Localizing the media, locating ourselves: a critical comparative analysis of socio-spatial sorting in locative media platforms (Google AND Flickr 2009-2011)
In this thesis I explore media geocoding (i.e., geotagging or georeferencing),
the process of inscribing the media with geographic information. A process
that enables distinct forms of producing, storing, and distributing information
based on location. Historically, geographic information technologies have
served a biopolitical function producing knowledge of populations. In their
current guise as locative media platforms, these systems build rich
databases of places facilitated by user-generated geocoded media. These
geoindexes render places, and users of these services, this thesis argues,
subject to novel forms of computational modelling and economic capture.
Thus, the possibility of tying information, people and objects to location sets
the conditions to the emergence of new communicative practices as well as
new forms of governmentality (management of populations). This project is
an attempt to develop an understanding of the socio-economic forces and
media regimes structuring contemporary forms of location-aware
communication, by carrying out a comparative analysis of two of the main
current location-enabled platforms: Google and Flickr. Drawing from the
medium-specific approach to media analysis characteristic of the subfield of
Software Studies, together with the methodological apparatus of Cultural
Analytics (data mining and visualization methods), the thesis focuses on
examining how social space is coded and computed in these systems. In
particular, it looks at the databases’ underlying ontologies supporting the
platforms' geocoding capabilities and their respective algorithmic logics. In
the final analysis the thesis argues that the way social space is translated in
the form of POIs (Points of Interest) and business-biased categorizations, as
well as the geodemographical ordering underpinning the way it is computed,
are pivotal if we were to understand what kind of socio-spatial relations are
actualized in these systems, and what modalities of governing urban mobility
are enabled