Paper short abstract:

This paper appraises the potential of object-based student learning for teaching mobile media. The essay illustrates how students can develop understandings of the haptic materiality and semiotic embeddedness of mobile games, fitness wearables, and video recording apps through an ethnographic lens.

Paper long abstract:

This paper appraises the potential of object-based student learning for teaching mobile media. Object-based learning activities encourage students to assess human histories and stories surrounding the production of mobile devices and the consumption of mobile apps (McGowan et al., 2022). Drawing on three cases of supervising students in media studies, the essay illustrates how students can develop understandings of the haptic materiality and semiotic embeddedness of mobile games, fitness wearables, and video recording apps through an ethnographic lens. Grounded in digital anthropology approaches, mini-research projects allow students to negotiate their personal presence in digital and physical environments (Fairless, 2017). By articulating moments of discomfort occurring during their fieldwork (Macdonald, 2013), students untangle the socio-technical relations between datafied everyday practices, geocoded mobile data, and regimes of privacy. Finally, the chapter accentuates the epistemic value of embodied experience in media research amid the rise of machine learning and data science.