STS Forum on the 2011 Fukushima / East Japan Disaster, May 2013
Despite the information rich environment of the Internet or news outlet’s desire to verify the cr... more Despite the information rich environment of the Internet or news outlet’s desire to verify the credibility of their sources, global news events sparked by large-scale disasters make disparate sites of action appear as one moving drama with different vectors blurring the line between crisis and media sensation, thus creating geographic dissonance and confounding global understandings of local experiences. In the case of Japan’s triple disaster on March 11, 2011, the media effectively constructed in global minds that Japan, the nation as a whole, had become unsafe. For the tourism sector this had far reaching economic repercussions, resulting in a dramatic downturn of foreign tourists entering the country and a surprising number of tourists cancelling trips to areas located far from the disaster zone. In response, Japan’s government and various industries sought to utilize “Web 2.0” social media technologies to neutralize the negative effect of disaster news and inspire confidence in their country’s stability. These public relations campaigns, from official websites, encouraged positive multi-voiced global communication from foreign residents in Japan, and contests that provided paid-for travel to the country with the stipulation that winners use social media to promote tourism, provide a rich space to analyze not only the tensions between governments and media, but also the anxieties created over media’s new participatory context and the dual objectives repurposed messages cater to. How do local experiences get elided or highlighted within these campaigns? Whose voices are given more weight and for what purpose? In order to fully understand the lived experiences of those effected by disasters, today’s mediated environment necessitates parsing through their production and consumption via communication technologies.
The article discusses how the popularization of Japanese popular culture in the U.S. has led many... more The article discusses how the popularization of Japanese popular culture in the U.S. has led many American fans to question the extent to which their identities are constructed through the consumption of foreign cultural materials that are increasingly being "Americanized." It also refers to the increase in U.S. sales of Japanese anime and comics that coincides with the heightened global exchange and interest in Japan's contemporary popular culture.
This study situates geospatial technology within the platform economy and constructs its brand cu... more This study situates geospatial technology within the platform economy and constructs its brand culture, making it visible as a for-profit business rather than a utility. A critical lens is turned on the macroscopic economic and micro-social processes of the geospatial industry that result in the hegemonic relations and discursive regimes that legitimize and naturalize a common geospatially equipped, data-driven world. The annual user conventions and platform marketing of Esri, the global market leader in geographical information systems (GIS), acts as a site to observe how an imagined geospatial community of practitioners and investors is constructed. Branded content is unpacked to understand how the company’s image-making cultivates power relations between the public at large while negating itself as gatekeeper. These symbolic processes and collective practices help influence the uncritical investment and growth of the geospatial industry.
Mapping Risk situates geospatial technologies in a long line of media composing an evolving (nucl... more Mapping Risk situates geospatial technologies in a long line of media composing an evolving (nuclear) imagination of disaster while unpacking the assumptions of a field of knowledge that position them as risk managing technologies par excellence. It considers how spatial technology acts in the “risk society” as a visual cultural media practice. That is, as a technology of risk production and risk management within the context of ordinary everydayness and catastrophic extraordinariness. Threads of inquiry include unpacking the social and economic evaluation and subsequent branding practices of geospatial technology by practitioners and commercial suppliers to show how these tools are positioned as systematic means to see and manage the world. It then follows these assumptions into spheres of media practice. First, it examines the applications of geospatial technologies by news media outlets and social media networks during past large-scale disasters and ongoing cases of risk. The loc...
This study situates geospatial technology within the platform economy and constructs its brand cu... more This study situates geospatial technology within the platform economy and constructs its brand culture, making it visible as a for-profit business rather than a utility. A critical lens is turned on the macroscopic economic and micro-social processes of the geospatial industry that result in the hegemonic relations and discursive regimes that legitimize and naturalize a common geospatially equipped, data-driven world. The annual user conventions and platform marketing of Esri, the global market leader in geographical information systems (GIS), acts as a site to observe how an imagined geospatial community of practitioners and investors is constructed. Branded content is unpacked to understand how the company’s image-making cultivates power relations between the public at large while negating itself as gatekeeper. These symbolic processes and collective practices help influence the uncritical investment and growth of the geospatial industry.
At a time when industries are struggling to monetize the diversification of information flows in ... more At a time when industries are struggling to monetize the diversification of information flows in the digital economy, the transition from a "software as a…
Commentary in Environment and Planning A. Co-authors: Jim Thatcher, Luke Bergmann, Britta Ricker,... more Commentary in Environment and Planning A. Co-authors: Jim Thatcher, Luke Bergmann, Britta Ricker, Reuben Rose-Redwood, (Landscapes of Injustice Research Collective), David O'Sullivan, Trevor J Barnes, Luke R Barnesmoore, Laura Beltz Imaoka, Ryan Burns, Jonathan Cinnamon, Craig M Dalton, Clinton Davis, Stuart Dunn, Francis Harvey, Jin-Kyu Jung, Ellen Kersten, LaDona Knigge, Nick Lally, Wen Lin, Dillon Mahmoudi, Michael Martin, Amir Sheikh, Taylor Shelton, Eric Sheppard, Chris W Strother, Alexander Tarr, Matthew W Wilson, and Jason C Young
STS Forum on the 2011 Fukushima / East Japan Disaster, May 2013
Despite the information rich environment of the Internet or news outlet’s desire to verify the cr... more Despite the information rich environment of the Internet or news outlet’s desire to verify the credibility of their sources, global news events sparked by large-scale disasters make disparate sites of action appear as one moving drama with different vectors blurring the line between crisis and media sensation, thus creating geographic dissonance and confounding global understandings of local experiences. In the case of Japan’s triple disaster on March 11, 2011, the media effectively constructed in global minds that Japan, the nation as a whole, had become unsafe. For the tourism sector this had far reaching economic repercussions, resulting in a dramatic downturn of foreign tourists entering the country and a surprising number of tourists cancelling trips to areas located far from the disaster zone. In response, Japan’s government and various industries sought to utilize “Web 2.0” social media technologies to neutralize the negative effect of disaster news and inspire confidence in their country’s stability. These public relations campaigns, from official websites, encouraged positive multi-voiced global communication from foreign residents in Japan, and contests that provided paid-for travel to the country with the stipulation that winners use social media to promote tourism, provide a rich space to analyze not only the tensions between governments and media, but also the anxieties created over media’s new participatory context and the dual objectives repurposed messages cater to. How do local experiences get elided or highlighted within these campaigns? Whose voices are given more weight and for what purpose? In order to fully understand the lived experiences of those effected by disasters, today’s mediated environment necessitates parsing through their production and consumption via communication technologies.
The article discusses how the popularization of Japanese popular culture in the U.S. has led many... more The article discusses how the popularization of Japanese popular culture in the U.S. has led many American fans to question the extent to which their identities are constructed through the consumption of foreign cultural materials that are increasingly being "Americanized." It also refers to the increase in U.S. sales of Japanese anime and comics that coincides with the heightened global exchange and interest in Japan's contemporary popular culture.
This study situates geospatial technology within the platform economy and constructs its brand cu... more This study situates geospatial technology within the platform economy and constructs its brand culture, making it visible as a for-profit business rather than a utility. A critical lens is turned on the macroscopic economic and micro-social processes of the geospatial industry that result in the hegemonic relations and discursive regimes that legitimize and naturalize a common geospatially equipped, data-driven world. The annual user conventions and platform marketing of Esri, the global market leader in geographical information systems (GIS), acts as a site to observe how an imagined geospatial community of practitioners and investors is constructed. Branded content is unpacked to understand how the company’s image-making cultivates power relations between the public at large while negating itself as gatekeeper. These symbolic processes and collective practices help influence the uncritical investment and growth of the geospatial industry.
Mapping Risk situates geospatial technologies in a long line of media composing an evolving (nucl... more Mapping Risk situates geospatial technologies in a long line of media composing an evolving (nuclear) imagination of disaster while unpacking the assumptions of a field of knowledge that position them as risk managing technologies par excellence. It considers how spatial technology acts in the “risk society” as a visual cultural media practice. That is, as a technology of risk production and risk management within the context of ordinary everydayness and catastrophic extraordinariness. Threads of inquiry include unpacking the social and economic evaluation and subsequent branding practices of geospatial technology by practitioners and commercial suppliers to show how these tools are positioned as systematic means to see and manage the world. It then follows these assumptions into spheres of media practice. First, it examines the applications of geospatial technologies by news media outlets and social media networks during past large-scale disasters and ongoing cases of risk. The loc...
This study situates geospatial technology within the platform economy and constructs its brand cu... more This study situates geospatial technology within the platform economy and constructs its brand culture, making it visible as a for-profit business rather than a utility. A critical lens is turned on the macroscopic economic and micro-social processes of the geospatial industry that result in the hegemonic relations and discursive regimes that legitimize and naturalize a common geospatially equipped, data-driven world. The annual user conventions and platform marketing of Esri, the global market leader in geographical information systems (GIS), acts as a site to observe how an imagined geospatial community of practitioners and investors is constructed. Branded content is unpacked to understand how the company’s image-making cultivates power relations between the public at large while negating itself as gatekeeper. These symbolic processes and collective practices help influence the uncritical investment and growth of the geospatial industry.
At a time when industries are struggling to monetize the diversification of information flows in ... more At a time when industries are struggling to monetize the diversification of information flows in the digital economy, the transition from a "software as a…
Commentary in Environment and Planning A. Co-authors: Jim Thatcher, Luke Bergmann, Britta Ricker,... more Commentary in Environment and Planning A. Co-authors: Jim Thatcher, Luke Bergmann, Britta Ricker, Reuben Rose-Redwood, (Landscapes of Injustice Research Collective), David O'Sullivan, Trevor J Barnes, Luke R Barnesmoore, Laura Beltz Imaoka, Ryan Burns, Jonathan Cinnamon, Craig M Dalton, Clinton Davis, Stuart Dunn, Francis Harvey, Jin-Kyu Jung, Ellen Kersten, LaDona Knigge, Nick Lally, Wen Lin, Dillon Mahmoudi, Michael Martin, Amir Sheikh, Taylor Shelton, Eric Sheppard, Chris W Strother, Alexander Tarr, Matthew W Wilson, and Jason C Young
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