Ninth International Conference on Communication & Media Studies

Abstract

Focusing on the role of mobile phones and mobile for development (M4D) in Information Communication Technology for Development (ICT4D) advertising, this paper draws from the Tom Scott-Smith’s (2013) theoretical framework of Marx’s commodity fetishism, tracing the concealment, transformation, and mystification of the mobile phone. The paper explores the mobile phone as a humanitarian object, connecting its mysticism to the advertising that depicts mobile phones as an object of feminized economic empowerment. Using a content analysis of 10 INGO YouTube videos focused on M4D programs, the findings suggest that the mobile for development video advertising analyzed in this paper uses concealment-transformation-mystification as a way of storytelling in their videos to showcase the mobile phone as a tool for facilitating economic empowerment for women.