Snapshots
For each landscape, we offer a small range of snapshots (Figures 1-18) and unpack them in turn. Do advertisers, we ask, see new roles for women/minorities in this particular domain? Which wireless objects signal the boundaries between topographies? Which uses for wireless devices are portrayed inside of and across topographies?
Ads Depicting Recreation/Entertainment
Consider Figure 1, a view of our most frequently represented topography: recreation/entertainment. 
FIGURE 1: Moto Slvr (click thumbnails for full version)
Our high fashion model almost blends in with her stark surroundings, but she’s no wallflower. She has all the latest couture: slim fitting slacks, tailored, crisp button-down, and, of course, a MotoSlvr. Lips parted, eyes lidded and glazed, she shows off her mobile phone/accessory by relating it to another hip accessory—her retro skinny leather tie. She’s an agent but a highly sexualized one, in keeping with the overwhelming majority of females in this topography who are cast as eroticized objects.
Our next scene of recreation/entertainment features a peacock of a different stripe than our fashionista, but he’s equally well-adorned.
Agent Travis Barker, Blink 182’s thoroughly-inked drummer, stands apart from a crowd of fans held back by a well-muscled doppelganger—Alternate Universe Travis (aka The Travis That Would Have Been, if not for the anachronistic intercedence of Boost Mobile at a critical juncture in Barker’s childhood). The only females present—2.5 fashionable, young, white watchers—stand back while Barker makes a call from his walkie-talkie/mobile phone. His brand, Boost Mobile, is an urban brand that features pay-as-you-go option (ostensibly to attract young and poorer customers). The mobile phone, it seems, is passkey for both our fashionista and Travis into this topography.
The rocker in Figure 3 relies on different wireless technologies to make a splash in this landscape.
This rocker chick displays her Audiovox pendant by unzipping her form-fitting leather jacket past the beginning of her cleavage, and she oversees her potential Audiovox accessories to take on her ride—an MP3 player, a DVD player, or a satellite radio. She’s hot, she’s arch, she’s pleased about her choices, and she presents as just the sexualized female that feminists love to criticize.
Recreation/entertainment is dominated by elaborately featured mobile phones and MP3s. While the devices themselves often have the potential to produce multimedia texts, the advertisements studied usually fail to inspire even the most basic composition, only low-level consumption. When convergence appears, the presentation is mostly reception-oriented or linguistic. For example, Figure 4 urges us to “Stream, download, and play multimedia content on-demand” but not to produce it.
Women (and one man) in all contexts are almost as likely to use [18] wireless devices as fashion accessories (12 ads) as they are to use them for production (16 instances for males and females).
Her boyfriend may own the phone, but at least she’s allowed to pretty it up.
40 out of 58 ads set against a background of recreation/entertainment display wireless devices used as toys. Given the setting, this use is unsurprising. “Toy,” however, is the dominant use for wireless devices across all topographies [55 instances total], absent only from work.
Work stands out as the most production-heavy topography [13 out of 16 total instances of production]. But 7 out of 23 work ads present wireless hardware as essentially props. In other words, their use can be classified as “work” by virtue of the topography in which they reside, but workers are not engaging with them to either produce or receive texts.
Figure 6: The World According to Roger
Roger writes with an old-fashioned fountain pen on prominently featured music paper. His laptop is another decorative object in his well appointed study.
The nature of production at work (and in escape and recreation, the other two topographies in which it is infrequently represented] is unclear. The screens of these wireless devices in all ads are almost never visible. The composition is ambiguous. In our one exception, the composition is decidedly vanilla—a disembodied thumb sends a monochromatic, work-related text message.
Multimedia production would be challenging on this model, but at least he is writing.
We’re left to imagine that convergence is still probably wired for the most part; these ads do not tell us otherwise. From a production standpoint, this makes sense in that smaller devices with less power and screen real estate might not lend themselves to the high-end applications required for multimedia production. So then how are women wireless at work? Figures 8, 9, and 10 offer a series vignettes.
Figure 8: Wild about closing the deal
Sitting at a café, this young female agent works hard at closing the deal and looking good. She’s enjoying her talk a little too much to suggest a strictly work-related conversation, but her suit and her open agenda book suggest she’s working (at least a little).
Figure 8 is a departure in that unlike recreation/entertainment, the work world isn’t usually signaled by mobile phones. Laptops and a stray PDA dot this topography (Figures 9 and 10). Those workers confined in the office are predisposed to use landlines over mobile phones. They’re much more likely to check their laptop or PDA to see what’s next on the agenda.
Figure 9: Get more out of your career at Dell
Young and diverse female watchers observe their seasoned, white, female supervisors use laptops and handhelds at work. The wireless technology remains in the hands and palms of mature white women. Males are peripheral, with their backs to the camera [19].
While the females in Figure 9 use their status to gain wireless agency, the female in Figure 10 uses her status to opt out of the wireless world.
The boss, a Latina in her early to mid-30s, is willing to take on a host of roles—owner, accountant, manager, etc—but not wireless technology. By partnering with an IT expert (who may or may not be the white female Dell operator in the bubble), the boss can spend her time acting as “cleaning crew,” a preferred role to that of techie.
Ads Depicting Home Life
Despite their inherent portability, the PDAs stay behind as workers make the commute home in the evenings. The laptop is the most likely wireless technology to come along for the ride. At home, young women rock out to their MP3s (see Figures 11 and 12).
Though she thumbs through a large stack of LPs, the music seems to be coming from the laptop on shelf behind her.
Figure 12: Pottery Barn teens at home
A teenage Asian female agent enjoys music streaming from her iPod in her home while her brother watches. Like the young, female, African-American agent of Figure 11, she controls the music.
Wireless devices that can handle MP3s make several appearances in this topography. Home is a place for music-friendly devices—which also populate the recreation/entertainment topography—and for women who dominate this category by usually acting as objects and as consumers. When escaping home (and work, for that matter) in search of adventure, MP3 players are somewhat likely to provide the soundtrack for the journey. They are not, however, the only wireless device hitting the road.
Ads Depicting Escape
Mobile phones, which travel freely through all topographies except work, are the heavy hitters in this topography. But while escaping, some folks have (wisely) seen fit to bring along the GPS and the MP3 players. In Figures 13 and 14, male and female agents escape their sub/urban surroundings while they exercise, but they do so for different reasons.
Figure 13: Get lost in your run
On a well-lighted street in a nice neighborhood, our carefree, white, male agent need not worry about crime or getting lost thanks to his GPS-enabled wrist band. He runs to “better” himself.
Gladys Kravitz’s athletic avatar (Figure 14) has other motivations for running.
A young, racially-ambiguous female agent enjoys her MP3 aided run but not as much as looking through her neighbors’ windows. Her (admittedly voyeuristic) focus is on the world around her. The male jogger in Figure 13, however, uses his wireless technology to lose all awareness of his surroundings and retreat into himself.
Of all of our topographies, escape may have the broadest range of wireless devices present. While laptops and PDAs dominate work and MP3s and mobile phones dominate recreation/entertainment, in the escape ads, almost any wireless technology may put in an appearance. Figure 15 captures the variety of mobile technologies inhabiting this topography (and a young, white, female object wearing some very uncomfortable looking shoes and a flat screen TV monitor).
Handheld GPS, Bluetooth, touch-screen in-dash receivers, portable DVD players, and satellite radio as accessories calls to mind the mobile phones from recreation/entertainment. Hey, what’s escape without a little charged sexuality?
Though escape seems to happen mostly on (sometimes high-heeled) foot, cars seem to be essential for wireless travel between places.
Moving Between Places
Figures 16, 17, and 18 offer three views of people in transit. Mobile phones, MP3 players and (surprisingly) laptops put in a relatively commensurate showing in this topography.
Figure 16: Your life, your car, connected
A square, young, white, male agent’s Acura doubles as a MP3 player. Good thing he’s got those extra long headphones.
His young male Latino consumer counterpart in Figure 17 has a much cooler car.
BMX rider Rick Thorne lacks agency (except that afforded by consuming) but still possesses the freedom to move from topography to topography in style. He’s even got time to take a break and pose on the hood of his car.
Women are notably absent from this topography, with one exception (Figure 18). While the wireless world could potentially offer women more freedom to travel alone, our one example of a women moving between suggests otherwise. The men of Figures 16 and 17 are unencumbered and alone. The white 30ish female consumer of Figure 18 is not.
Cruising through the school zone, her minivan is decidedly uncool. Our soccer mom gets out of the house but only in the service of her family. She shuttles the kids from tournament to tournament. Her son scrapes his knee; she’s first on the scene with a Band-Aid. The kids are hungry after practice; she drags out the cooler full of snacks. Even the family dog looks up at her expectantly. She manages it all with the help of her mobile phone, agenda book, and a pencil. She doesn’t need a PDA; this is her job, but it’s not a “real” job. 
