Polymedia: towards a new theory of digital media in interpersonal communication

This article develops a new theory of polymedia in order to understand the consequences of digital media in the context of interpersonal communication. Drawing on illustrative examples from a comparative ethnography of Filipino and Caribbean transnational families, the paper develops the contours of a theory of polymedia. We demonstrate how users avail of new media as a communicative environment of affordances rather than as a catalogue of ever proliferating, but discrete technologies. As a consequence, with polymedia the primary concern shifts from the constraints imposed by each individual medium to an emphasis upon the social, emotional and moral consequences of choosing between those different media. As the choice of medium acquires communicative intent, navigating the environment of polymedia becomes inextricably linked to the ways in which interpersonal relationships are experienced and managed. Polymedia is ultimately about a new relationship between the social and the technological, rather than merely a shift in the technology itself. Introduction Until not so long ago most people wishing to communicate at a distance had a limited choice of media at their disposal, mainly expensive international phone calls or letters. As a result, the choice of medium was largely the result of constraints of access and cost. The proliferation of new communication technologies and the increased convergence that we have witnessed in the last few years are radically transforming interpersonal communication at a distance. This coincides with an increased demand for mediated communication given the rise in global migration and flows of human capital. Given that migration often involves family separation at a primary level (Parreñas, 2005), the need for transnational communication between migrants and their left-behind families is particularly acute. As a result the consequences of the proliferation of communication possibilities are experienced globally including in what is often referred to as the global South which has also witnessed a boom in mobile communication (Castells et al, 2006; The Economist, 2009). Once users have obtained either a computer or a smartphone and once the