Geomedia is an emerging concept that has been deployed to capture a particular technological condition, associated with recent rapid developments in digital technology. As such, it signals to the dialectics of locative media and the mediations of localities. However, the concept of geomedia carries deeper/wider ontological and epistemological registers that transcend the simple twining of geography and media. In this wider sense, geomedia gestures to the expanding interdisciplinary terrain at the crossroads of media studies and geography, where various ontologies and epistemologies of space/time, flows/mobilities and mediation/ mediatization come together. The aim of this special issue is to explore the urban as a key terrain where these ontologies and epistemologies are articulated.

Presentation

Geomedia is an emerging concept that has been deployed to capture a particular technological condition, associated with recent rapid developments in digital technology. As such, it signals to the dialectics of locative media and the mediations of localities (Thielmann, 2010, Lapenta 2011, 2012; McQuire, 2016). However, the concept of geomedia carries deeper/wider ontological and epistemological registers that transcend the simple twining of geography and media. In this wider sense, geomedia gestures to the expanding interdisciplinary terrain at the crossroads of media studies and geography, where various ontologies and epistemologies of space/time, flows/mobilities and mediation/ mediatization come together. The urban is a key terrain where these ontologies and epistemologies are articulated. At the same time ontologies and epistemologies of the urban are being reworked in and through geomedia processes, ranging from questions of urbanism/urbanity as a way of life, inclusion, exclusion and precarious urbanities, to questions of (new) spatio-temporalities of the urban, various flows and mobile appropriations of the city. In short, geomedia and the right to the city. 

Topic Proposals

We seek submissions of articles on any topic related to the broad theme of “geomedia and the city.” However, we are particularly interested in papers which engage with one of the following sub-themes: 

1. Geomedia and the right to the city. How do we interpret Lefebvre’s interrogation of “the right to the city” in an age of locative media and smart cities? How do forms of geomedia function to entice, enable, regulate, constrain, or prohibit access to public spaces in the city, or to urban mobilities? How do geomedia reinforce or problematize gendered, racial, and class-based mobilities? 
2. Geomedia exclusion, precarity, and/or exception. How do geomedia technologies function in enclaves, zones, slums, camps, gated communities, and other spaces of exception? How do geomedia create, regulate, circumscribe, or transcend borders, boundaries, perimeters, or peripheries?
3. Geomedia and surveillance. What is the role of geomedia in contemporary regimes of surveillance? How do geomedia function to regulate a disciplinary society (Foucault), modulate a “society of control” (Deleuze, 1992), or actuate forms of military urbanism (Graham, 2011)?

Guests Editors

Mekonnen Tesfahuney (Karlstads Universitet)
Tim Simpson (University of Macau)

Submission Guidelines