Invisibility through the interface: the social consequences of spatial search
Media Culture & SocietyPublished 13 March 2017
Jordan Frith
Citations33
SJR quartileQ1
SJR score1.72
SNIP2.57
Generate an AI Snapshot to get a quick, structured summary of this paper.
Study Snapshot
ObjectiveStudy objective
MethodsResearch methodology
PopulationPopulation studied
Sample sizeSample sizes
OutcomesStudy outcomes here
ResultsStudy results comes here
LimitationsResearch study limitations comes here
A concise AI-generated summary of the paper will appear here once you click Generate AI Snapshot.
TL;DR
It is argued that popular spatial search applications, such as Yelp, may subtly reproduce existing forms of spatial segregation by rendering certain location invisible through the mobile mapping interface.
Abstract
Location-based services are mobile applications that use a device’s location to provide relevant results. Spatial search applications are a popular subset of location-based services that enable people to search through their surrounding space to find nearby locations. This article examines spatial search applications through a framework that combines critical geography research with research on the power search engines exert over information visibility. The main argument of the article is that popular spatial search applications, such as Yelp, may subtly reproduce existing forms of spatial segregation by rendering certain location invisible through the mobile mapping interface.
Keywords
Social SciencesComputer Science
ScienceThe Matthew Effect in Science
6,270 Citations1968Robert Κ. Merton
The psychosocial conditions and mechanisms underlying the Matthew effect are examined and a correlation between the redundancy function of multiple discoveries and the focalizing function of eminent men of science is found—a function which is reinforced by the great value these men place upon finding basic problems and by their self-assurance.
PubMedThe Matthew effect in science. The reward and communication systems of science are considered.
4,872 Citations1968Robert Κ. Merton
The Filter Bubble: What the Internet Is Hiding from You
4,398 Citations2011Eli Pariser
The author explains how the major companies Google, Facebook, Microsoft, Yahoo, and the like are competing to create the most comprehensive portrait of each of us to drive personalized products.
The Birth of Biopolitics: Lectures at the Collège de France, 1978-1979
4,104 Citations2008Michel Foucault, Michel Senellart +4 more
The Culture of Connectivity
2,459 Citations2013José van Dijck
This book discusses the construction of sociality in a Culture of Connectivity through the lens of Flickr, Facebook, Twitter, and Wikipedia, and the role of technology in this culture.
Non-Representational Theory: Space, Politics, Affect
2,126 Citations2007Nigel Thrift
Environment and Planning B Planning and DesignHow Good is Volunteered Geographical Information? A Comparative Study of OpenStreetMap and Ordnance Survey Datasets
1,626 Citations2010Muki Haklay
Analysis of the quality of OpenStreetMap information focuses on London and England, since OSM started in London in August 2004 and therefore the study of these geographies provides the best understanding of the achievements and difficulties of VGI.
The MIT Press eBooksCode/Space
921 Citations2011Rob Kitchin, Martin Dodge
In Code/Space, Rob Kitchin and Martin Dodge examine software from a spatial perspective, analyzing the dyadic relationship of software and space and issue a manifesto, calling for critical scholarship into the production and workings of code rather than simply the technologies it enables.
A History of Spaces: Cartographic Reason, Mapping and the Geo-Coded World
911 Citations2004John Pickles
New Media & SocietyPower through the algorithm? Participatory web cultures and the technological unconscious
757 Citations2009David Beer
This article situates Web 2.0 in the context of the broader transformations that are occurring in new media by drawing on the work of a number of leading writers who, in various ways, consider the implications of software ‘sinking’ into and ’sorting’ aspects of the authors' everyday lives.
Journal of Computer-Mediated CommunicationIn Google We Trust: Users’ Decisions on Rank, Position, and Relevance
687 Citations2007Bing Pan, Helene Hembrooke +4 more
An eye tracking experiment revealed that college student users have substantial trust in Google's ability to rank results by their true relevance to the query, which has implications for the search engine’s tremendous potential influence on culture, society, and user traffic on the Web.
Space and CultureFrom Cyber to Hybrid
667 Citations2006Adriana de Souza e Silva
This article investigates how the use of mobile technologies as connection interfaces blurs the traditional borders between physical and digital spaces and argues that the shift from static to mobile interfaces brings social networks into physical spaces.
Geography CompassWeb Mapping 2.0: The Neogeography of the GeoWeb
567 Citations2008Muki Haklay, Alex Singleton +1 more
An introduction to the concepts, technologies and structures that have emerged over the short period of intense innovation, which introduces the non-technical reader to them, suggests reasons for the neologism, explains the terminology, and provides a perspective on the current trends.
The MIT Press eBooksDivining a Digital Future
483 Citations2011Paul Dourish, Genevieve Bell
Divining a Digital Future, computer scientist Paul Dourish and cultural anthropologist Genevieve Bell explore the vision that has driven the ubiquitous computing research program and the contemporary practices that have emerged--both the motivating mythology and the everyday messiness of lived experience.
Re-space-ing place
433 Citations2006Paul Dourish
In the ten years since the distinction between "place" and "space" emerged as a consideration for CSCW researchers and designers, the concepts have proven useful across a range of domains.
The Economic JournalLearning from the Crowd: Regression Discontinuity Estimates of the Effects of an Online Review Database
431 Citations2012Michael Anderson, Jeremy Magruder
Visual CommunicationThe poetics of augmented space
323 Citations2006Лев Манович
How people experience spatial forms when they are filled in with dynamic and rich multimedia information; spaces such as shopping or entertainment areas or other spaces where various information can be accessed wirelessly are discussed.
Information Communication & SocietySENTIENT CITIES Ambient intelligence and the politics of urban space
312 Citations2007Mike Crang, Stephen Graham
New Media & SocietyMobile social networks and urban public space
211 Citations2010Lee Humphreys
Drawing on the concept of parochial space, this article examines how ideas of mobile communication and public space are negotiated in the everyday practice and use of mobile social networks.
Mobile Interfaces in Public Spaces
200 Citations2012Adriana de Souza e Silva, Jordan Frith
Choice Reviews OnlineMobile interfaces in public spaces: locational privacy, control, and urban sociability
169 Citations2012
This presentation explains how mobile media history, location-Awareness in Public Spaces, control and personalization, and privacy and Surveillance have changed since the advent of mobile phones.
Choice Reviews OnlineSmartphones as locative media
168 Citations2015
The future of locative media will be shaped by market forces and the shaping of location-based services, as well as by the negotiation of locational privacy.
Environment and Planning A Economy and SpaceAugmented Realities and Uneven Geographies: Exploring the Geolinguistic Contours of the Web
159 Citations2013Mark Graham, Matthew Zook
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 defined, imagined, and experienced.
Search Engine Society
146 Citations2008Alexander Halavais
This volume aims to redress this balance and to address crucial questions such as: how have search engines changed the way the authors organize their thoughts about the world, and how they work.
New Media & SocietyConflicts of interest and incentives to bias: A microeconomic critique of Google’s tangled position on the Web
145 Citations2013Bernhard Rieder, Guillaume Sire
It is argued that the combination of search and advertising services, and in particular advertising network services, creates powerful incentives to orient the results page in self-serving ways, leading to fundamental conflicts of interest exacerbated by Google’s dominant position in both markets.
Mobile Media & CommunicationTurning life into a game: Foursquare, gamification, and personal mobility
145 Citations2013Jordan Frith
The goal of this study is to draw from the concepts of hybrid space, spatial legibility, and gamification to show how Foursquare’s gaming elements can add a playful layer to physical spaces and discuss the impacts of the application designers’ goal of turning “life into a game.”
New Media & SocietyMapping the digital empire: Google Earth and the process of postmodern cartography
142 Citations2010Jason Farman
It is demonstrated how Google Earth, by incorporating a social network that engages users as embodied interactors rather than disembodied voyeurs, is able to present user-generated content and dialog spatially on the very object that such content critiques.
MobilitiesEmergent Uses of a Multiplayer Location‐aware Mobile Game: the Interactional Consequences of Mediated Encounters
142 Citations2006Christian Licoppe, Yoriko Inada
This case study of the behaviours of players in an advanced location‐aware gaming environment provides a first glimpse of what the experience of living in a mobile‐based augmented urban public space might be like, and of the kind of social order and emergent ‘form‐of‐life’ that might characterize it.
Communication TheoryCommunication Geography: A Bridge Between Disciplines
134 Citations2012Paul C. Adams, André Jansson
New Media & SocietyLayar-ed places: Using mobile augmented reality to tactically reengage, reproduce, and reappropriate public space
106 Citations2014Tony Liao, Lee Humphreys
This study looks at how mobile AR can potentially mediate the everyday practices of urban life through qualitative interviews with users of Layar, a mobile AR browser, and finds several emerging uses.
Palgrave Macmillan UK eBooksGaming in Social, Locative, and Mobile Media
100 Citations2014Larissa Hjorth, Ingrid Richardson
Digital Cities: The Internet and the Geography of Opportunity
96 Citations2012Karen Mossberger, Caroline J. Tolbert +1 more
Journal of Urban TechnologyVisualizing Global Cyberscapes: Mapping User-Generated Placemarks
75 Citations2011Mark Graham, Matthew Zook
Journal of Computer-Mediated CommunicationCommunicating Through Location: The Understood Meaning of the Foursquare Check-In
67 Citations2014Jordan Frith
Qualitative interviews with frequent users of the LBSN Foursquare show both how LBSNs complicate views of the relative "placelessness" of traditional mobile communication and how the design of FOURSquare complicates its utility as a mobile coordination tool.
New Media & SocietyPlaces nearby: Facebook as a location-based social media platform
64 Citations2014Rowan Wilken
This article examines the growing importance of Facebook as a location-focused platform, and the strategic acquisitions of location-sharing start-ups Gowalla and Glancee, which establishFacebook as a key local, and increasingly mobile-centred, advertising portal.
Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic MediaConnecting, Coordinating, Cataloguing: Communicative Practices on Mobile Social Networks
52 Citations2012Lee Humphreys
The Mobile Story
49 Citations2013Ross, Claire, Carnall, Mark +4 more
This book offers dynamic insights about the new nature of narrative in the age of mobile media, studying digital stories that are site-specific, context-aware, and involve the reader in fascinating ways.
Convergence The International Journal of Research into New Media TechnologiesGoverning the geocoded world: Environmentality and the politics of location platforms
47 Citations2012Carlos Barreneche
Media Culture & SocietySearch-engine research: a European-American overview and systematization of an interdisciplinary and international research field
43 Citations2008Marcel Machill, Markus Beiler +1 more
It is no longer possible to imagine the internet without search engine, because the growth of net contents, helped by the low communicative access barriers, makes the selection of relevant contents necessary.
Mobile Media & Communication“It’s like I trust it so much that I don’t really check where it is I’m going before I leave”: Informational uses of smartphones among Danish youth
36 Citations2013Troels Fibæk Bertel
MobilitiesLudic Mobilities: The Corporealities of Mobile Gaming
30 Citations2010Ingrid Richardson
The composite, interconnected and dynamic ontology of the network trope provides a more authentic figuration of the game environments specific to LBGs and HRGs, and helps to interpret the ‘playful turn’ in contemporary new media culture and the infiltration of a ludic sensibility into the mobilities and practices of everyday life.
Oxford University Press eBooksDigital Cities
29 Citations2012Karen Mossberger, Caroline J. Tolbert +1 more
This study examines the barriers to adoption of broadband in Chicago Neighborhoods and the role of technology in this adoption process.
Program electronic library and information systemsAn integrative model of “information visibility” and “information seeking” on the web
21 Citations2008Yazdan Mansourian, Nigel Ford +2 more
A model of information visibility is developed which suggests a complementary definition for the Invisible Web.
Map Interfaces and the Production of Locative Media Space
17 Citations2014Gerard Goggin, César Albarrán‐Torres
Introductory Essay: Conceptualising Mapping
17 Citations2011Rob Kitchin, Martin Dodge +1 more
The Communication ReviewRethinking Communication After the Mobilities Turn
15 Citations2010Stephen B. Crofts Wiley, Jeremy Packer
Locative Media in the City: Drawing Maps and Telling Stories
8 Citations2013Rowan Wilken
Environment and Planning A Economy and SpaceThe Semantic Production of Space: Pervasive Computing and the Urban Landscape
7 Citations2014Matthew W. Kelley
It is suggested that as pervasive computing technologies have gained purchase in urban space they have also become more implicitly blended with everyday life and more contingent on information that is inductively compiled from Internet-based data services.