Heidegger, Habermas and the mobile phone

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Move over e-commerce, mantra of the late 20th century... welcome in-commerce, catchword of the new millennium! Everyone remembers 'It's good to talk, the cosy slogan of the telephone at the end of the last century. But now we are witnessing a global campaign to promote the mobile: as credit card, Internet link, e-mail port, and, if you still have time, voice-mail junction. By 2003, we are told, there will be 900 million Internet-connected mobiles. This Postmodern Encounter gives the gist of the massive campaign to mobilise the globe, and asks the urgent question: what is happening to the idea of communication? Key thinkers of the 20th century offer an essential alternative to these new doctrines of m-communication: Martin Heidegger, who saw humanity as "the entity which talks", and Jurgen Habermas, current-day advocates of authentic communication. This is a close encounter between alien visions of communication - between the conflicting utopianisms of 20th-century philosophers and 21st-century "mobilised communication."