Geomediatization of public spheres: A space genealogy for emerging datafied societies

The theory of the public sphere succeeds at philosophically providing the back story that links democracy to the media. From the start, it carried the assumption that a shared communicative space was a necessary precondition to explain the link between media and democratic governance. The geomedia refresh—and make accountable—the relevance of space for government. However, the nuances and limitations of geomedia and geodata still require a critical discussion and a prudent approach. This paper deconstructs geomedia as an epistemic assemblage of practices, norms, data, and tools, rather than considering it a single technology. The operation enhances the historical framework by tracing longer temporal lines that show how efforts to politically value places were key for governance even before the commodification of GPS data and locative technologies. A reconciliation with previous social research will help understand the full breadth of the value of the geomedia for democracy today. This paper is organized into four parts: after an initial conceptual review, the paper explores the prehistory of placemaking by linking the understandings of space with the creation of symbolic places for governance. The following section on the modernity of media location deals with the dual role of mapping and universal location as tools for identity building and governance strategies. The paper concludes with a discussion of the geomedia(-ted) public sphere(s) by considering technological policies (from GPS-enabled mobiles to geodata and the internet of things) and the geopolitical implications of such geomedia assemblages on the legitimate governance of communicative spaces.