Augmented Realities and Uneven Geographies: Exploring the Geolinguistic Contours of the Web

Abstract

Abstract. This paper analyzes the digital dimensions of places as represented by online, geocoded references to the economic, social, and political experiences of the city. These digital layers are invisible to the naked eye, but form a central component of the augmentations and mediations of place enabled by hundreds of millions of mobile computing devices and other digital technologies. The analysis highlights how these augmentations of place diff er across space and language and highlights both the diff erences and some of the causal factors behind them. This is performed through a global study of all online content indexed within Google Maps, and more specifi c analyses of the linguistically and topically segregated layers of information over four selected places. The uneven linguistic geographies that this study reveals undoubtedly infl uence the many ways in which place is enacted and brought into being. The larger aim of this project is to use these initial mappings of the linguistic contours of the geoweb to push forward a broader debate about how augmented inclusions and exclusions, visibilities and invisibilities will shape the way that places become defi ned, imagined, and experienced.

Informing online and mobile map design with the collective wisdom of cartographers

“…"Critical cartographers" have raised important concerns about these systems with regard to culturally biased representations of space [9] and the power of corporations to define local and global geographies [33], among other issues. However, all of this work almost exclusively operates at the level of critical theory.…”

What does Pokémon Go teach us about geography?

“…By physically being there and talking with other players, one is actually experiencing the urban landscape in a different way. Taking this into account, players of location-based mobile games, such as Poké-mon Go, interacting in new ways with their physical environment are creating new meanings for it and increasingly blurring the boundaries between ordinary and playful spaces (De Souza e Silva, 2009;Hjorth and Richardson, 2017).…”

“…It has been credited with popularizing AR, as it has introduced the technology to a broad consumer audience. Unlike most video games, which create a parallel virtual world in which players interact and communicate with each other through information technologies, the game has been praised by some critics for potentially improving players' interaction with the real world (Hjorth and Richardson, 2017).…”

Disability and mobile Internet

“…For instance, a 2014 Pew Internet Research Center study of 24,263 people in 24 nations found that: texting remains the most popular use of mobile phones (a median of 78 percent of users across all countries send texts); taking pictures and photos was the second most popular use, with 54 percent of users; accessing a social networking service ranked third with 25 percent of all users; and getting political news was the fourth top use, with 18 percent (Pew Research Center, 2014a). Of course, these figures belie a complex story, whereby the actual experience of mobile Internet takes different forms across different countries and places (Goggin and McLelland, 2009;2016) -something that a growing body of scholarship is highlighting, including work on the uneven geographies of digital information and technologies (Graham and Zook, 2013).…”