A panel discussion by: Pablo Abend, Helena Atteneder, Hendrik Bender, Christoph Borbach, Max Kanderske and Karina Kirsten
The field of media geography was constituted during the 2000s, largely in response to theproliferation of locative mobile media. Now, in a time when GPS receivers are ubiquitous,online platforms routinely serve location-based content and the movement of human and non-human actors’ is enabled and restricted by tracking and tracing technologies, we must askourselves whether the unique theoretical approaches provided by media geographies and geomedia studies have run its course – after all, almost any media could legitimately belabelled with the prefix “Geo-“. At the same time, the notion that media are involved in the sociotechnical production of space and place is now recognized by many other disciplines – it has almost become a platitude.
Accordingly, various “turns” have been announced in the last approx. 15 years. For example, the “spatial turn” in media and cultural studies, the “digital turn” as the starting point of digitalgeographies, and various “cultural-” or “materialist re-turns” towards “more-than-human” or “non-media-centric” approaches. Are these turns just research trends that fade away again ordo they rather represent a permanent shift in the epistemological and ontological foundations?
While these developments could be read as a success story of the connection between mediaand communication studies and social, cultural, or human geographies, they also raise existential questions: What is the critical potential of the study of media geographies and geomedia today? What are the current and future issues that need to be addressed? In short: Quo Vadis Media Geographies – do we still need you at all?
Media as ubiquitous mediators between spaces, places, humans, non-humans, and things,are directly connected to the question of space and spatial arrangements. Conversely, mediaturn spaces (and places) into multi-layered entities that urge us to abandon any one-dimensional concept of space. Terms such as “geomedia” or “media geographies” are representative of research that has been able to establish a productive interdisciplinaryresearch field to make current and historical relationships between media and spaces investigable. The focus lies on processes of positioning oneself and others, the sensory capture of people, things, and spaces in both pre- and post-digital research contexts.
Contrary to traditional media studies approaches, which often focus on specific single media and single media phenomena, we propose that the epistemic benefit of a media geography perspective lies in the deliberate “de-centring” of media. By focusing on the geographies produced by, through and with media, that is via media practices carried out in relation to specific environments and situations, we evade the pitfalls of both spatial and medial a priories: contemporary media geographies must take into account that media AND spaces emerge at the same time, through practice. This understanding exempts the field from being tied to specific technologies that create spatial references, as the concept of locative media implies, and allows for a broader – and most importantly – historically and geographically situated approach towards researching the relationship between media, space, and practices.
This panel discussion will take stock of the research field and its prospects, answering -loosely based on Kant – three questions:
- What can Media Geography know?
a. Where does current space-media/media-space research stand?
b. Which terms and concepts are (still) relevant to media geographies and which breaks, and continuities can be identified? - What should Media Geography do?
a. How do we as researchers position ourselves in the field?
b. How do we engage with developments that challenge (or productively strain)our established theoretical framework? - What can Media Geography hope for?
a. Is it enough to critically analyse the status quo or do media geographies alsoneed to develop their own utopias, imaginations and narratives? Is there aneed for more ideology-critical approaches here?
b. To what extent can media geography research be interventionist? If so, with which methods?
This panel is aimed at all experts from the field who, after an impulse from the panellists, are invited to join the discussion and enter an open exchange.
Under the umbrella of the German Society for Media Studies (GfM) Pablo Abend, KarinaKirsten, Max Kanderske, Hendrik Bender, Christoph Borbach and Helena Atteneder have founded a working group entitled: “Media Geographies”. The idea of this panel is fed by the lively discussions within the working group and is intended to promote international exchange. The Media Geographies Working Group is open to all who are interested in researching and teaching on questions of geomedia and media geographies. Further information, currentpublications and events can be found on our website: http://www.mediengeographien.de/