ABSTRACT
In this article, we explore the tension between the significance of touch as a vital sensory modality of human experience and how, with the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, proximity and (tactile) intimacy with other bodies in urban and domestic spaces becomes fraught with the risk of viral contagion. Informed by haptic media studies, the corporeal or sensory turn in contemporary theory, and phenomenology-informed mobile media studies, we examine the possible impacts for mobile device use of the risks of viral contagion associated with our routinized uses of haptic interfaces. We also examine the role and possibility of mobile haptics and the touchscreen in these contexts, and our capacity-via embodied and material metaphor-to extend corporeal reach through the mobile interface. Our contention is that, while the "stand in" for touch that mobile media offers may be perpetually incomplete, the "as-if" structure of habitual experience can play a significant role in narrowing the sensorial gap.
ABSTRACT
This article examines the emergence of conspiracy theories linking COVID-19 with 5G, with a focus on Australia, the United States and United Kingdom. The article is in two parts. The first details long-standing concerns around mobile technologies and infrastructures before showing how they translate to specific worries about 5G technology. The second shows how these fears have fuelled specific conspiracies connecting 5G with COVID-19, how they have animated protests and acts of vandalism that have occurred during the pandemic, and the ongoing engagement of conspiracists with official inquiries into 5G. Finally, we argue that a productive way to understand what is happening with 5G is to look beyond conspiracy theories to a larger set of concerns. We argue that the battle for control of 5G infrastructure can be productively understood in geopolitical terms, as forms of economic statecraft, which partly explains why governments are increasingly concerned about countering misinformation and disinformation around 5G.