ABSTRACT
One of the most enduring images that haunt contemporary global media is the image of the young female mobile phone user. In the case of the AsiaPacific, it is the dominant and enduring image. Thus, to say that mobile media customisation is a highly gendered activity seems to state the obvious. Yet despite the pivotal role that gender has played in the rise of mobile media and the produser, the significance of the female user has often been overshadowed by the conflation of new technologies with youth cultures. And although the mobile phone has in some ways liberated the female user it has also become her controller, relegating her to the status of consumer and reinforcing the traditional female role of reproduction labourer.
