Environmental activism in the platform society: Spatial agency in digital maps

Abstract

Digital maps structure how we understand and interact with space while simultaneously affording agency and the potential for an alternative use of space. This article investigates how digital maps exercise data and spatial agency. Our empirical object is the environmental mobile mapping application water refill map (WRM, Hong-Te/Fengcha Action奉茶行動) in Taiwan. Drawing on the walk-through method and semi-structured interviews with WRM’s founders, we examine how the app leverages the power of digital mapping to encourage participation in environmental activities. We argue that by facilitating data and spatial agency, digital maps enable placemaking at the cognitive and hermeneutic levels. They also turn closed spaces into public ones, thus aiding place-shaping. Meanwhile, this digital environmental activism takes place in a field of contestation and negotiation between agency and structure, apps and infrastructural platforms, collective action and individual power, and environmentalism and (adjusted) commercialism.

Keywords

App activism digital environmental activism digital maps platform spatial agency visibility

Introduction

From electronic guidebooks to digital maps, new technologies assist and structure our experience of cities and space. Historically, maps were not only a representation of space but also an encouragement to perform spatial practices and consume place (Urry, 1995). Today, digital and mobile technologies have turned maps into ‘geomedia’ (Thielmann, 2010). These new media reproduce meanings and orders of space and mediate our spatial experience by providing customized guidance and visualizing real-time geo data. In the age of big data, digital maps have enabled novel and effective ways of moving through and exploring space. At the same time, however, these spatial practices are constrained and controlled by the companies that run the digital mapping platforms. Privately owned digital maps conflate public infrastructure and consumerism, turning such maps into a contested field of meanings and ideologies.

Digital maps structure how we understand and interact with space while simultaneously affording agency and the potential for an alternative use of space. For instance, the rise of collaborative mapping platforms, such as OpenStreetMap (OSM) (2004), has allowed citizens to participate in mapping, including counter-mapping and the challenging of dominant, institutional spatial knowledge. In this sense, collaborative digital mapping can be conceived of as a form of data activism or data justice. Digital mapping has also been widely used by environmental activists to monitor the damage to nature. For example, the Chinese environmental data platform Bluemap (Weilan ditu 蔚蓝地图) shows real-time pollution data that enable citizens to learn which factories are the highest emitters (Sun and Yan, 2020). In this case, the digital map generates new forms of civic engagement (Baack, 2015; Milan, 2017). By allowing the visualization of data, this form of environmental activism works on the representation of space, thus demonstrating the power of data (Kennedy et al., 2015). While some collaborative digital maps focus on representing and monitoring space, others encourage engagement with physical areas, such as the locative social media Foursquare (2009), which cultivates a sense of place, facilitates digital placemaking and bonds people to place (Altman and Low, 1992; Halegoua, 2019; Wilken and Humphreys, 2021). In other words, digital maps with embedded socialization functions can turn abstract space into meaningful place. Therefore, collective digital maps afford two forms of agency. The first one represents space through practices of data activism. The second one reproduces space through meaning-making.

This article investigates how digital maps afford agency (Crang and Graham, 2007; Lammes, 2017). Our empirical object is the environmental mobile mapping application water refill map (WRM, Hong-Te/Fengcha Action奉茶行動) in Taiwan. Drawing on the walk-through method and semi-structured interviews with WRM’s founders, we examine how the app leverages the power of digital mapping to encourage participation in environmental activities. Starting in the 1980s, a growing number of environmental groups were established in Taiwan following important socioeconomic transformations. With the spread of the Internet and social media, a type of environmentalism focused on lifestyle has emerged and become popular. Social media and digital technologies help get more people involved in daily sustainable activities, changing environmental movements and making micro activism popular. In this article, we argue that mobile apps and digital maps are used for environmental activism to facilitate data and spatial agency. Digital maps enable placemaking at the cognitive and hermeneutic levels and they also turn closed spaces into public ones, thus aiding place-shaping. The article consists of three parts. In the first one, we review the literature on digital maps and agency. In the second one, we analyse WRM’s design and practices of spatial agency. In the third part, we discuss the idea of digital spatial agency to understand collaborative digital mapping and its interaction with businesses, the government and platforms.

Digitizing space

A map is never a self-evident and objective representation of the physical world; it is an inherently rhetorical tool that claims its symbolic power through narratives and shapes our perception of space (Dietzsch and Kunzelmann, 2017; Edney, 1990; Farman, 2010; Harley, 2001; Wood, 1992). The cultural history of cartography shows that maps are geospatial instruments closely tied with and utilized for the rise of colonial empires. Since the 15th century, maps have been used to mark natural resources’ sites and exert European control over local and Indigenous territories (Harris, 2004; Kidd, 2019). By reproducing a country’s boundaries, maps generate an imagined community and a feeling of shared sociality and identity, which contributes to institutional power (Anderson, 2006; Crampton, 2001). In this sense, mapping is a mechanism of knowledge production that creates meaning and shapes our perceptions and actions (Edson, 2001; Entrikin, 1991; Wall and Kirdnark, 2012). New technologies, such as satellites and mobile devices, have enabled new ways of producing geolocational representations of space based on mathematical models (Dietzsch and Kunzelmann, 2017; Lapenta, 2011). Furthermore, the embedding of maps in software and big data leads to what scholars have termed ‘digitized space’ or ‘code/space’ (Kitchin and Dodge, 2011).

Mobile technology has reconfigured space and experience (De Souza e Silva and Frith, 2010; Sheller and Urry, 2006; Thrift and French, 2002). Kitchin and Dodge (2011: x) have argued that ‘the production of space is increasingly dependent on code, and code is written to produce space’. Unlike coded space where software has an impact on spatiality, code/space involves the mutual constitution of the spatiality of everyday life and software (Kitchin and Dodge, 2011). Traditional maps can be seen as a form of coded space that helps people to build their knowledge of and navigate through physical space. Digital maps represent a form of code/space where space is contingent and reproduced via augmented technology, real-time data, algorithms and interfaces. Digital maps create a hybrid space where augmented reality overlays the physical space, bridging digital/networked/online spaces and actual/lived/offline ones (De Souza e Silva, 2006; Kluitenbrouwer, 2006). The hybridity of a layered digital map implies not only the convergence of the virtual and the real but also the entanglement of the geosphere (the material world) and the infosphere (the symbolic world). A digital map is thus a technologically mediated space (Dietzsch and Kunzelmann, 2017; Lammes, 2017; Lapenta, 2011) or what scholars have termed ‘geomedia’ (Thielmann, 2010). Another feature of digital maps is that they are contingent and rely upon real-time data. As a result, mapping becomes an incomplete process that requires continuous actualization and ongoing communication between satellites, platforms and users (Crang and Graham, 2007; Dietzsch and Kunzelmann, 2017; Kitchin et al., 2012). To process real-time data, digital maps must use software and algorithms, and rely on mega platforms.

Digital maps afford multidimensional and mutable representations on the cartographical interface, which may enable the visibility and discovery of space (Crang and Graham, 2007; Lammes, 2017). At the same time, algorithms may affect and nudge our mobility choices (Barreneche, 2012; Graham, 2005; Shapiro, 2018; Thrift, 2011). Moreover, compared to traditional cartography, the technique-driven and algorithm-assisted methods used in digital maps have distanced them from subjectivity and enhanced the scientific and objective pursuit of mapping, which obfuscates important ideological problems and implications (Farman, 2010; Kwan, 2002). While the paper map represents the spatial dimensions of political power, the digital map produced by transnational corporations, such as Google is used for the real-time monitoring of users and the provision of customized services and data to consumers (Andrejevic, 2003; Dietzsch and Kunzelmann, 2017). Digital mapping technologies and products, such as Global Positioning System (GPS), Google Maps and Google Earth were originally developed as defence equipment and later used in the business world. Offered at no cost, these digital maps are infrastructures that provide a public service. At the same time, they are owned by private companies and incorporate the profit logic of commercial platforms and corporate ecosystems (Lee, 2010; Plantin et al., 2018). Platforms capitalize the mapping function in different ways. For instance, Google Maps offers a subscription-only application programming interface (API) to business customers and encourages users to look for certain companies and information (Lee, 2010; Plantin et al., 2018). Snapchat embeds a location function and focuses on venue-based advertising interactions (Wilken and Humphreys, 2021). Furthermore, digital maps are personal in nature as users can have a customized perspective on space, which may result in the privatization of public space based on hidden algorithms. These platform-owned digital maps and location-based services have thus ushered in what critical geographic information systems (GIS) scholars call ‘digital (geospatial) capitalism’ (Alvarez Leon, 2019; Elwood and Leszczynski, 2012; Leszczynski, 2012; Smith, 2014).

Although digital maps, such as Google Maps, are constrained by the platform and consumerist culture (Lee, 2010), they also afford opportunities for users to interact with maps and present their views. This enables alternatives to a ‘master’ map of authority (Farman, 2010). The dialectical relationship between structure and agency has long been discussed in the social sciences (Giddens, 1984). De Certeau (1984) theorized two types of spatial practices: strategic practices that are often implemented by those with authority to design, construct and control the organization and norms of space, and tactical practices that are performed by the weak to create their meanings of space in subversive ways. Strategic practices establish spatial structure while tactical practices generate spatial agency. Mobile and augmented technologies enable new tactical spatial practices by allowing users to add digital layers and assert their meaning on the map (Humphreys and Liao, 2013; Liao and Humphreys, 2015). In turn, this pluralizes the authorship of augmented space and promotes an alternative use of, and a new engagement with, the environment (Crang and Graham, 2007; Kraan, 2006). Users can deploy online tools and mobile applications to perform amateur or collaborative map-making, create counter-hegemonic maps and reclaim public spaces through activism (Crang and Graham, 2007; Farman, 2010; Wall and Kirdnark, 2012). Digital technologies, therefore, have facilitated both control over space and spatial agency.

Agency in the production of space

Lefebvre (1991) argued that space is socially constructed and proposed a three-tiered model to analyse its construction: actual space, discursive space (representations of space) and lived space (representational space). Actual physical space is constructed by various actors, such as governments, developers and architects. Representations of space consist of discourses that assign meaning to space. Representational space pertains to how people experience space. Through its production, space is invested with meaning and becomes place (Cresswell, 2004; Lefebvre, 1991). Drawing on Lefebvre’s production of space, architecture scholars have suggested the notion of spatial agency to examine architects’ design practices as spatial practices (Lorne, 2017). The notion highlights that space is dynamic and its production is a continuous process that is open to adjustments and alternatives (Awan et al., 2011).

Digital mapping applications and interfaces have enabled users to input their data and interact with maps, which has introduced participation and agency in spatial practices. However, agency is not only about interactivity. Moreover, the extent to which spatial agency in digital mapping modifies or reproduces space requires further exploration (Farman, 2010; Lammes, 2017). There are currently three ways of exercising spatial agency with digital maps: crowd mapping, counter-mapping and locative social media-assisted spatial practices. While crowd mapping and counter-mapping mainly work on the representation of space, locative social media facilitate the lived experience of space.

Crowd mapping

Crowd mapping, also known as collective mapping or participatory mapping, consists of user-led map modifications. Platforms, such as OpenStreetMap (2004), Google Map Maker (2008) and Ushahidi’s Crowdmap (2010) invite users to upload data, edit their neighbourhoods’ maps and add layers to them. These practices change how the map looks and create new affordances for documenting and organizing spatial activities (Lammes, 2017; Massey and Snyder, 2012; Miner, 2020). In some cases, collective mapping has been used by social movements during times of crisis (Rodríguez-Amat and Brantner, 2016). However, while this kind of mapping generates a degree of spatial agency, crowd-sourced information is still controlled and traded for commercial and institutional purposes, which constrains full-fledged participation (Lammes, 2017; Morabito, 2015; Silva et al., 2013).

Counter-mapping

The concept of oppositional crowd mapping, or counter-mapping, was first introduced to describe Indigenous peoples’ efforts to tell their experiences of colonization and question land ownership and state land-use plans underwritten by colonial law (Kukutai and Taylor, 2016a; Peluso, 1995). The history of Indigenous settlement is often marginalized and misrepresented on maps, and conventional cartography is mainly used for extractivist purposes. However, digital counter-mapping allows Indigenous peoples and activists to intervene in spatial practices, challenge the Western cartographic gaze and reaffirm local knowledge (Leavy, 2014; Pumpa, 2007; Rigney, 2018; Specht and Feigenbaum, 2018; Syme, 2020). By critiquing governments’ data sets, counter-mapping can be seen as a form of data activism that reclaims Indigenous sovereignty and decolonizes the state (Bruno et al., 2014; Dalton and Stallman, 2018; Harris and Hazen, 2005; Kukutai and Taylor, 2016b; Milan and Van der Velden, 2016; Miner, 2020). In a study of the Indigenous peoples of Canada, Kidd (2019) found that counter-mapping was first used as part of negotiations with the state over land claims. Later, the focus shifted and digital mapping tools are now used as part of larger trans-media campaigns for Indigenous sovereignty. By uploading user data and telling alternative stories, counter-mapping changes the representation of space and promotes data justice.

Locative social media

Digital maps have become a kind of geomedia, or locative social media, which facilitate spatial activities and connections through interpersonal and group communication (Jethani and Leorke, 2013; Rizopoulos et al., 2008). These geomedia include social networks, such as Foursquare and platforms that embed geo data and location-based services. Locative social media are mobile interfaces that connect people and space, thereby reproducing the social order and power relations (Farman, 2012; Sutko and De Souza e Silva, 2011; Zeffiro, 2012). While digital mapping mainly replicates representations of space, locative social media work at the representational level of space. They turn space into place embedded with experience and meaning, thus creating what scholars have termed ‘digital placemaking’ (Wilken and Humphreys, 2021). In other words, mobile media and communication technologies have transformed how people interact and bond with public spaces (Halegoua, 2019: 16).

Mobile locative social networks enable people to share socio-locational information, which turns distant realms into close ones endowed with a sense of community (Crang and Graham, 2007; Humphreys, 2010; Humphreys and Liao, 2013). Mobile geotagging and social applications, such as Dodgeball, Foursquare and Socialight, allow people to communicate about place by sharing place-based narratives and adding augmented reality (AR) layers on maps. These activities help change the way people experience places, become familiar with user groups and form their identities (Humphreys and Liao, 2011, 2013; Liao et al., 2020; Liao and Humphreys, 2015). At the representational level of space, locative social media reanimate spaces, enable original ways of gathering in public and create new sociotechnical communities through narratives and performances (Crang and Graham, 2007; Humphreys, 2007; Humphreys and Liao, 2011). With mobile locative social networks, physical space, representations of space and representational space contribute to the formation of one another. The digital layers and narratives of such networks can reconfigure physical space, thus encouraging social interactions (De Souza e Silva and Frith, 2010). At the same time, physical (offline) activities can enhance place attachment and are often presented online to display a ‘spatial self’ (Schwartz and Halegoua, 2015). In this sense, crowd mapping, counter-mapping and locative social media afford spatial agency in the production of space in both virtual and actual ways.

Research questions and methods

The literature on digital mapping and spatial agency has mainly examined crowd mapping and counter-mapping by Indigenous peoples and the use of locative social media for community interaction. In these cases, digital mapping tools are deployed either as a force opposed to mainstream representations or as a novel way of enacting place for commercial purposes. These tools, therefore, bring both possibilities and constrains in the production of space. This article examines how location-based mapping applications enable spatial agency within geo-mapping platforms.

The article uses the WRM app launched in 2020 in Taiwan as a case study to probe into digital mapping and placemaking in the context of environmental data activism. There are three main reasons for choosing WRM as a case study. First, the app uses digital mapping to promote sustainable lifestyles and encourage engagement with space; thus, it represents a good example of how geo-mapping mediates people’s experiences of space. Second, WRM uses Google Maps as its mapping base, which allows us to delve into the complex relationship between activism and infrastructure platforms. Third, according to its official website, WRM has more than 220,000 users, which indicates that it is a popular form of digital environmental activism. The article’s primary research questions are: How does WRM reproduce space and enable agency? How is this agency structured and used by the different actors involved?

To answer the above research questions, we used data collected using the walk-through method and semi-structured interviews. One of the researchers registered and used a user profile to conduct the walk-through method, observed the activity of other users and documented the screens and daily use between July 2021 and December 2022. There are two reasons for repeated observations and documentation over this period. First, WRM is geomedia and we attempted to integrate it into our daily life, and explore how the app functions and is used in different places. Second, WRM is a newly launched app that is regularly updated; thus, the research traced the development of the app. We used the walk-through method to engage with the app’s interface, documenting its features, flows and activities (Dieter et al., 2019; Light et al., 2018). This method was useful for understanding how the app reproduces space and mobilizes users to participate in spatial practices. Our research aims to examine this emerging form of activism in the digital age and to study how the app structures and affords spatial agency and environmental activism; therefore, we focused primarily on the design of the app and the actors involved. More details regarding citizen-users’ use of the app can be studied in the future.

We also interviewed WRM’s founding team (a group of four people) to explore the design and operation of the app, how it uses geo-mapping to promote environmentalism and the challenges it faces. WRM’s CEO, Huang Wei-Cheng (黃暐程), represented the WRM team as the main interviewee in our research. Semi-structured interviews allow for both guidance and flexibility in the enquiry (Lofland et al., 2006). We also collected data and posts from the CircuPlus website and Facebook page as well as users’ comments on the app. Finally, we collected official documents on environmental protection from local authorities to situate the case study in Taiwan.

Analysis

WRM encourages users, businesses and the public sector to mark on the mobile map where free water refill machines are located. Through crowd mapping, WRM makes places visible on the digital map based on its sustainability criteria, thus reproducing space at the level of representation. The app uses gamification techniques to encourage spatial practices and promote environmentalist activities, thereby enabling users to rediscover and participate in urban spaces. Still, WRM is embedded in and limited by the commercial mapping platforms that offer the necessary infrastructural services. This section examines how WRM enables spatial practices among its users and discusses the app’s entangled relationship with different actors in the construction of spatial agency.

WRM and its social enterprise combine mobile communication with data activism and interweave activism with daily life, connecting multiple actors together in a form of lifestyle activism (Sotirakopoulos, 2016). We identified five major actors in this form of environmentalist activism enabled by the digital map app: the WRM app, users of the app, free water suppliers (including small local businesses and large companies), the government and infrastructural platforms (Figure 1).

Figure 1.

Five major actors in the app-enabled environmentalist activism.

The app

WRM was developed by CircuPlus, a new social enterprise aiming to promote a circular economy. According to Huang Wei-Cheng, the founder of CircuPlus and initiator of WRM, CircuPlus currently operates mainly in three directions: running the WRM, advocating and raising public awareness of environmental protection via social media and offline workshops, and building a circular economy community by cooperating with start-ups and helping companies to build up their environmental, social and governance (ESG) efforts, and corporate social responsibility (CSR). The WRM app uses government open data and crowd mapping to collect and provide free drinking water services, aiming to achieve a 1% (10 million) reduction in plastic bottles in Taiwan.

In addition to the action-oriented mobile application, CircuPlus uses its social media accounts to share knowledge about environmental protection and to promote its campaigns and workshops on the sustainable economy. It directs traffic to its WRM app and helps users engage with each other both online and offline. CircuPlus’s main income comes from its collaboration with companies and start-ups, and it has an e-commerce platform selling eco-friendly goods from its partners. WRM users can exchange points for digital coupons that can be spent on environmentally friendly goods, including organic cleaning products, eco-bags, reusable straws and recycled toilet paper. Meanwhile, CircuPlus collaborates with companies to develop ESG projects via the WRM app and water refill machines. In this sense, operated by CircuPlus, WRM is an entrepreneurial endeavour embedded within the digital economy.

Users

WRM provides a digital map of water refill machines (see Figure 2). By clicking the waterdrop icon of each site, users can obtain information about where the machine is located (e.g. the floor in the building) and when the service is available, as well as the kind of water offered (e.g. cold, hot, room temperature). Users can also read other people’s comments on the water refill spot and write their own. In addition to finding water, WRM invites users to construct the digital map by uploading newly discovered refill spots or adding more information about an existing refill spot on the map. When participating in crowd mapping, users are not only using the digital map but also constructing it and improving visibility of local space.

Figure 2.

The interface of the digital map WRM.

The digital map encourages users to actively engage with space, and the app mediates online and offline spaces and spatial activities via its gamification design. In WRM, users can complete tasks and earn points by inviting others to download the app, update the map or comment. In users’ personal profiles, they can see how many points they have earned, the tasks they have completed (e.g. crowd mapping new spots, inviting others, commenting) and the amount of water they have refilled. Based on the number of points, users are classified as ‘sustainable travellers’, ‘sustainable talents’ or ‘sustainable masters’ (see Figure 3).

Figure 3.

Classifications of users.

WRM deploys gamification to keep its users active, especially regarding their water refill habits. This strategy leads to physical engagement with public spaces and changes in users’ daily spatial practices. The physical activities are then pictured and incorporated into the gamified system. The gamification mechanisms bridge online representations of space and offline spatial practices, thereby bringing digital spatial agency into the real world. Meanwhile, WRM visualizes the data and achievements of users’ spatial activities, and users can see how many plastic bottles, trees and carbon emissions they have saved. Gamification and datafication are common tactics used by commercial apps to increase daily active users, and users’ behavioural data are traced and recorded for analytics. WRM applies this set of commercial logic to promote environmentally friendly activities, blurring the line between consumers and activists. While users actively participate in crowd mapping and searching for water refill machines, they are also datafied by the app and these data (e.g. how many plastic bottles have been saved) are used by water suppliers for ESG measurement and CSR management.

The water suppliers

Shops, restaurants and other businesses are encouraged to partner with WRM and install refill machines for the public. Most water supply machines are provided by local businesses or sponsored by large companies. Local shops, restaurants and businesses can volunteer to offer new water refill spots. By doing so, some small and local businesses can make themselves visible on the digital map and attract potential customers and visitors. As previously discussed, digital maps are key in shaping our knowledge of and experience with space. Currently, all major digital map platforms, such as Google Maps, have their own algorithms and recommendation systems that make certain places visible and others invisible (Beer, 2009; Bucher, 2012; Cotter, 2019). On these mapping platforms, visibility is governed by profit-driven logic. For instance, on Google Maps, users can search for information about restaurants and shops, and rankings are often based on distance and customer ratings. To boost visibility in the ranking systems, shops and restaurants can pay for advertisements. In contrast, WRM enables an alternative way of constructing visibility in the digital space. By offering water refill spots, small and local businesses have the agency to participate in spatial construction on the digital map and to make themselves seen beyond the consumption-oriented and algorithm-governed recommendation system. Currently, users can find nearby water refill machines, yet no rankings are provided.

WRM introduces the logic of environmental sustainability to construct visibility in digital space, and this alternative method of spatial construction can also be used for marketing and branding. In 2022, CircuPlus collaborated with the ‘Walk in Taiwan’ tourist group to promote a sustainable walking tour in Dadaocheng (大稻埕), the old part of Taipei. They encouraged local businesses to offer free water refill spots, and tourists could learn about these spots via the digital map or the WRM stickers placed at the entrances of certain streets. This project constructed place visibility both online and offline. It enabled shops and restaurants to access tourist flows while reducing the use of plastic. The result was an alternative tourism map that encouraged sustainable travel and promoted local merchants.

Aside from local businesses, WRM has collaborated with large companies, including petroleum corporations and supermarkets, setting up free water refill spots in gas stations and supermarkets. Based on the WRM app, CircuPlus offers packages of ESG management (see Figures 4 and 5). For companies that offer or sponsor free water refill machines and spots, CircuPlus lists them as partners and helps them get media exposure and be labelled as environmentally friendly. In the app, users can also see a banner noting how many free water refill spots a company has sponsored. The WRM app collects data regarding the use of the water refill machines and turns these data into a quantified measurement of ESG. In this way, WRM bridges citizen participation and ESG management, contributing to both environmental activism and business strategies.

Figure 4.

CircuPlus offers packages of ESG management: Plan 1: To join with self-owned water refill machines.

Figure 5.

CircuPlus offers packages of ESG management: Plan 2: To donate water refill machines.

The government and public sectors

The government also plays an important role in this app-enabled environmental activism. First, the government provides open data of public water supply machines, and WRM uses the open data and is listed as a partner of the government’s open data platform (Data.gov.tw). Second, the public sector is encouraged to offer and create water refill spots. The Environmental Protection Administration (EPA) set a 24-hour water refill machine at the gate of its office building, and the administration calls on other government administrations and public organizations to join WRM. According to the EPA, by August 2022, 75% of the 8300 water refill spots were provided by government and public sectors (Lee, 2022). In the WRM app, users can choose to search water refill machines provided by the public sector or private businesses (see Figure 6). Many government buildings and public sectors provide free water refill machines, but these spots were previously unknown to citizens. WRM uses government open data to make these otherwise hidden spots visible on the digital map, enabling the rediscovery of public spaces.

Figure 6.

The search interface of the digital map.

Third, the government has endorsed and integrated WRM into its evaluation system and the green economy criteria. Taiwan has rigorously implemented the sustainable development goals (SDGs), and according to the Environmental Protection Administration (EPA) (2020), WRM contributes to eight SDGs. Therefore, WRM is not only endorsed by companies for ESG and CSR management but also supported by the government as an effective way of promoting the green economy. Some local authorities have integrated WRM into their development plans and performance evaluations. For instance, to build a green city, the Environment Bureau of New Taipei City drafted an environmental certification plan for its districts, and if the district administrations have downloaded the WRM app and provided free water refill spots, they can earn five points for certification (Environmental Protection Department, New Taipei City Government, 2021). Hence, the government is also an important actor in promoting and supporting app-enabled environmental activism.

Apart from the government, WRM also aligns with other public sectors and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) to organize joint activism. For instance, between 4 November and 30 December 2022, WRM collaborated with the Foundation for Women’s Rights and Taiwan Women’s Centre to promote the Women Hong-Te Campaign (see Figure 1), in which trip routes are designed to learn about the history of women in Taiwan and users are encouraged to visit these spots and use the water refill machines. Moreover, 19 feminist organizations and centres for women’s welfare participated in the campaign to offer free water refill spots. Therefore, WRM not only increases the visibility of small businesses but also makes those public spaces visible in the digital map, allowing cross-promoting and alliances between different forms of activism.

The infrastructural platform

WRM promotes environmental sustainability through crowd mapping. To some extent, therefore, it provides an alternative to the algorithm-based visibility offered by geo-mapping platforms, thus enabling spatial agency. However, WRM’s spatial agency and environmentalist practices are embedded within the infrastructural platform and the app ecosystem.

WRM is based on Google Maps’ open API, for which it must pay. According to its CEO, due to the app’s increasing popularity, WRM paid twice as much in 2021 as it did in 2020. The Google Maps Platform (2018) implements a pay-as-you-go pricing model based on the tracked use of each product’s stock-keeping unit (SKU) (the combination of the product API and the service or function used), and the SKU pricing is tiered based on usage volume. Therefore, the more traffic WRM gets, the more they must pay to use Google Maps. The CEO complains about the increased charge from Google Maps, but he believes that they have to choose Google Maps because most people use it and know its interface. Before WRM, the NGO Taiwan Environmental Information Centre (TEIA) used OSM to develop a WRM called Water Go (https://watergo.teia.tw), but this plan was terminated in 2019. WRM drew on TEIA’s data and used Google Maps to develop an app. According to the CEO of WRM, there were two problems with Water Go. First, it was developed as a website and thus was not mobile or convenient for use. Second, users are more familiar with the interface of Google Maps. Moreover, while collaborating with open-source communities affords new possibilities for activism in the digital age, it also raises questions, such as how to maintain long-term and effective collaboration between activist groups and open-source communities. In the case of WRM, they use mega platforms as a convenient and effective method for activism.

Although WRM and other geomedia may afford users a certain degree of agency in digital mapping, most of the apps and digital maps are nested in and are controlled by mega platforms. These mega platforms provide infrastructural support but also imprint their commercial traits and consumer-oriented perspectives into most apps and products. For instance, ‘traffic’ and daily active users are often datafied to evaluate the popularity of an app, and WRM also adopts these criteria and uses these data when promoting their packages for ESG management. Unlike other crowd mapping and counter-mapping tools, WRM is a social enterprise that collaborates with commercial platforms and companies, although its functions partly challenge the hegemonic spatial logic.

Discussion

This article examines how the WRM app enables spatial practices among its users and partners and discusses the app’s entangled relationship with businesses, the government and commercial mapping platforms. WRM brings different actors together in the reproduction of space through digital mapping and spatial engagement, introducing environmentalist concerns into spatial practices. There has been a rise in app-enabled activism and pro-environment movements worldwide. For instance, the app ‘Reefill’ is doing similar things to WRM. We argue that this type of pro-environment digital mapping app has afforded digital spatial agency and new ways of doing environmentalist activism; however, this type of agency is also constrained by the infrastructural platform and the social context in which the app is nested.

Digital spatial agency: visibility and engagement

WRM reproduces space mainly by boosting the visibility of certain sites and facilitating interactions between place and people. We propose the idea of digital spatial agency to understand WRM’s reproduction of space. Digital spatial agency refers to the ability of mapping tools to reconstruct and reform spatial representations and practices. This form of agency works at different levels of spatial production. At the level of representation, it challenges existing spatial configurations by creating new perspectives and visibilities. This is often achieved via crowd mapping or counter-mapping. At the practical and representational levels, digital spatial agency introduces and enables novel ways of spatial engagement and experience.

In the case of WRM, this agency occurs in two ways. First, the app uses crowd mapping to enhance the visibility of free water refill spots, thereby providing an alternative to geomedia platform algorithms. This digital spatial agency visualizes otherwise invisible places on the digital map and this visualization has two effects. One is to help places that are not being advertised and do not receive enough feedback (and are thus marginalized by algorithms) become visible in digital space. By choosing to offer free water, shops and restaurants have a kind of agency. The second effect is to allow people to rediscover public places. WRM draws on government open data to locate water refill spots offered by public facilities, administration buildings and NGOs. The water refill machines in these public sectors are available, but citizens may not be aware of them. WRM makes these public resources visible and accessible to citizens. Moreover, the government’s endorsement of the app has led to more local authorities creating free water supply stations. These have enabled the rediscovery of and interaction with otherwise neglected public spaces and resources.

The second way that digital spatial agency takes place is through the actualization of spatial (re)production in physical space. This agency is actualized through the app’s gamified system, which engages users and generates activity. Users of the WRM app can earn points every time they use a water refill machine, invite friends to join WRM or upload water refill spots and they can upgrade to master levels of environmentalist in WRM. The gamified mechanism is intended to encourage and maintain daily active users, a tactic used by many mobile apps. To earn green points, users record their use of water refill machines, and their environmentally friendly activities are scored and turned into data. The records and data are then visualized as the outcome of environmental activism enabled by WRM and used for ESG and CSR management. In this way, while WRM affords its users and partners a certain degree of agency in digital mapping and environmentalist activism, the agency is also structured by the app and embedded within the datafication mechanism of platform society.

Agency and environmentalist activism in the age of platform society

Internet platforms allow new avenues of mobilization and facilitate bottom-up organization and communication of activities. However, some scholars have questioned whether digital technologies can foster fruitful engagement, mentioning superficial ‘clicktivism’ and ‘slacktivism’ (Büscher, 2016). Furthermore, the economic context in which digital technologies have emerged privileges consumer spending and individual actions, thereby contradicting the goals of collective environmental movements and resulting in the commodification of nature (e.g. ecotourism, paying for ecosystem services; see Büscher, 2016; Dorsey et al., 2004). At the macro level, then, the case of WRM reflects the shifting landscape of environmental movements in Taiwan as well as negotiations between the values of environmentalism and commercialism.

WRM is an example of digital environmental activism initiated by a mobile app, introducing a kind of activism that adopts apps as tools for connection and mobilization, involving users, businesses, local authorities and infrastructure platforms. As a daily environmentally friendly activity, users of WRM can reduce their daily consumption of plastic bottles. In addition, by searching for and crowd mapping water refill spots, users can change the way they interact with local spaces by acquiring a degree of spatial agency. Local authorities and businesses can offer free water supplies, thus making themselves visible on the digital map and demonstrating their concern for the environment and social responsibility, which are two of the criteria of a green economy. While WRM constructs a new visibility for certain spaces and actualizes spatial practices, this form of app-initiated activism is deeply embedded into everyday life and the platform ecosystem, blurring the line between users and activists and between political responsibility and daily consumption.

Mobile apps have become the main interfaces and channels through which we interact with society and others, forming a kind of social, cultural and economic form of power (Gerlitz et al., 2019; Goggin, 2021). As digital infrastructures, apps collect and transmute social behaviours, locations and biological information into data, facilitating the datafication process and governance of society. While apps and datafication have become two dominant forms of power in (re)shaping our society, people call for alternative uses of apps and agency in the datafication process to enhance rather than undermine the agency of the public (Kennedy et al., 2015). WRM can be regarded as an alternative use of an app for environmentalist activities and public engagement.

However, being originally developed for commercial purposes and as informational products in nature, apps also introduce commercial logic into activism. WRM uses gamification and encourages its users to record their use of free water refill machines, and the data are then visualized as the outcome of the environmental initiatives. Companies that provide free water refill machines can use the data (e.g. how many plastic bottles have been saved) for ESG measurement and metrics. In this way, WRM not only affords spatial agency but also combines environmental activism with the company’s ESG and CSR management. WRM uses the infrastructural platform and the market as the arena for activism and brings activists, citizens, businesses and local authorities together, creating what scholars term ‘political consumerism’ (Stolle and Micheletti, 2013). This form of app-enabled activism moves beyond traditional NGOs and aligns with business, and thus is instrumental-utility driven and problem-solving oriented (Farrer, 2015; Rootes, 2013). While this form of lifestyle activism has adopted universalist claims and integrates activism into everyday life, some doubt whether it in fact makes people less likely to challenge systematic problems (Sotirakopoulos, 2016).

The rise of digital environmental activism has brought new possibilities for agency and collaboration between activism and business; however, many questions remain to be further discussed and explored. First, app-enabled activism allows individualized ways of participating in activism and is embedded in everyday life, which differs from previous collective environmental movements. Strictly speaking, WRM is not yet a locative social media tool. Its users cannot interact with each other, aside from inviting friends to join or reading other people’s comments. In a complementary way, WRM relies on offline workshops to build its activist and user communities. While enabling individual power and agency, app-enabled activism underplays collective action.

The second question is: Are there alternative ways of practicing digital activism outside platform monopolies to develop digital tools for activism in platform society? WRM chooses to use Google Maps because it has drawn on lessons from previous NGOs’ failures to use open-source maps. Apart from using social media platforms, how do traditional NGOs and activist groups collaborate with open communities and tech-savvy activists in their digital transformation? WRM provides one example of using a mobile app and data for activism, but we must explore other ways of practicing app-enabled activism and data activism.

Third, WRM blurs the line between users and activists. Users are afforded a certain degree of agency; however, their use of the digital map is structured and datafied by the app. This convenient form of environmental activism can be complementary to collective environmental movements, but it is not clear whether using WRM makes people less likely to confront systems that are doing more damage to the environment. Future research could further explore users’ environmental concerns and other pro-environment behaviours. Finally, the success of WRM is tied to Taiwan’s endorsement of the green economy and the SDGs. Digital environmental activism takes place in a field of contestation and negotiation between agency and structure, apps and infrastructural platforms, collective action and individual power and environmentalism and (adjusted) commercialism. The geo-mapping app WRM has reproduced space and enabled spatial agency, but the agency and app-enabled activism are also conditioned by the infrastructural platform and the socioeconomic context in which the app is born.

Footnotes

Funding

The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research and/or authorship of this article: The research has received funding from National Science and Technology Council Project, ‘Data activism: NGO workers, netizens and Hackers in a datafied civil society’ (no. 110-2410-H-002-246-MY2).

ORCID iD

Yu-Peng Lin

Author biographies

Jing Meng is an assistant professor in media studies at Peking University HSBC Business school. Her research interests reside in digital journalism, digital technologies and critical data studies.

Yu-Peng Lin is an assistant professor in the Department of Taiwan Languages and Communication at National United University, Taiwan. His research interests are platform studies, new media and media policy.

Hui-Ju Tsai is an assistant professor in the Graduate Institute of Journalism at National Taiwan University, Taiwan. Her research orientation is critical political economy approach to studying platformization of communication and the democratization of popular culture.

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