Glocal intimacies and the contradictions of mobile media access in the Philippines

Abstract

This article looks at mobile media access in the Philippines and the kind of social intimacies that have emerged from it. To frame our discussion, we use the concept of ‘glocal intimacies’. This pertains to how mobile technologies have normalised and intensified the entanglement of people’s relationships of closeness with the ever-shifting and constantly negotiated flows between global modernity and local everyday life. We show that the uneven access that Filipinos have has led to equally uneven ways in which they imagine and enact intimate relationships. Drawing on case studies emblematic of the country’s key income clusters, we point out the emergence of a contradictory situation, wherein those with relatively high-quality access are those who are least dependent on mobile media for their glocal intimacies. Meanwhile, those with relatively low-quality access are those who are actually most dependent on mobile-mediated communication for such intimacies.