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Paper short abstract:

This paper concerns the growing significance of hands in media use with a Japanese example of keitai shôsetsu (mobile novel) and discusses the tactility as a new approach for mobile practices. It suggests that the tactile dimension plays as a hidden and critical ground for mobile creativity.

Paper long abstract:

This paper concerns the growing significance of hands in digital media use with a Japanese example, and discusses the tactility as a new approach for mobile creativity. Hands increasingly play a practical role for engaging interfaces and user experiences (UX) of mobile media and are of critical importance to the usability of these devices. This paper looks into a Japanese phenomenon of keitai shôsetsu (‘mobile novel’), a particular genre of online fictions once prevailed among Japanese young females in the mid-2000s. Having emerged from the unique social backdrop of Japan before the rise of smartphone, it was characterized as an interactive literature preferably being written and read exclusively on mobile phones. Combining interview results with its heavy users (both authors and readers) and social discourse analysis regarding the phenomenon, the paper delves on how the tactile engagement involved media experiences for writing and reading keitai shôsetsu, and how eventually it affected the creativity of this peculiar genre. Finally, the paper argues the mobile creativity as a tactile event, suggesting that the tactile dimension plays as a hidden and critical base for the creation and consumption of mobile creativity. A reflection will be offered on how the focus on the tactility will contribute to describe the totality of the media experience.