Phoneur

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Phoneur is a term that was developed in 2005 and is intended to describe a person who moves in a directionless but reflective manner in urban space using mobile technology, primarily a smartphone .

The term is based on the flaneur known from literary tradition . A phoneur is an active user of the city's information network, which is fundamental to contemporary urbanity. He is always connected to the Internet and at the same time in virtual space. If one understands the flaneur as the epitome of urbanization in the 19th century, then the phoneur can be seen as its further development in the 21st century. The act of seeing and observing is changing due to mobile technology, today you also scroll on digital devices, whose mobile media technology is increasingly being inscribed in urban space. In this way, the strollers also become scrolling strollers today.

A phoneur not only perceives the city as a physical spectacle, but also orients itself in the information network. Mobile and networked technology is changing the understanding of place in everyday life and, as in the tradition of the strollers, reminds that a place is also defined by stories and memories and not just by its geographical position. While the stroller's attention is more focused on the moment and place, the technology-networked phoneur is someone whose attention is also directed towards a connection to the Internet or a conversation with someone who may be far away. At the same time, the act of walking can also be viewed online and the Phoneur leaves traces in virtual space as a data object thanks to its networking. In contrast to the Flaneur, which is mainly determined by the visual, the Phoneur is structured by the atmosphere of the city in the information age , whereby the haptics and aura of the technology overlay the dominance of the visual.

The figure of the phoneurs was first mentioned by the cultural scientist Robert Luke (2005), who defined him as a postmodern flaneur.

In a certain way the phoneur is in the physical and in the virtual space at the same time. In sociology, this process of virtual production and consumption in the context of globalization processes is described as early as 1996 and the placeless space is thought of in a liquefied global state. In the 1990s, the cultural anthropologist Marc Augé created a culturally pessimistic picture of non-places that are only transit points or junctions.

The term “phoneurs” also plays a role for current computer games for smartphones such as location-based games that make use of GPS technology and make it possible to experience and define urban space in a different way. The random and flowing elements of movement in urban space also flow into these games. It turns the familiar and everyday of the city into a playing field.

While the Phoneur is viewed rather dystopically on the one hand , on the other hand it is pointed out that it not only participates passively in the urban space and is the target of advertising, but also - in contrast to the Flaneur - actively participates in the design of its place.

literature

  • John Rennie Short: Globalization, Modernity and the City (  Routledge Studies in Human Geography . Volume 36 ). Routledge, New York 2012, ISBN 978-0-415-67692-2 (English, limited preview in Google Book Search).
  • Robert Luke: The Phoneur. Mobile Commerce and the Digital Pedagogies of the Wireless Web . In: Peter Trifonas (Ed.): Communities of Difference. Culture, Language, Technology . Palgrave Macmillan, New York 2005, ISBN 1-4039-6326-6 , pp. 185–204 (English, limited preview in Google Book Search).
  • Maren Hartmann: Technologies and Utopias. The Cyberflaneur and the Experience of “being Online” . Ed .: Patrick Rössler (=  Internet Research . Volume 18 ). Verlag Reinhard Fischer, Munich 2004, ISBN 3-88927-361-0 (English, limited preview in the Google book search).

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c Larissa Hjorth: Urban Gaming - City as a transmedia playground . In: Bauwelt . No. 24 . Bauverlag BV, 2011, ISSN  0005-6855 , p. 44–49 ( bauwelt.de [PDF; 974 kB ]).
  2. ^ A b c Corinna Pape: Learning finds the city. The urban space as a transmedia playground . In: Gerhard Chr. Bukow, Benjamin Jörissen, Johannes Fromme (eds.): Space, Time, Media Education . Investigations into media changes in our relationship to space and time (= Johannes Fromme, Sonja Ganguin , Stefan Iske, Dorothee Meister , Uwe Sander [Eds.]: Medienbildung und Gesellschaft . Volume 23 ). Springer VS, Wiesbaden 2012, ISBN 978-3-531-18471-5 , p. 159–160 ( limited preview in Google Book Search).
  3. ^ John Rennie Short: Globalization, Modernity and the City (=  Routledge Studies in Human Geography . Volume 36 ). Routledge, New York 2012, ISBN 978-0-415-67692-2 , pp. 139 (English, limited preview in Google Book search).
  4. ↑ César Albarrán-Torres: Digital Gambling. Theorizing Gamble-Play Media (=  Routledge Studies in New Media and Cyberculture ). Routledge, 2018, ISBN 978-1-138-30385-0 (English, limited preview in Google Book Search).
  5. ↑ Robert Luke: The Phoneur. Mobile Commerce and the Digital Pedagogies of the Wireless Web . In: Peter Trifonas (Ed.): Communities of Difference. Culture, Language, Technology . Palgrave Macmillan, New York 2005, ISBN 1-4039-6326-6 , pp. 185–204 (English, limited preview in Google Book Search).
  6. ↑ Kars Alfrink: The Gameful City . In: Steffen P. Walz, Sebastian Detering (Ed.): The Gameful World. Approaches, issues, applications . MIT Press, Cambridge / Massachusetts 2015, ISBN 978-0-262-32571-4 , pp. 550 (English, limited preview in Google Book Search).