This book examines how mobile phones and the internet have become a vital part of the everyday lives of people experiencing homelessness. But the access mobile phones provide is costly, insecure and limited, producing an experience of being precariously connected. Drawing on findings of research conducted with over one hundred young people, families and adults experiencing homelessness in Australia and the United States, this book analyses homelessness as a mediated condition and explores the underpinning processes that shape digital disparities. It contributes to scholarship on mobile communication and inequality, highlighting the digital patterns, issues and difficulties of a group disproportionately affected by service reform and developments in digital citizenship, smart cities and algorithmic governance.
This book:
- Provides timely insights and evidence on an understudied population in mobile communication scholarship
- Reveals new understandings about contemporary homelessness and inequality in a society premised on digital connectivity
- Contributes to existing theories of precarity and to research on the dynamics of digital inclusion and exclusion
