Cabs, community, and control: Mobile communication among Chicago’s taxi drivers

Today’s mobile technology and mobile professions mean that people are nearly always either in, or connected to someone who is in motion. And yet, communities persist in the face of this constant motion. This is a qualitative study of a mobile labor group—taxi drivers in Chicago. Similar to Wallis’s (2011) conclusions, I found that access to and use of a mobile phone does not automatically imbue taxi drivers with power and autonomy from forces that seem to be working against them. However, access to mobile phones does help to shake up the hierarchy of control in the taxi industry. This study has also identified another type of community where the theory of polymedia (Madianou & Miller, 2012) applies, that is, labor communities, and has shown that while choice of technology may offer some sense of power, access to mobile communication technology does not necessarily result in significant changes in power structures within and surrounding a community.

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