Abstract
Reviewed by:
Rebecca Noone, PhD Candidate, University of Toronto, Canada
From tagging locations on Twitter to pinning places on Facebook, sharing location-based information is now a regular part of engaging with social media. Evans and Saker’s 2017 book situates these social acts of location sharing within a media archaeology of location-based social media networks (LBSN). LBSNs such as Foursquare, which peaked in popularity between 2010 and 2012, prompted actions such as ‘checking-in’ to favourite places and ‘discovering’ new locales based upon recommendations from a community of peers. Although LBSNs failed to get the mass audience on the scale of Facebook or Twitter, Evans and Saker argue that LBSNs are a type of ‘zombie media’ that continue to animate how location and location-based information is operationalized by popular social media platforms.
The compact volume is divided into five chapters: Introduction, Space, Time, Identity and Conclusions. Evans and Saker provide both a primer on locative media as well as a case for the sustained influence of LSBN on conceptualizing the online social presence of location. The book provides a thorough literature review of spatial theory and location-based information services. It positions LBSNs such as Foursquare and Gowalla as contingent on the developments of global positioning systems (GPS) and their commercial applications, while situating engagement with LSBNs in relation to playful locative practices such as the art of flânerie and the SMS text game Dodgeball. The authors connect their detailed framework to their ethnographic study of LBSN use.
Based on interviews with Foursquare users, Evans and Saker outline their case for how LBSNs influence the phenomenological experiences of space, time and identity. In Chapter 2, the authors examine Foursquare’s spatial affects through the lenses of embodiment and play, exploring how LBSNs generate new understandings of place among users. Chapter 3 focuses on the temporal conditions of locative media, arguing that LBSNs are ‘mediated memory objects’ based on how people who use them record and recall experiences of location. This affordance makes them an accessible means to tap into one’s ‘spatial past’ and possibly shape future experiences. Chapter 4 looks at LBSNs in relation to personal identity. According to Evans and Saker, LBSNs afford the creation of personal spatial narratives based on the decision-making processes of location sharing (what to share as well as where to go). The book concludes by considering how LBSNs’ narrow focus limited their appeal in comparison to the breadth of affordances offered by multifunctional platforms such as Facebook and WeChat.
The book provides a solid foundation for assessing the role LBSNs have played in shaping the socialization of location and location-based information through function of ‘places’, ‘checking-in’ and local expertise. The authors present a compelling case for how LBSNs’ niche for location sharing continues to permeate the social media landscape, opening up new areas of inquiry such as the commoditization of location through social media networks and the uneven means by which access to location is experienced. With Google reporting that almost one in three mobile searches are location-based, now is an important time to reflect on the affordance of location in everyday media use.