Aug. 21, 2007
Communications professor Sharon Kleinman is the editor of “Displacing Place: Mobile Communication in the Twenty-first Century,” published this month by Peter Lang Publishing.
The book is a collection of 14 essays by experts discussing how mobile information and communication technologies, such as cell phones, laptops, BlackBerries and iPods, change how people work, play, learn and live. The writers are scholars and professionals in communication, sociology, psychology, law, cultural studies, international relations, education, medicine, journalism and environmental studies.
“I invited leading-edge scholars and practitioners in various fields to write chapters,” Kleinman said. “The value of that is you have tremendous expertise and a wide range of perspectives. The book is multidisciplinary and for anyone interested in social and technological trends in the 21st century.”
The book has three parts: "Place and ‘Polis," "Mobile Innovations" and "Mobile Technologies at Work." Kleinman wrote the book’s introduction and conclusion.
Associate professor of psychology Penny Leisring and Gary Pandolfi, instructional technologist, each contributed an essay. Leisring wrote “Therapy at a Distance: Information and Communication Technologies and Mental Health.” Pandolfi wrote about teaching with technology in higher education.
The book discusses that while new technologies will always emerge, the time from introduction to mainstream use is shorter than ever and the implications are far reaching. “Everything is accelerated,” Kleinman said. “All aspects of our lives are affected by mobile information and communication technologies, and there are advantages and disadvantages to these powerful technologies.”
Mobile technologies enable people to multitask more and to do so anytime and any place, Kleinman said. “We have more devices in our hands and pockets for multitasking than ever before,” Kleinman said.
The idea for the book came from Kleinman talking with her mother about technological innovations during her mother’s lifetime. “My Mom and I talked about how technology could have helped my grandmother as she became older, such as a cordless telephone and answering machine, because it took her a very long time to get to the phone when it rang.”
“The title, ‘Displacing Place,’ conveys the idea that place is often irrelevant,” Kleinman said. “People no longer call places, they call people. One of the first things we ask when calling someone or answering the phone is ‘Where are you?’”
Quinnipiac named Kleinman scholar of the year in 2004 for the School of Communications for her research and ingenuity for course design. She created the courses "The History and Social Impacts of the Telegraph, Telephone and Computer" and "Those Were the Days: Nostalgia and Popular Culture."