The future may be something we plan for, something we fear, a ‘place’ where the routines of the present continue or the traditions of yesteryear are threatened, or a rhetorical realm of fantastical predictions of space colonization and ‘anytime, anywhere’ communication. In short we speculate, imagine, and contest these futures in attempts to articulate this perhaps unknowable entity with the tools of our contemporary age. Stories are told about the ‘Wireless World’ and the ‘Post-Industrial Society’ we live in: an unprecedented era where information communication technologies have the power to transform our world. Some maintain that we are entering a ‘Mobile Age’ where high-speed, mobile telecommunication devices will alter the ways in which we live our lives. How might the social researcher interrogate such ‘future talk’? How are we best able to equip ourselves with the analytical tools to understand such talk and to question the assumptions built into these ‘versions of the future’ circulating within our socio-cultural world? Contemporary discourses surrounding mobile communication technologies include dialogues about ‘the future’ that serve as a useful starting point for an attempt to answer the above questions. This research investigates ‘versions of the future’ linked to discourse about mobile communication technologies from a variety of sources. These include material from mobile telecommunication corporations, the writings of ‘futurologists’ and ‘blue sky’ researchers, data from focus groups with young people, and a number of popular and specialist media texts. It is suggested that ‘versions of the future’ are built up using a variety of social and cultural resources, which both employ, and are implicated in, the symbolic meanings and cultural assumptions of our present social world. I explore how this construction of ‘versions of the future’ is achieved, how these versions are authorised and made ‘commonsensical', and how meanings and actions in relation to mobile communication technologies may be delineated by these versions which form part of our social world. These ‘versions of the future’ will not be taken as the basis for a predictive model of what will ‘really happen’ in the ‘mobile future’. Rather than an exercise in forecasting, this study will investigate the ways in which present assumptions about technological and socio-cultural spheres are embedded within contemporary futures or ‘versions of the future’. Through a variety of devices, including the deployment of humour, technological and social determinism, the strategic deployment of popular science fiction references and a combination of fantastical imaginings and ‘common-sense’ reasoning, accounts of the future are produced and in turn delineate what can be said about the future in relation to mobile communication technologies.

Taking laughter seriously

Versions of the future in relation to mobile communication technologies

This article 1 explores different forms of social memory about the state socialist repression of Mongolian Buddhism in the 1930s. Based on two political anecdotes collected during fieldwork among Darhads in Northern Mongolia as well as on recent studies of social memory in Mongolia and Buryatia by Christopher Kaplonski and Caroline Humphrey, I identify three ‘mnemonic tropes,’ which are appropriated by people in recounting these tragic events of the past, namely, what I call the digital, the paranoid, and the comical mode of collective remembering respectively. In broad terms, these mnemonic attitudes seem to correspond to three scapes of remembering: a radically liberal, a mildly conservative, and a neo-authoritarian political climate respectively.

Tarrying with Repression: Political Anecdotes and Social Memory in Northern Mongolia

Given that human laughter has been posited to signal playfulness to dogs, nonserious social incongruity, and positive affect, laughter should occur during incongruous contexts in an affectively positive, nonserious social activity such as dog–human play. A total of 116 laughs in relation to dogs were discerned on videotapes of 46 dog–human play interactions in the US, 23 with familiar and 23 with unfamiliar pairs. Laughter occurred during 61% of interactions, and always expressed positive affect. Contexts in which laughter occurred (in decreasing frequency) were failure of the dog during play, or to play at all or as the person wanted; exaggerated or unexpected engagement by the dog; excretion; unexpected success by the dog in obtaining an object; and, once, threat from the dog. Laughter never induced play, and usually occurred when a dog was not playing. Women laughed more than men, especially for a male audience when playing with their own dog. In all contexts, participants experienced incongruo...

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Why Do People Laugh during Dog–Human Play Interactions?

This chapter illustrates some of the complexities of workplace humour through comparing two different cultural contexts. Our ethnographic research approach across two separate studies has garnered nuanced humour examples from New Zealand (Western) and South Korean (Eastern) workplaces. In particular, we analyse humour observations where the humour provides insights to contrasting cultural assumptions related to hierarchical organisational relationships. Although the use of humour seems to serve some similar roles in both New Zealand and South Korean organisations, our analysis suggests that harmony is maintained differently depending on the organisational context. We argue that hierarchy has a significant impact on humour interactions and defines who can, or cannot, be funny at work.

Risky Business: Humour, Hierarchy, and Harmony in New Zealand and South Korean Workplaces

Humor, as a ubiquitous phenomenon, appears in all kinds of human interaction, including in the working environment. Since a big part of contemporary business communication is cross-cultural, it is vital that managers and other people involved in an organization know how to use humor in the multicultural workplace as its proper use may be a powerful managerial tool. This article presents briefly the theories of humor, the types of humor, and the role of humor in the organization. Given that humor is culture-specific, it gives examples of how Britons, Americans, Germans, and the French use humor in the workplace.

Taking laughter seriously

Citations

Versions of the future in relation to mobile communication technologies

Tarrying with Repression: Political Anecdotes and Social Memory in Northern Mongolia

Why Do People Laugh during Dog–Human Play Interactions?

Risky Business: Humour, Hierarchy, and Harmony in New Zealand and South Korean Workplaces

The Use of Humor in the Multicultural Working Environment

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