Net Locality: Why Location Matters in a Networked World

Net Locality: Why Location Matters in a Networked World

“Net Locality is a superb and thought-provoking guide to the merging of communication, information and location.” —Steve Jones, University of Illinois at Chicago

“Territory no longer precedes the map; the map now precedes the territory.” —Jean Baudrillard, Postmodern Theorist

We don’t enter the web anymore; the web is all around us. The use of mobile phones and location-aware technologies signals that physical location has become an important factor in how data is categorized and accessed. Net Locality: Why Location Matters in a Networked World provides an introduction to the theory of Net Locality, an emerging form of location awareness, and a concept which is becoming central to cultural production, community engagement, and everyday life.

• Net Locality is the first book-length treatment of location-based media and its profound effect on individuals and societies

•    Describes net locality as an emerging form of location awareness central to all aspects of digital media, from mobile phones, to Google Maps, to location-based social networks and games, such as Foursquare and facebook.

•    Warns of the threats these technologies, such as data surveillance, present to our sense of privacy, while also outlining the opportunities for pro-social developments.

•    Provides a theory of the web in the context of the history of emerging technologies, from GeoCities to GPS, Wi-Fi, Wiki Me, and Google Android.

What happens to institutions, communities, and public spaces when virtually everything is located or locatable? Today being connected means walking through a public space, looking at different advertisement screens, buying clothes, and talking to somebody on a mobile phone. What can we do with this awareness to further enrich our everyday lives? As the authors point out throughout the book, net local technology can be used to organize impromptu political protests or to find nearby friends and resources, “The recent political protests showed that through the use of social networking, the local still matters. In fact, it can have an immediate and powerful global impact. Through net locality geography is more fluid, but never irrelevant. Meaning is always produced locally. It is really about what happens to us, our society, and our spaces once this infrastructure is in place. Net localities are practiced spaces; they develop over time, through social practices with technology.”

Net Locality: Why Location Matters in a Networked World tracks the phenomenon of networked locality in Western societies, as well as China and Japan. The authors point out, “How specific cultures appropriate technologies, adapt social practices, and produce cultural references, are going to influence the meanings of location.”