Rethinking communication geographies: Geomedia and the human condition
The aim of the sabbatical is (1) to complete the monograph Rethinking Communication Geographies: Geomedia and the Human Condition and (2) to write a journal article that extends the arguments of the book. The book illuminates the social, cultural, and profoundly human, consequences of new locative media, geomedia. Above all, this emerging regime sustains the logistical significance of media, their penetration into almost all kinds of time-space coordination. Which forms of everyday expertise does the geomedia regime foster? How do different individuals and groups cope with the demands on digital adaptation? Rethinking Communication Geographies is the outcome of more than a decade’s work within the interdisciplinary field of media and communication geography (MCG). The book highlights the growing importance of the field as a humanistic response to the expanding “logistical society”. The follow-up article will discuss what this argument means in relation to established disciplines, notably media studies. Both publications will be completed during a ten-month sabbatical including two periods abroad: one month at the Department of Geography and the Environment, University of Texas at Austin, and one month at the Institut für Theorie und Praxis der Kommunikation, Universität der Kunste, Berlin. The academic exchanges will enrich the field of MCG and pave the way for further collaborations between the research environments.
Final report
The overarching aim of the sabbatical was to complete the monograph Rethinking Communication Geographies: Geomedia and the Human Condition, published by Edward Elgar Publishing (UK). The book is an effort to illuminate the social, cultural, and profoundly human, consequences of the normalization of geomedia in everyday life. Recent changes within the technological landscape, involving the integration of location-based services and social media platforms, require interdisciplinary approaches that can problematize the increasingly complex interplay between space/place and communication. The term Geomedia – also the name of the interdisciplinary research centre (Centre for Geomedia Studies) that I lead at Karlstad University – captures these transitions. The book is the outcome of more than a decade’s work within the interdisciplinary field of communication geography, a field I have explored through several research projects. The book answers the main research question: How does the social normalization of geomedia affect the human condition?
My discussion on this topic largely revolves around the notion of digital logistics. Rethinking Communication Geographies posits geomedia as an environmental regime where digital logistics takes centre stage in culture and everyday life as much as in the economic realm. To dwell has increasingly turned into a form of logistical labour, meaning that human activities are accommodated to sustain the circulation of digital data streams. At the same time, the possibility to extend one’s sense of spatial mastery and ease has reached unprecedented levels due to increasingly sophisticated logistical media. The book is a response to the growing need to address questions of human autonomy, security and recognition from a critical humanistic perspective, and to assess the social power differentials of geomedia. It explores concrete examples related to audio-streaming, transmedia tourism and platform urbanism, and reflects on the prospects for post-digital, (counter)logistical action.
The book entails three ways of rethinking communication geographies. First, it introduces an account of geomedia, not primarily as a technological infrastructure, but as the environmental regime of contemporary dwelling. This means that media technologies amalgamate with people’s life environments, bodily existences, and ways of thinking and acting. Geomedia is also a regime where logistical media affordances become increasingly prominent alongside media’s capacity to connect people and represent the world. Accordingly, second, the book analyzes the struggles over logistics that follow in the wake of geomedia. Digital media platforms provide unprecedented logistical affordances for people to navigate and coordinate their everyday activities. At the same time, the platform economy implies that human practices are not just predicted but ultimately steered in order to generate predictable digital data streams. This raises important questions about human agency. Third, the book discusses how geomedia affects the human condition, especially people’s ways of existing together in a geomediatized culture and society. The discussion is guided by phenomenological geography as well as Hannah Arendt’s exploration of the three variants of the “active life” (vita activa) – labour, work and action. In the final chapter, it is argued that geomedia entails key resources for (counter-)logistical action and as such provides the means for challenging and/or subverting logistical accumulation. Some trends in society, including disconnection and media withdrawal, already point in this direction. While such counter-logistical trends are sometimes bound up with commercial interests, they also actualize a reconfigured, post-digital sense of place, that reclaims the human need for boundedness as well as spaciousness.
The sabbatical also resulted in two articles aligned with the theme of the book. The first month of the sabbatical was used to complete an empirically grounded article, entitled “Beyond the platform: Music streaming as a site of logistical and symbolic struggle” (New Media & Society, 2021). This article holds that media researchers should pay more attention to how streaming activities are embedded into social and spatial power relations. The article advances an approach to music streaming as a form of logistical labour. Based on a focus-group study on music streaming, the analysis moves beyond the platform per se to explore social dominance in a media landscape (especially domestic settings) where logistical expertise is increasingly important. Some parts of the article were adapted and integrated into the monograph.
The book manuscript was delivered to the publisher in August 2021. The remaining months of the sabbatical (partly spent in Berlin) were dedicated to writing a second article that extends some of the key ideas of the book. The article, entitled “Guided by data: A logistical approach to tourism in the platform economy” (Digital Geography and Society, 2022), advances a logistical approach to the study of tourism in the platform economy. The platform economy rests on logistical accumulation, meaning that humans, as digital subjects, are monitored and algorithmically steered in order to generate calculable data streams. At the same time, “smart”, mobile media platforms provide new logistical affordances for people to orient themselves and coordinate activities in time and space. Tourism is thus taken as a logistical intersection, where the governing logic of the platform economy intersects with the logistical needs and capacities of travellers. The article actualizes the need for further exchanges between media studies, tourism studies, and critical geographical research on logistics. Indeed, the overall turn to digital logistics (as formulated by this sabbatical project as a whole) exposes an accentuated need for transdisciplinary thinking.
The project’s results have primarily been disseminated through the aforementioned publications. Within the framework of the RJ sabbatical, two international exchanges have also taken place. The first took place during a one-month research stay at the Universität der Kunste Berlin (UdK Berlin) (Institut für Theorie und Praxis der Kommunikation) from September 10 – October 8, 2021. The stay was largely devoted to writing the project’s final article, “Guided by Data”. It also included regular meetings with Professor Maren Hartmann, who hosted the visit, and several of her colleagues, especially PhD students. As German universities were still in lock-down during this period, the majority of meetings took place in other public settings. The second exchange, with the University of Texas at Austin (UTA) (Department of Geography and the Environment), was supposed to take place in April 2021 but due to the pandemic had to be shortened and moved to November 25 – December 11, 2022. By this time, the pandemic had subsided and I was able to hold an open lecture within the department’s Colloquium series – in addition to various meetings with the host of the visit, Professor Paul C. Adams, and his colleagues. The lecture was entitled “The selfie-spot and the coworking space: Digital logistics at the intersection of tourism and labor”. It was based partly on the texts produced as part of the RJ Sabbatical, partly on a new VR-funded research project on coworking spaces. While the discussions at UdK Berlin were mainly about ongoing collaborations, including a co-edited special issue of Space and Culture with the title “Gentrification and the right to the geomedia city”, the exchange with UTA came to focus more on new research ideas and planned collaboration around, among other things, data collection.
The project as a whole has led to in-depth discussions around digital logistics as a main theme within geomedia studies, which has also permeated the activities at the Center for Geomedia Studies. Above all, we see how the new platform economy leads to a contradictory development where users of digital technologies on the one hand get better conditions to coordinate and orchestrate their lives and on the other hand risk feeling alienation and anxiety in front of the all-encompassing technological processes that intervene in everyday life. There is a contradiction between feeling secure thanks to all the digital tools that keep everyday life up – apps that not only provide information and entertainment but also help us organize our activities – and insecure at the prospect of losing control of these systems and in various ways being exploited or manipulated – a problem that ranges from seemingly trivial concerns with non-functioning technology to growing vulnerability to organized fraud and data breaches. There are several interesting themes for further research here.
My discussion on this topic largely revolves around the notion of digital logistics. Rethinking Communication Geographies posits geomedia as an environmental regime where digital logistics takes centre stage in culture and everyday life as much as in the economic realm. To dwell has increasingly turned into a form of logistical labour, meaning that human activities are accommodated to sustain the circulation of digital data streams. At the same time, the possibility to extend one’s sense of spatial mastery and ease has reached unprecedented levels due to increasingly sophisticated logistical media. The book is a response to the growing need to address questions of human autonomy, security and recognition from a critical humanistic perspective, and to assess the social power differentials of geomedia. It explores concrete examples related to audio-streaming, transmedia tourism and platform urbanism, and reflects on the prospects for post-digital, (counter)logistical action.
The book entails three ways of rethinking communication geographies. First, it introduces an account of geomedia, not primarily as a technological infrastructure, but as the environmental regime of contemporary dwelling. This means that media technologies amalgamate with people’s life environments, bodily existences, and ways of thinking and acting. Geomedia is also a regime where logistical media affordances become increasingly prominent alongside media’s capacity to connect people and represent the world. Accordingly, second, the book analyzes the struggles over logistics that follow in the wake of geomedia. Digital media platforms provide unprecedented logistical affordances for people to navigate and coordinate their everyday activities. At the same time, the platform economy implies that human practices are not just predicted but ultimately steered in order to generate predictable digital data streams. This raises important questions about human agency. Third, the book discusses how geomedia affects the human condition, especially people’s ways of existing together in a geomediatized culture and society. The discussion is guided by phenomenological geography as well as Hannah Arendt’s exploration of the three variants of the “active life” (vita activa) – labour, work and action. In the final chapter, it is argued that geomedia entails key resources for (counter-)logistical action and as such provides the means for challenging and/or subverting logistical accumulation. Some trends in society, including disconnection and media withdrawal, already point in this direction. While such counter-logistical trends are sometimes bound up with commercial interests, they also actualize a reconfigured, post-digital sense of place, that reclaims the human need for boundedness as well as spaciousness.
The sabbatical also resulted in two articles aligned with the theme of the book. The first month of the sabbatical was used to complete an empirically grounded article, entitled “Beyond the platform: Music streaming as a site of logistical and symbolic struggle” (New Media & Society, 2021). This article holds that media researchers should pay more attention to how streaming activities are embedded into social and spatial power relations. The article advances an approach to music streaming as a form of logistical labour. Based on a focus-group study on music streaming, the analysis moves beyond the platform per se to explore social dominance in a media landscape (especially domestic settings) where logistical expertise is increasingly important. Some parts of the article were adapted and integrated into the monograph.
The book manuscript was delivered to the publisher in August 2021. The remaining months of the sabbatical (partly spent in Berlin) were dedicated to writing a second article that extends some of the key ideas of the book. The article, entitled “Guided by data: A logistical approach to tourism in the platform economy” (Digital Geography and Society, 2022), advances a logistical approach to the study of tourism in the platform economy. The platform economy rests on logistical accumulation, meaning that humans, as digital subjects, are monitored and algorithmically steered in order to generate calculable data streams. At the same time, “smart”, mobile media platforms provide new logistical affordances for people to orient themselves and coordinate activities in time and space. Tourism is thus taken as a logistical intersection, where the governing logic of the platform economy intersects with the logistical needs and capacities of travellers. The article actualizes the need for further exchanges between media studies, tourism studies, and critical geographical research on logistics. Indeed, the overall turn to digital logistics (as formulated by this sabbatical project as a whole) exposes an accentuated need for transdisciplinary thinking.
The project’s results have primarily been disseminated through the aforementioned publications. Within the framework of the RJ sabbatical, two international exchanges have also taken place. The first took place during a one-month research stay at the Universität der Kunste Berlin (UdK Berlin) (Institut für Theorie und Praxis der Kommunikation) from September 10 – October 8, 2021. The stay was largely devoted to writing the project’s final article, “Guided by Data”. It also included regular meetings with Professor Maren Hartmann, who hosted the visit, and several of her colleagues, especially PhD students. As German universities were still in lock-down during this period, the majority of meetings took place in other public settings. The second exchange, with the University of Texas at Austin (UTA) (Department of Geography and the Environment), was supposed to take place in April 2021 but due to the pandemic had to be shortened and moved to November 25 – December 11, 2022. By this time, the pandemic had subsided and I was able to hold an open lecture within the department’s Colloquium series – in addition to various meetings with the host of the visit, Professor Paul C. Adams, and his colleagues. The lecture was entitled “The selfie-spot and the coworking space: Digital logistics at the intersection of tourism and labor”. It was based partly on the texts produced as part of the RJ Sabbatical, partly on a new VR-funded research project on coworking spaces. While the discussions at UdK Berlin were mainly about ongoing collaborations, including a co-edited special issue of Space and Culture with the title “Gentrification and the right to the geomedia city”, the exchange with UTA came to focus more on new research ideas and planned collaboration around, among other things, data collection.
The project as a whole has led to in-depth discussions around digital logistics as a main theme within geomedia studies, which has also permeated the activities at the Center for Geomedia Studies. Above all, we see how the new platform economy leads to a contradictory development where users of digital technologies on the one hand get better conditions to coordinate and orchestrate their lives and on the other hand risk feeling alienation and anxiety in front of the all-encompassing technological processes that intervene in everyday life. There is a contradiction between feeling secure thanks to all the digital tools that keep everyday life up – apps that not only provide information and entertainment but also help us organize our activities – and insecure at the prospect of losing control of these systems and in various ways being exploited or manipulated – a problem that ranges from seemingly trivial concerns with non-functioning technology to growing vulnerability to organized fraud and data breaches. There are several interesting themes for further research here.