In:
New Media & Society, SAGE Publications
Abstract:
Digital maps structure how we understand and interact with space while simultaneously affording agency and the potential for an alternative use of space. This article investigates how digital maps exercise data and spatial agency. Our empirical object is the environmental mobile mapping application water refill map (WRM, Hong-Te/ Fengcha Action奉茶行動) in Taiwan. Drawing on the walk-through method and semi-structured interviews with WRM’s founders, we examine how the app leverages the power of digital mapping to encourage participation in environmental activities. We argue that by facilitating data and spatial agency, digital maps enable placemaking at the cognitive and hermeneutic levels. They also turn closed spaces into public ones, thus aiding place-shaping. Meanwhile, this digital environmental activism takes place in a field of contestation and negotiation between agency and structure, apps and infrastructural platforms, collective action and individual power, and environmentalism and (adjusted) commercialism.
Type of Medium:
Online Resource
ISSN:
1461-4448
,
1461-7315
DOI:
10.1177/14614448231162581
Language:
English
Publisher:
SAGE Publications
Publication Date:
2023
detail.hit.zdb_id:
1476527-5
detail.hit.zdb_id:
2684519-2
detail.hit.zdb_id:
2016312-5
detail.hit.zdb_id:
2686704-7
SSG:
24,1
SSG:
3,4
SSG:
3,5
Permalink
