It is difficult to reconcile this craze of filming violent attacks on mobile phones with the fanfare that greeted the initial sale of 3G licenses and the subsequent, if delayed, arrival of the advanced networked multimedia capabilities delivered by the third generation mobile networks.
I first heard about the fad months ago when speaking with a young man living in Kennington who told me about it as he frantically texted a friend: "They just slap you silly. You fall asleep or they just come across you in numbers. It's crazy innit?"
Issues of appropriate use of camera phones is an issue all over the world, see this article for example from the early days of the technology in Japan, or this piece on how Rumsfeld banned camera phones from US military installations in Iraq out of fear of misuse (not much imagination needed here). And Africa is the fastest area of global growth in mobile phone use.
The sociological conclusion is that camera phones are a technology like any other, open to benefit or misuse depending on who is in control. As a society we need to evolve flexible ways of interpreting, understanding and responding to the impact of the technologies on our communities and social interaction. Policy makers are slowly adjusting to the new forces of power introduced by technologies like mobile camera phones. Or maybe we just need to admit that we haven't actually advanced much further beyond life as apes, who would undoubtedly find a happy slap a funny gag.
See also on the Chris Brauer Media Project:
Sociology of Racism in Brockley
Living a Culture of Consumption
The Sweatshops of our Mind
Article comments
1 - Mark Edward Manning
I remember in the early '90s, there was a disturbing phenomenon known as the "slap-down." No different from what's happening in London today, only the miscreants are filming it.
2 - manny lal
I would slap those idiot silly if i could get my hands on them. They are a bunch of cowards and wimps those slappys. They are the wimpy opportunists who prey on weaker folk. One never sees them slap a large man or someone who can fight.