Over the past decade, a new set of interactive, open, participatory and networked spatial media have become widespread. These include mapping platforms, virtual globes, user-generated spatial databases, geodesign and architectural and planning tools, urban dashboards and citizen reporting geo-systems, augmented reality media, and locative media. Collectively these produce and mediate spatial big data and are re-shaping spatial knowledge, spatial behaviour, and spatial politics. Understanding Spatial Media brings together leading scholars from around the globe to examine these new spatial media, their attendant technologies, spatial data, and their social, economic and political effects. The 22 chapters are divided into the following sections: • Spatial media technologies • Spatial data and spatial media • The consequences of spatial media Understanding Spatial Media is the perfect introduction to this fast emerging phenomena for students and practitioners of geography, urban studies, data science, and media and communications.

GIS

GIS

Britta Ricker

Introduction

There are numerous ways in which locational information are both produced and consumed through the use of mobile computers as their users rove the Earth’s surface. These phenomena, referred to as spatial media, include but are not limited to location-aware devices, web-based mapping services that facilitate crowdsourcing, and the algorithms used to analyse and distribute location-based information including advertising, navigation, and other (location-based) services and content (Leszczynski, 2015). The locational data from these systems are often visualised through various cartographic representations. These maps hold power and legitimacy, and – with the rise of spatial media – become channels, rather than a mode of communication (Wood, 1992; Elwood and Leszczynski, 2013). Furthermore, recording information about place and then ...

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