Thom Swiss

Andrew Herman is Associate Professor of Communication Studies in the Faculty of Arts at Wilfrid Laurier University in Waterloo, Canada. He has written widely in the field of social theory, media and culture. Among his many publications are The "Better Angels of Capitalism: Rhetoric, Narrative and Moral Identity Among Men of the American Upper Class (1999) and his edited collections, Mapping the Beat: Popular Music and Contemporary Cultural Theory (1997), The World Wide Web and Contemporary Cultural Theory (2000). Jan Hadlaw is an Associate Professor at York University in Toronto, Canada. Her scholarly interests include media history, science and technology studies, and the role of design in everyday life. Her current research examines the role played by technology and design in the construction of Canadian national identity. Her work has appeared in Space and Culture, Design Issues, and Objets et communication, MEI (Médiation et information). Thom Swiss is Professor of Culture and Teaching at the University of Minnesota. Author of two books of poems, Measure and Rough Cut, he is the editor of books on popular music, including Bob Dylan: Highway 61 Revisited (2009) as well as books on new media literature and culture, including New Media Poetics: Contexts, Technotexts, and Theories (2006).

This volume proposes the mobile Internet is best understood as a socio-technical "assemblage" of objects, practices, symbolic representations, experiences and affects. Authors from a variety of disciplines discuss practices mediated through mobile communication, including current phone and tablet devices. The converging concepts of Materialities (ranging from the political economy of communication to physical devices) and Imaginaries (including cultural values, desires and perceptions) are touchstones for each of the chapters in the book.