Maps as Media

Maps have escaped the confines of road atlases or decorative frames onto our screens. Using a GPS while driving, looking for a shop on Google Maps, tracking a food delivery or even checking potential dates — all involve some form of digital maps. Rather than depicting existing reality, maps are active agents in changing it, all the while making use of personalisation algorithms, content curation and other techniques that have become ubiquitous in digital media. In doing so, maps are reorienting our geographies around us, showing us the world that their designers think we need to see, and further fracturing shared reality into individual spaces. Maps as Media investigates digital maps as new media objects which are ubiquitous across our devices. Combining perspectives from media studies, critical cartography, and science and technology studies, it examines the transformation of mapping from a specialised domain into a commonplace media practice in everyday life. Alex Gekker argues that maps are reactive and reflective, fuelled by contemporary software's abilities to track and be tracked, adapt and update. This naturalised state of digital maps allows them to become powerful tools for those wishing to exert power on their end-users. As a growing number of digital technologies integrate GPS and other spatial awareness into their core functionality, this book asks what happens when maps become media. Original and thought-provoking, this book will be of interest to students and scholars of Media and Communication studies, Geography, and Science and Technology Studies.