BY HAITING HU
Dr. Chris Chao Su has recently joined COM as Assistant Professor in the Division of Emerging Media Studies. Dr. Su uses computational methods to explore how audiences take shape in Internet and mobile media environments. Currently, his research centers on audience consumption of digital media on a global scale. This week, we invited Dr. Su to talk about his research on mobile app consumptions and to share insight into mobile communication research.
Dr. Su’s work has been published in the Journal of Communication, New Media & Society, Journal of Broadcasting and Electronic Media, Journalism and Mass Communication Quarterly, Computers in Human Behavior, International Journal of Communication, and Asian Journal of Communication.
How did you first become interested in mobile communication?
Back to 2016, when I just passed my Ph.D. qualifying examination, an Augmented Reality gaming app suddenly was all the rage in the summer, regardless of generations and nationalities. AR mania was everywhere – a gathering of players, consciously and unconsciously getting together, holding their mobile phones to wave around – and, of course, I was one of them. You may guess what this mobile game is – Pokémon Go. My partner was so angry about my obsession with Pokémon Go that it even caused some arguments!
That was when I started to become interested in the field of mobile communication. And I am still deeply interested in some questions that I had in mind back then – what drove people, with such diverse sociodemographic backgrounds, to be physically present at random places? Did Pokémon Go, as a media technology, led to de-territorialization as the classic book No Sense of Place argued, or actually created a new sense of place like the giant digital LED screens in Times Square? Such pervasive mobile games like Pokémon Go further dispel boundaries between online and offline worlds but at the same time, the consumption of these mobile apps also reflect the patterns of people’s everyday life, or reflect shared personalities, behaviors, and media preferences of a certain group of people. Then, I couldn’t help to ask what factors affect the patterns of mobile media consumption in our everyday life and eventually lead to the creation of new sense!
I never thought that my interest with mobile communication and media audience would be established in the summer of 2016, just because of a short period of game addiction.
Could you please tell us a little about your research on mobile app consumptions?
My current research centers on mobile app use on a global scale. I focus on how mobile audiences consume apps using passively metered tracking data around the world. Empirically, my study compares audience networks of shared usage among demographic groups with structural and contextual variables, such as market shares and geo-linguistic distance, combining network analysis and traditional regression analyses. One article following this research line has been published on the International Journal of Communication, focusing on the similarities and differences of mobile app consumption in the Greater China area. A more comprehensive study that including more than the data from 155 countries is under development.
Su, C.C. & Zhang, X. (2019). Circulating mobile apps in Greater China: Examining the cross-regional degree in App markets. International Journal of Communication, 13, 2355–2375.
What is the most prominent finding from this research?
I found that usage pattern in the global North dominates consumption patterns in other peripheral regions through developing a homogeneous digital infrastructure, but regional patterns differentiate in terms of content preference and cultural proximity. Also, my investigation illustrates that the prevalence of emerging media technologies, especially the mobile device, does not reduce the socioeconomic disparities in poor and minority regions but creates a “mobile Internet underclass” emerging from a growing global community of the mobile-only population. I contend that both cultural and institutional structures, such as language, geography and Internet infrastructures respectively, affect patterns of digital media consumption around the world.
How will this research contribute to future researchers and studies?
Many theories of global cultural consumption suggest that Western media dominate international flows because of institutional factors such as wealth and market size. Other theories claim that audiences consume culturally proximate products based on factors such as language and identity. My research provides an opportunity to simultaneously assess the power of both cultural and institutional factors in explaining media choice in the global app markets. To test these propositions, I employ network analysis, with a focus on aggregate audience behavior.