Bluetooth Virtual Community: Bluetooth and Social Networking in Tehran Subway

Iranians use Bluetooth technology in their cell phone handsets very differently from other communities. This different use, has led to the formation of a kind of new virtual communities. this communication tool is a radio communication and not a telecommunication, cannot be detected and controlled. Therefore in places that publics form and congestion is a lot, it can be used for a kind of social networking. This has now happened in Tehran City Subway and we see that in this place every user becomes a broadcaster without being known, controlled or limited. In this case the user participates in building a kind of new virtual space in a physical place. This is called Bluetooth virtual community in this research. The main subject of this research is gaining more cognition about this new communication atmosphere. In this research we could gain a new cognition about ad hoc communication networks in the contemporary world by a field study in Tehran Subway and by being present in the physical and virtual space of this new communication network, ethnographic communication with users, and also collecting messages exchanged in this network. Bluetooth virtual communication formed in Tehran City Subway is indeed an ad hoc communication network which spreads information in city´s actual space- the information that don´t exist in other communication atmospheres such as internet and cell phone communications which have complex and extensive technological infrastructures.