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This senior thesis explores the imagination of mobile media through advertising in China and the US, focusing on 4G and 5G wireless infrastructures. The study uses literature from mobile media communication, infrastructure studies, and domestication theory to frame the research. acknowledgments and a literature review, as well as sections on methods, results, and discussion.
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Running head: IMAGINATION OF MOBILE MEDIA THROUGH ADVERTISING Imagination of Mobile Media Through Advertising: Thematic Analysis of 4G and 5G Ads in China and the US by Fangwei Zhao A Senior Thesis Submitted to the Department of Communication and Media University of Michigan In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirement for the Degree of Bachelor of Arts (Honors) April 2020 Thesis Advisor: Professor Scott Campbell Honors Advisor: Professor Jan Van Den Bulck & Caitlin Lawson
Acknowledgements This thesis would not have been possible without many people who have supported and helped me along the way. First, I would like to express my sincere gratitude to my thesis advisor, Professor Scott Campbell, for being encouraging and inspiring during this entire process. He opened the door of academia for me two years ago when I became a member of his research group. With his guidance, my visions have been widened, and my research skills have been improved. I could not have imagined this project without him. I also want to thank Professor Jan Van Den Bulck and Caitlin Lawson, for their patience and help during this one-year program. I appreciate their detailed instructions and incisive feedbacks for my thesis. They have always been with us and helped us out when we encountered any problems. The weekly meeting with Professor Scott Campbell’s research group is a great place to discuss my concerns and questions. I want to give many thanks to Fan Liang, Edwin Wang, Sage Lee, for teaching me new things and offering their suggestions. Besides, I am indebted to my family, for their unconditional love and understanding, my friends, who always listen to and accompany me. Last but not least, congratulations to my fellow graduates and scholars! It is my pleasure to share this journey with you. Many unexpected things happened this year, and I wish everyone the best of luck forever. Thank you all, for making a meaningful and satisfactory ending of my undergraduate years.
Introduction Over the last three decades, mobile technology has entered people’s lives and become an essential part of daily activities. Twenty-eight years ago, the first text message, “Merry Christmas”, was sent from a computer to a cell phone, which marked the arrival of the second generation (2G) mobile communication technology. In this case, different generations refer to advances in wireless infrastructure, particularly with regard to speed and capacity for handling data. In 2001, with the introduction of 3G networks and devices, we saw the emergence of email and web browsing on mobile phones. About ten years later, we celebrated a faster 4G network, which enabled streaming music and videos, cloud storage, and video calls anywhere. Now, entering a new decade, we begin to hear new information and new promises about the next generation of wireless networks, 5G. Yet, 5G technology is not widespread, meaning individual and public understanding of 5G is still in the “imagination” stage (Silverstone et al., 1992). News articles, advertisements, and discussions about 5G saturate the media environment, which helps form imaginations of 5G, including attitudes, beliefs, perceptions, and expectations of the technology. To be sure, people went through the same process with previous generations of mobile media, although perhaps not exactly in the same way. This study uses textual and visual analysis to examine and compare portrayals of the 4G and 5G networks in video advertisements -- a major source of imagination and understanding of new technologies -- at the initial stage of the technology adoption process. It is an opportune moment to compare the two generations of networks as the 5G infrastructure is just rolling out and the 4G network remains in place. Similarities and differences in evident topics, themes, and implicit strategies and appeals are at the focus of this advertising study. Also, the scope includes video advertisements from telecommunication companies in China and the US, which offers an
international perspective on how 4G and 5G wireless infrastructures have been, and presently are, imagined through advertising. The US led China in the global 4G race, although they were a little behind Europe and Japan on 2G and 3G (Recon Analytics, 2018). Now, the US is having a heated competition over 5G with China, who is believed to dominate 5G networks since it is the first country to release 5G technology to consumers (McGregor, 2019). It appears the role of network forerunner that the US held in the 4G era is being replaced by China as we enter the 5G era. Meanwhile, China and the US are contesting with each other over the 5G technologies. Hence, the juxtaposition of China and the US is worthwhile and meaningful, particularly at this moment. Mobile media communication (MMC), infrastructure studies, and domestication theory are traditions offering literature to frame this study. The following section starts by offering highlights from the new and growing field of MMC studies, followed by theoretical framing from infrastructure studies and domestication (Ling, 2004). Following that, the methods next section explains the data collection and analysis, and the results section describes how findings address the study’s research questions. The discussion offers implications, conclusions, and next steps. Literature Review Mobile media and communication have become an increasingly popular topic in both academia and people’s daily lives recently in the last twenty years after the introduction of the third generation of wireless mobile telecommunication technology (3G). Two of the major areas of mobile communication studies are sociality, the connections with other people, and spatiality, the connections with places of social activity (Campbell, 2019). The use of mobile phones and
infrastructure connecting objects, factories, homes, and cities. To capture the narratives of 4G and 5G wireless networks in advertising and acknowledge their social significance, infrastructure studies and domestication studies are used as the theoretical framing of this research project. Infrastructure Studies The term “infrastructure” means the necessary and fundamental facilities, structures, and systems for the operation of a society, such as a country, city, or an enterprise (Infrastructure, 2020). One of the general features of infrastructures is the lack of visibility. Infrastructures are often not noticed by users and only become visible when they break down or fail (Star, 1999). Infrastructure studies focus on the evolution, operation, structure, and maintenance of infrastructures in local and global communities from a technical, social, and organizational perspective (Bowker et al., 2009). Originally, infrastructure referred to basic physical and organizational systems and services, such as railroads, bridges, ports, and electric power grids. Over the past two decades, the concept of “infrastructure” has spread to many different areas of research (Edwards et al., 2009), including journalism, government, and mobile media. For example, cyberinfrastructure refers to the research environments that support advanced data sharing, data management, data mining, and lead to the development of network-based services. It is believed to resemble a genuine infrastructure for its centrality, robustness, and reliability through the shift of information handling from local networks to cloud services and global network, and digital convergence (Edwards et al., 2009). Despite the invisibility of infrastructures, many studies have been conducted to highlight the significance of infrastructures, especially regarding socio-cultural and political aspects. A cultural policy study by Wright (2019) concludes that people’s cultural taste and participation are re-shaped by computational technology, considered as an informational infrastructure, as it
mediates the dissemination of cultural life. In an informational infrastructure study, Crabu and Magaudda (2018) build a wireless network community, a bottom-up infrastructure, in Italy to understand the relationship between civic engagement and the built structure itself, emphasizing the important role of technical, political and material instances in the establishment of infrastructures. In the field of mobile media, Plantin and Punathambekar (2019) focus on “the social, material, cultural and political dimensions of infrastructure” (p. 165) embedded in media and communication networks. They suggest that having an infrastructural optic in media studies helps us see “how power relations between stakeholders and users shape how communication networks are imagined, put in place, and mobilized for different ends” (p. 166). Other scholars (Edwards et al., 2019) also believe people’s lives are remarkably transformed by the infrastructures at all social and organizational levels; this transformation should be the main focus for future infrastructure studies. Wireless networks, such as 4G and 5G, serve as infrastructures in societies, oftentimes without being noticed by users. When using mobile phones, for example, we pay more attention to the content being consumed (social media posts, news articles, streaming videos, etc.) than the Internet connection that supports the data transmission. However, network infrastructures can become visible when they are first introduced and brought into the light. This study focuses on the narratives about wireless infrastructure by looking into 4G and 5G video advertisements since advertising is an essential channel through which the public gets to know about the principles, functions, and applications of new technologies. In other words, advertising is making the 4G and 5G network infrastructures visible. By picturing lives equipped with advanced mobile technologies, advertising can shape people’s views and understandings about network infrastructures in sociocultural, and sociopolitical aspects.
technologies and consumers. For example, Silverstone and Haddon (1996) believe that designers need to imagine users’ experience at an early stage. The three interrelated activities of design include creating an artefact -- working on the functions and sense of aesthetics , constructing the user -- picturing actual usage by consumers to refine the design , and catching the consumer -- branding and commodifying the technology to cater to the tastes of consumers. This study takes a closer look at the imagination phase in the domestication of 4G and 5G networks. In the stage of imagination , advertising of new technologies is an essential source leading to the next step in the adoption, appropriation (Ling, 2004). For example, before 5G comes into commercial use, people’s visions about how 5G will fit in and alter their lives are determined by the advertising messages. Moreover, advertising remains the same function even after the full adoption of technologies (in this study, the 4G advertising in the late 2010s). As Rich Ling (2004) and Haddon (2003) argue in their books, domestication is not a “one-off” procedure. Instead, it is a non-discrete, non-linear, and non-sequential process. Therefore, this project examines the early domestication process of 4G and 5G networks by analyzing topics, themes, and techniques used in advertising to reveal social and technological narratives that shape how these generations of infrastructure are imagined, both publicly and personally. Wireless network technologies are the infrastructures of mobile media and communications. The advertising of 4G and 5G wireless networks play an essential role in the adoption process as it determines the public’s views and notions formed at the imagination stage. Thus, this current project will trace the trajectory of the evolution of mobile media from 4G, the era of mobile phone, to 5G, the incoming era of the Internet of Things.[1] The following research questions pursue different aspects of the overarching question: How is wireless infrastructure being socially shaped through advertising? More specifically, the study asks:
RQ1: What are the broad topics and refined themes associated with 4G and 5G in video advertisements? RQ2: What are the implicit messages, such as strategies and appeals, underneath 4G and 5G video advertisements? RQ3: What are the differences and/or similarities in the topics, themes, and implicit messages between 4G and 5G video advertisements? RQ4: What are the differences and/or similarities in the topics, themes, and implicit messages between the advertisements in China and the US? Methods Procedure This study uses textual and visual analysis approaches to examine how the 4G and 5G infrastructures are pictured in advertising, and how the imaginations are different in China and the US. First, two lists of network and telecommunication equipment companies were created by the author. One list contains China and US companies who lead the 4G technologies, and another includes big players of 5G technologies selected from the two countries. Then, from October to November 2019, 4G and 5G video advertisements from those companies were collected from the searching results of two video sharing platforms, YouTube.com from the US, and Bilibili.com from China. The keywords used in searching are company names followed by network generations, such as “Verizon 5G”. When searching for the 4G advertisements, the word “LTE” -- which stands for long-term evolution -- was also used besides “4G”. Data
close attention to both textual and visual contents and wrote down the identified patterns. Notes of analytic ideas and analytic memos were also written down at this pre-analytical stage because, as Hammersley and Atkinson (1995) argue in their book, it is helpful to write any thoughts or doubts instead of entirely relying on memories. The care and self-awareness put into the first step helped the author to “think aloud”, or to refine the initial thoughts by scrutiny. Then, several categories were created based on the identified patterns to classify and organize the data. The next step was finding the appropriate concepts for each category and refining them by continually reviewing the data. This procedure was repeated regularly in order to keep developing and testing the categories and subcategories until the structure holds stable with another new round of data analysis. Results The procedure of analysis resulted in some broad topics, refined themes, as well as advertising techniques used in 4G and 5G video advertisements, which draws upon RQ1 and RQ2. To answer RQ3 and RQ4, this section presents those findings in two sets of comparisons, a longitudinal comparison between 4G and 5G advertising, and a parallel comparison between advertising in China and the US. RQs1-3: Topics, Themes, and Strategic Appeals in the Contexts of 4G and 5G
1. Topics and Themes 4G advertisements revolve around the topic of fast network speed, which allows many smartphone applications that could be divided into two major categories based on functions, (1) social connections, and (2) entertainment. The category of social connections includes
applications such as social media posting, video chatting, as well as sending pictures and videos to friends and family by text message. The second category, entertainment, contains streaming media, mobile games, online shopping, and fast downloading. Both functions are done through a mobile device such as a smartphone, laptop, and rarely, tablet. For example, as shown in a Sprint commercial (U4-52), one can have a video conference with clients through a laptop in a steak restaurant, stream movies on their phone at the airport, or enjoy high-speed connections for online gaming while camping. 5G advertisements display more diverse applications and situations that advanced network technologies could apply to. In addition to social connections and entertainment, 5G advertising also presents how 5G technologies function in the workplace, industry, transportation, education, as well as the healthcare system. While 5G advertisements have multiple categories containing different topics, they showcase applications on either (1) an individual level, or (2) a societal level. Some technologies enabled by 5G networks are virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR), driverless cars, drones, artificial intelligence (AI), and 4K streaming on mobile devices. On an individual level, those technologies, as presented, bring revolutionary changes to the ways people communicate, work, study, relax and commute. Virtual reality (VR), for instance, can bring a boy and his parents on a raft in green mountains and rivers by virtual traveling (C5-23, 00:49), make the plane figures into three-dimensional building models through VR headsets (U5-14, 00:29), or bring the Iron Man on the screen to the viewers by creating an immersed environment of movies (C5-22, 00:52). On a societal level, the most prominent technology shown in the advertisements is the Internet of Things (IoT), a system that transfers and collects data over a network without the control of devices by humans (Internet of things, 2020). Commonly mentioned IoT applications include smart homes, manufacturing
argue they have the fastest network over others. AT&T has a series of advertisements, “It’s Not Complicated”, where a man has conversations with a group of kids sitting around a table by throwing simple questions. In one advertisement, the kids are asked what thing they wish could be faster, and a boy shouts out “turtle!” (U4-22). But when a girl says being a slow turtle is safer, the man implies the threats a “slow turtle” would face by throwing the girl a question, “what happens when a slow turtle is in the middle of the street?”. In the end, this advertisement says, “It’s not complicated. Faster is better.” What this advertisement tries to say is, obviously, that network speed is one of the most important determinants of 4G networks. In the 5G advertisements, the existence of fast speed is taken for granted while low latency comes into the spotlight. These two things have different concepts while they are quite similar in user experience. Network speed refers to bandwidth, the transmission capacity over a specific connection, measured in megabits per second (Mbps). Network latency is measured in milliseconds (ms) and it refers to how much time it takes for a package of data to travel between being sent from a computer and getting back from a website. If speed is the thickness of a tube, latency is the flow rate. Low latency enables real-time actions without delay, which realize many 5G applications because of the requirement of accuracy in certain fields, such as VR surgery and manufacturing automation. A visual demonstration of latency is shown in an AT&T 5G advertisement, where a machine is trying to balance an inverted pendulum placed on its by moving left or right, and a screen behind shows an 8-millisecond “current latency” (U5-25, 00:07). A scientist from AT&T lab resembles this phenomenon to holding and balancing a broomstick in one’s hand to explain the importance of low latency and quick reactions. An Intel advertisement describes how the low latency benefits live streaming at the US Open (U5-57). “What we are looking for is the ability to be wherever we want to be when we need to be there”
(00:36), the vice president of field operation & engineering at FOX Sports says. The advertising emphasizes that the almost-zero latency allows 5G to do things that are not just faster 4G things but are revolutionary and beyond people’s imaginations.
3. Appeal: Emotional vs. Rational Humor is frequently used in 4G advertising as a technique to present the unexpected fastness of 4G networks, to mock the users of other networks for experiencing lower network speed or poor connections, and to exaggeratedly show people’s desire and craving for 4G networks. In a China Unicom advertisement, a college boy holding a tablet is surrounded by a group of friends who shove each other and eagerly stare at the 2018 World Cup game being streamed on the tablet screen (C4-22). “With the stronger signal and faster speed, you will never miss a goal” (00:07), the slogan says. Another classic example is a T-Mobile advertisement, parodying Apple’s famous “I’m A Mac” commercials, in which a woman represents myTouch, a smartphone with T-Mobile’s 4G network, and a man carrying a middle-aged, bald and overweight man on his back represents an iPhone 4 with AT&T network (U4-48). The woman introduces T-Mobile’s 4G network that enables video chat everywhere, while the middle-aged man disdainfully flaunts his FaceTime video chat function from “anywhere there is Wi-Fi like saying airport” (00:14). It is not hard to see that he indeed “slows” the iPhone man down from the tiredness and disappointment on the iPhone man’s face. T-Mobile uses humor in the metaphor to show the superiority they have over their competitor. Another appeal used very often in 4G advertisements is bandwagon, which persuades people to buy a service or a product by making them feel that everyone else is doing it and they will be left behind if they choose to not join the trend. Many network companies apply the bandwagon appeal to persuade users from other networks to switch to their service. China
strategy not yet seen in the 5G advertisements. Ridiculing other network users is also an advertising strategy only seen in 4G commercials, especially among network companies. Another strategy that shows up in 4G advertisements is competing for the best data plan. Sprint is dedicated to attacking other network companies’ unlimited data plans, claiming they slow down or charge extra after a certain threshold of data (U4-53). T-Mobile does the same. In a T- Mobile 4G advertisement, four motorcyclists in pink, blue, red and yellow -- symbolize T- Mobile, AT&T, Verizon, and Sprint, respectively -- are having a race to see whose data plan goes further (U4-51). The Sprint motorcyclist goes off track at a signpost saying “leave 4G zone” due to Sprint’s limited 4G LTE coverage, while AT&T and Verizon stop at the toll booth called “data limit” because users need to pay more for overages. The only winner of this data plan race is T-Mobile, who is believed to have the real unlimited nationwide 4G data. Besides, collaborating with electronics companies is a common strategy used in 4G advertisements. A China Mobile commercial displays 4G phones from Huawei, Samsung, Lenovo, ZTE by combining features of these phones and 4G mobile applications (C4-4). Similarly, T-Mobile promotes the LG G4 smartphone on its 4G network by giving a $0 down at signing (U4-42). RQs1-2 & 4: Topics, Themes, and Strategic Appeals in China and the US
1. Topics and Themes In addition to the thematic differences between 4G and 5G advertising as mentioned in the previous section, China and the US also have diverse topics in both 4G and 5G commercials based on their political and cultural backgrounds. Despite the shared focus on network speed in both China and the US 4G advertisements, the two countries illustrate this point with different
approaches. Advertising in China usually presents 4G applications such as video streaming or video calls, while companies in the US are inclined to symbolize their competencies by using powerful things as metaphors. Verizon, with the slogan of “Rule the Air”, has several advertisements showing men with something sparkling in their hands and throwing it into the thundering sky (U4-1; U4-7). At the end of the commercials, the words, “Verizon 4G LTE” appear on the screen with flashes of lightning behind, creating a sense of intensity and fierceness. Another good example is a motorcycle racing advertisement of T-Mobile, where the speed of four motorcycles is in token of the speed of four major networks in the US (U4-51). In 5G advertising, one major distinction between China and the US is the reference of the government. There is no mention of the government at all on the US side. However, some advertisements in China talk about their collaborations with the Chinese government to show their adherence to the government’s supportive policy on 5G (C5-5; C5-11; C5-26). For example, a China Mobile 5G advertisement says at the beginning: Along with the rapid development of the national economy, the 13th FYP development plan for energy and the 19th National Congress of the Communist Party of China have put forward higher requirements for the modern energy system -- let the broad masses of people move from using electricity to making good use of it; continuously reduce blackout time, improve power quality, and create a safe, efficient, and green power grid system. (C5-5, 00:03) This content quotes the proposition of the Chinese government to indicate the significance of an advanced power grid technology, which this advertisement spends four minutes introducing and explaining. Likewise, China Telecom proudly announces they just initiated the 5G pilot network as a result of the Internet Plus strategic cooperation agreement they have signed with the
