Mobile Communication. From digital to post-digital era

From the appearance of the first personal computer in 1980s there have been tremendous changes in different spheres of society’s functioning, starting from economy through science and ending up with culture as well as an individual’s life starting from work through education and ending up with entertainment. Media communication is not just an expression of an achieved state of development, but also an incredibly essential determinant of its future. New forms, behaviours and communication practices grounded in digital technologies, which are characterized by multimedia attention (media convergence), multimodality (directing a message towards the many senses) and multicodability (polysemioticity, the application of different signs and semiotic objects).  Digitalization of further data, information, texts and objects has taken place and it is still in progress and desktop computers are substituted with mobile devices (portable ones such as laptops, notebooks, netbooks and touch screen devices) with common access to the Internet. Digital and real worlds co-exist. People live in a symbiosis with a computer, tablet or a smartphone, which slowly trespass the border of their freedom. Not so long ago media and digital technologies, labeled as new, became something obvious, often existing for a young user and integrated with contemporary culture. Digital media can be defined as programmable data files available only through expanded graphic interfaces and the digital data universe is accessible mainly through digital visual media of different types. We entered the new era imperceptibly – it is called the post-digital era where a technological and civilizational revolution has become the fact of life. This is a popular subject of interest among researchers representing various fields and disciplines who submit for a critical analysis the many phenomena related to digitalization. The effect of this reflection is some knowledge of theoretical nature, which can, on the other hand, take on the applicative character at the time when it serves as the grounds for developing an array of communication tools and educational services as well as specific didactic tools offered as applications for mobile devices.

Our research interests are as follows:

• specifying the state of research within the use of the present instrumentation based on digital media with a particular consideration of mobile technologies in communication and educational settings;
• description of behaviour and communication practices resulting from permanent interaction with a laptop/tablet/smartphone, i.e. mobile communication (inter alia selective and superficial reading in the face of accumulation of information; new writing practices, the so-called writing by the way accompanying the user in every moment; the ability to receive multimodal and multicodable messages, especially through the visual channel);
• the influence of using electronic media on everyday life, including education in general (inter alia dehumanizing young people’s behaviours, unwillingness to use natural communication with another person, i.e. a student, teacher, expert, etc.);
• communication and education in a time of present and future technological solutions: communication/education using desktop computers vs. communication/education through mobile devices;
• the direction of mobile communication development in the future;
• the practical possibilities of application of mobile devices, thus applications for mobile teaching, including the teaching of foreign languages (to be used in any place and time without the need for prior materials’ preparation on the part of the learner);
• optimization of access to educational contents through mobile applications;
• specifying the criteria for didactic solutions, which will become a part of new reality of mobile communication and the unstoppable development of telecommunication technologies, especially from the point of view of operational systems of mobile devices (the easiest manner of using an easy interface and a graphic design adjusted to a touch screen of pocket-size dimensions);
• elaborating theoretical frames in glottodidactics as well as methodological and didactic concepts, which would guarantee an effective use of mobile devices and didactic applications;
• development of fully autonomous applications (functioning independently of the existing educational frames);
• using applications for the development of diverse linguistic and communicative skills (not only for practicing certain habits in a communication activity, e.g. in the field of development of lexical or grammatical abilities).