Apple iPhone's Meta-Capital: Exploring how young people use the iPhone to leverage and negotiate forms of capital through everyday practices and predispositions

This doctoral thesis argues that the iPhone functions as a site of symbolic contention where social dynamics and power are negotiated. On the basis of qualitative research, I suggest that the iPhone is a vastly more political device than has previously been noted in academic literature. Drawing on Pierre Bourdieu’s broader sociological framework and Paul du Gay and Stuart Hall’s “circuits of culture” approach, I argue for reconceptualising the iPhone as a cultural artefact situated within specific historical, cultural, and economic contexts. This study explores the impact of the iPhone through the consumption habits of young iPhone users. It interrogates the cultural role of the iPhone through media, advertising, network influences and users' own habits.