Locating the mobile: Intergenerational locative media in tokyo, shanghai and melbourne

This chapter presents new research into how locative media are shaping, and being shaped by, practices of intimacy and privacy in intergenerational families. Just as mobile media amplify debates around intimacy and degrees of co-presence, they are also embedded in everyday through their relationship with the creation of ambience. Not everyone in the world owns a computer, but the ubiquity of mobile phones has allowed many people access to online media, and globally, the mobile phone is becoming a dominant platform for accessing online content. A key part of this mobile media space involves the convergence of locative, social and mobile media. While mobile media provide a bridge for cross-generational intimacy, it is location-based services (LBS) that is a distinctive practice of China’s younger generations. Mobile apps like LINE in Japan and DayMap in Australia are allowing parents and children to monitor and surveil each other’s practices while also affording new modes of negotiating co-presence in an increasingly mobile world.