there masculine and feminine styles of cellphone use? Some researchers have reported that men are more assertive in using cellphones as an index of status and domination (Plant, 2000). Others (Persson, 2000) have observed men using cellphones as part of their strategies of seduction.

Their use in leaking (courtship rituals) has been described. Women often use their cellphone to indicate connectivity, thus deflecting unwanted masculine interest. Surveys (Siemens Mobile Lifestyle Survey 2001) show that Filipino women (39%) are much less likely than men (66%) to give their cellphone numbers to new acquaintances. Finally, as already indicated, we also want to explore how sexual identities are constituted, transformed and reproduced in the context of texting. It is clear that texting is a major channel for scatological and sexual communications. These exchanges create communities of intimacy among strangers, where individuals can project distinct sexual identities.

In rural communities, ribald exchanges occur on certain ritual occasions. These are characterized by specialized sexual allusions and suggestions among young participants, not normally allowed in public. They occur during ritual occasions such as weddings and funerals. Does texting provide opportunities to develop and extend these practices in urban conditions?

Research Method Newspaper accounts, theoretical studies, comparative material from overseas, participant observation and the use of questionnaires were the main sources and instruments for this project. Both individual and group interviews were used to gather information that was then raised in focused group discussions. An extensive questionnaire (700 respondents) was applied and more specific topics were later pursued with informants (142). The questionnaire mainly involved students from universities in Manila and the provinces (Northern Luzon, Laguna, Iloilo, Cebu, Davao). These students came predominantly from relatively affluent families but also included less privileged backgrounds. We also drew respondents from both urban and rural communities covering a range of classes and generations.

While we make no hard claims about the representativeness of our sample, we are confident that it constitutes a broad spectrum of Filipinos. Moreover, this project was not principally interested in investigating the general attitudes of all Filipinos regarding cellphones. We were interested in people who had mobile phones and who used them creatively. Such users must necessarily have reasonable resources economically as well as culturally. They are mostly young, with reasonable education and skills that allow them to navigate in this new world of virtual and cyber realities.

Instead of representa tivity we sought exemplarity. A caveat: the rapid acceptance of cellphones even among the working classes may well require more statistically oriented sampling methods in future research. Our survey asked people why, how and when they used their cellphones (see appendix). We asked them whether and how they were affected by cellphone use, particularly in relation to the recent political events known as EDSA 2 and EDSA 3. Using this base data, we interviewed both prominent (academics, activists, politicians, journalists, lawyers, doctors) and ordinary people (senior citizens, students, local and overseas workers, housewives, drivers, office workers) to obtain their views about the significance of cellphones.

We discussed some of these views in small group discussions. The use of cellphones has invaded all modes of life, including its criminal and illegitimate aspects. Mobile phone theft is now a regular feature of everyday life and Filipinos routinely describe experiences and swap stories relating to their loss. People have been killed because of their cellphones or have killed in their defense. There are frequent media reports of their use in prison trysts, hostage negotiations, bank robberies and even plotting presidential dismissals ("coup d'text"). Our informants use them to collect and record illegal bets ("jue text").

They are exchanged for drugs and weapons. There are reports of text-affairs and marathon competitions among text mates. Their use is so pervasive that electronic devices are now employed to prevent their disruptions in churches, restaurants, cinemas and other venues. Musicians have incorporated mobile phones into their compositions and artists have used them as part of their exhibits.

There are claims that even birds have learned to mimic their ringing tones (Plant, 2000). In the West, cellphones now constitute a major environmental and waste problem. Final Disclaimers An important dimension of mobile phone use that our investigation has deliberately bracketed concerns its purely economic utility. The economic advantages of greater connectivity appear obvious and are undoubtedly significant in many cases. However, we hesitate to claim that an important increase in economic productivity has occurred following the ready availability of cellphones.

While this is an important question, we did not pursue it. Apart from disciplinary and other limitations, our preference was to examine cellphone use as part of a much broader cultural and political reality. We suspect that cellphones, as was the case for the telephone (Marvin, 1988), are more consequential outside narrow economic structures. They have the capacity to redirect economies rather than simply be determined by them. Their effects on their users' life-world (Habermas, 1984, 1989) appear to be as fundamental as their capacities for systems-rationality. It is the changes in the life-world of Filipinos, following the widespread use of cellphones, that our study is mainly concerned with.

Filipinos often say that business is easier because of mobile phones, but they rarely claim that they have changed their mode of doing business because of this technology. An informant pointed out that a main advantage of the cellphone was that it reduces her level of stress in meeting appointments. She was sometimes able to discuss work matters on her phone but, more importantly, she used it to reassure her colleagues that she was on her way. However, to measure the gain in productivity, resulting from a less stressful anticipation of arriving late for meetings and other work obligations, is beyond the scope of this study. An equally important and similarly bracketed question is the relationship between cellphones and governmentality. Has the improvement of communication made possible by cellphones significantly assisted the Philippine state in delivering services to its citizens?

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