Although there is a bourgeoning academic and journalist literature on these ‘Second World’ developments (Khanna 2008), the part that digital media may be playing in social change in emerging economies remains poorly understood. Recent events in Tunisia, Egypt, Israel, Spain, Britain, the United States and other countries have drawn public attention to the potential uses of social media for protest and political mobilisation. Important as these developments are, they distract from less visible forms of media-related change that can have as much long-term significance as the more spectacular ‘media events’, for instance, micro-processes of digital media appropriation into domestic, educational, work and leisure settings.