The mutual shaping of geomedia and gentrification: The case of alternative tourism apps

Abstract

While the ‘media city’ has gained academic attention for over a decade, the role of the media in urban gentrification processes has been an overlooked issue. Due to the rapid expansion of geomedia technologies, for example, app-based social media and location-based services on mobile platforms, there is a growing need to address this area from a critical perspective. The article develops and tries out an analytical framework for studying the mutual shaping of geomedia technologies and gentrification processes, using alternative tourism apps as its illustration. The middle-class biased appearance of such mobile apps is hypothesized as an articulation of a broader trend, through which geomedia recognizes and gains affordances that fit the ambitions of certain social groups and their spatial norms, preferences and practices. The framework comprises two steps: (1) a media-technological unpacking exercise inspired by affordance theory and (2) a critical consideration of how geomedia play into the distribution of spatial capital in the city. The first step outlines how representational, logistical and communicational affordances of alternative tourism apps represent the broader shift from mass media to geomedia. The second step discusses the social logics whereby alternative tourism apps are adapted to middle-class spatial interests, and thus to gentrification, and how geomedia technologies in general affect the ability of different groups to access, appropriate and define different places and neighbourhoods in the city.

I’m here! Conspicuous geomedia practices and the reproduction of social positions on social media

“…According to the same logic, this also means that geomedia practices play an important role in shaping the 'value' of different places, normalizing the understanding of what constitutes a 'nice' or 'privileged' place reserved for the 'happy few', and, conversely, stigmatizing certain places as less distinctive. As such, our study contributes a Bourdieusian angle to how ordinary media practices play into spatial (re)encoding processes related to for example gentrification (see also Tissot, 2018;Trinch & Snajdr, 2017;Wacquant, 2018;Jansson, 2005Jansson, , 2019.…”

“…Karin Fast is Associate Professor at the Department of Geography, Media and Communication, Karlstad University, Sweden and research fellow at Media and Communication Studies at the University of Oslo. She is the author of Transmedia Work: Privilege and Precariousness in Digital Modernity (with André Jansson, 2019), and has also published her work in peer-review journals such as, for example, Communication Theory, Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, Media, Culture & Society, and Communication: The European Journal of Communication Research.…”

Efectos socio-espaciales del turismo en procesos de gentrificación: análisis bibliométrico y de literatura

“…Por ejemplo, en lo relacionado con modernas formas de turismo, ha de mencionarse el papel importante que han jugado las plataformas digitales y los medios de comunicación en los procesos de gentrificación urbana (Jansson, 2019). Varios son los estudios que han incluido en su análisis, el papel de los medios de comunicación, y en específico, las redes sociales y plataformas digitales (como por ejemplo Airbnb®, HomeAwaym®, Booking®, Windu®, entre otras), y cómo éstas juegan un papel transcendental, no solo en el impulso del turismo, sino también como facilitadoras de los procesos de gentrificación (Katsinas, 2021;Cocola-Gant & Lopez-Gay, 2020;Robertson et al, 2020;González-Pérez, 2020; Anne-Cecile Mermet, 2017;Sigler & Wachsmuth, 2020;Jansson, 2019).…”

“…En efecto, varios autores incluidos en esta muestra bibliográfica abarcan el estudio de los efectos con especial énfasis en la dimensión económica en ciudades, y específicamente en sus barrios, como producto de procesos experimentados de gentrificación (Cocola-Gant, 2018;Mendes et al, 2016;Ouassini & Ouassini, 2020;Donaldson, 2018;Gravari-Barbas & Guinand, 2017;Lin, 2008;Pareja & Simó, 2014;González-Pérez, 2020;Hübscher, 2019;Cáceres, 2019;Robertson, Oliver & Nost, 2020;Donaldson, 2018;Piñeros, 2017;Sánchez-Ledesma et al, 2020;López-Gay et al, 2021;Bures, 2004;Liang, 2017). De igual manera, varios son los estudios que enfatizan efectos espaciales de carácter socio-ambiental en los procesos de gentrificación, tanto en barrios como en ciertas zonas rurales (Almeida-García et al, 2021;Mermet, 2017;Aramburu, 2020;Bures, 2004;Cáceres, 2019;Carrosio et al, 2019;Chan et al, 2016;Cocola-Gant & Lopez-Gay, 2020;González-Pérez, 2017;González-Pérez, 2020;Gotham, 2005;Gravari-Barbas & Guinand, 2017;Herrera et al, 2007;Hines, 2010;Hübscher, 2019;Jansson, 2019;Jung et al, 2020;Katsinas, 2021;Leebrick, 2015;López-Gay et al, 2021;…”

The transmedia tourist: A theory of how digitalization reinforces the de-differentiation of tourism and social life

“…While the earlier discussions mainly highlight the ways in which tourism is remediated and adapted to new modes of circulation, this does not mean that the consequences of transmedia are unitary or that the affordances of transmedia technologies are socially ‘objective’. Rather, future investigations into the proposed trajectories of de-differentiation – and the relations between them – need to address the socio-culturally differentiated appropriations and consequences of transmedia and the mutual shaping of transmedia technologies (in terms of architecture, logics and industrially encoded affordances) and the appropriation of these technologies in different contexts of tourism (see, for example, Jansson, 2018b, 2019). Theoretically, this would call for interdisciplinary analyses combining, for example, the social construction of technology (SCOT) approach (e.g.…”