In the 2010s, as messaging apps replaced SMS to become the main communication technologies for millions of people around the world, WhatsApp rose above its rivals to become a global communication platform. In this book, Amelia Johns, Ariadna Matamoros-Fernandez and Emma Baulch provide a comprehensive account of WhatsApp’s global growth. They begin with its emergence from a messaging app to its purchase by Meta in 2014, which, they argue, transformed WhatsApp from a simple, ‘gimmickless’ app into a global communication platform. Understanding this development can shed light on the current status of WhatsApp in relation to rivals, the trajectory of Meta’s industrial development, and how global digital economies and social media landscapes are evolving with the rise of ‘Superapps’. This book explores how WhatsApp’s unique characteristics mediate new kinds of social and commercial transactions, how they pose new opportunities and challenges for platform regulation, civic participation and democracy, and how they give rise to new kinds of digital literacy as WhatsApp becomes integrated into everyday digital cultures across the globe. Accessibly written, this book is an essential resource for students and scholars of digital media, cultural studies, and media and communications, as well as anyone interested in the emergence and growth of WhatsApp.

In the 2010s, as messaging apps replaced SMS to become the main communication technologies for millions of people around the world, WhatsApp rose above its rivals to become a global communication platform. In this book, Amelia Johns, Ariadna Matamoros-Fernandez and Emma Baulch provide a comprehensive account of WhatsApp’s global growth. They begin with its emergence from a messaging app to its purchase by Meta in 2014, which, they argue, transformed WhatsApp from a simple, ‘gimmickless’ app into a global communication platform. Understanding this development can shed light on the current status of WhatsApp in relation to rivals, the trajectory of Meta’s industrial development, and how global digital economies and social media landscapes are evolving with the rise of ‘Superapps’. This book explores how WhatsApp’s unique characteristics mediate new kinds of social and commercial transactions, how they pose new opportunities and challenges for platform regulation, civic participation and democracy, and how they give rise to new kinds of digital literacy as WhatsApp becomes integrated into everyday digital cultures across the globe. Accessibly written, this book is an essential resource for students and scholars of digital media, cultural studies, and media and communications, as well as anyone interested in the emergence and growth of WhatsApp.

This book presents a comprehensive overview of transactional forms of the digital across the Asian region by addressing the platforms and infrastructures that shape the digital experience. Contributors argue that each and every encounter mediated by the digital carries with it a functional exchange, but at the same time each transaction also implies an exchange based on social relationships for the digital age. In capturing the digital revolution through case studies of economic, informational, and social exchanges from across the larger Asian region, the book offers a richly contextualized and comparative account of the pervasive nature of the digital as both a medium for action and a medium of record.

This book presents a comprehensive overview of transactional forms of the digital across the Asian region by addressing the platforms and infrastructures that shape the digital experience. Contributors argue that each and every encounter mediated by the digital carries with it a functional exchange, but at the same time each transaction also implies an exchange based on social relationships for the digital age. In capturing the digital revolution through case studies of economic, informational, and social exchanges from across the larger Asian region, the book offers a richly contextualized and comparative account of the pervasive nature of the digital as both a medium for action and a medium of record.

This open access book offers a detailed account of a range of mHealth initiatives across South, Southeast and East Asia. It provides readers with deep insights into the challenges such initiatives face on the ground, and a view of the diverse cultural contexts shaping strategies for overcoming these challenges. The book brings together various discussions on the broader mHealth literature, and demonstrates how a research focus on diverse Asian contexts influences the success and/or failure of current mHealth initiatives. It also highlights the important roles social scientists can play in advancing theoretical approaches, as well as planning, implementing and evaluating mHealth initiatives. The book is a valuable resource for project planners, policy developers in NGOs and government institutions, as well as academics, researchers and students in the fields of public health, communications and development studies.

This open access book offers a detailed account of a range of mHealth initiatives across South, Southeast and East Asia. It provides readers with deep insights into the challenges such initiatives face on the ground, and a view of the diverse cultural contexts shaping strategies for overcoming these challenges. The book brings together various discussions on the broader mHealth literature, and demonstrates how a research focus on diverse Asian contexts influences the success and/or failure of current mHealth initiatives. It also highlights the important roles social scientists can play in advancing theoretical approaches, as well as planning, implementing and evaluating mHealth initiatives. The book is a valuable resource for project planners, policy developers in NGOs and government institutions, as well as academics, researchers and students in the fields of public health, communications and development studies.

Genre Publics is a cultural history showing how new notions of 'the local' were produced in context of the Indonesian 'local music boom' of the late 1990s. Drawing on industry records and interviews, media scholar Emma Baulch traces the institutional and technological conditions that enabled the boom, and their links with the expansion of consumerism in Asia, and the specific context of Indonesian democratization. Baulch shows how this music helped reshape distinct Indonesian senses of the modern, especially as 'Asia' plays an ever more influential role in defining what it means to be modern.

Genre Publics is a cultural history showing how new notions of 'the local' were produced in context of the Indonesian 'local music boom' of the late 1990s. Drawing on industry records and interviews, media scholar Emma Baulch traces the institutional and technological conditions that enabled the boom, and their links with the expansion of consumerism in Asia, and the specific context of Indonesian democratization. Baulch shows how this music helped reshape distinct Indonesian senses of the modern, especially as 'Asia' plays an ever more influential role in defining what it means to be modern.