Open AccessNEOLIBERAL CARTOGRAPHY: A VISUAL-SEMIOTIC ANALYSIS OF THREE NAVIGATION APPS
Author(s) -
Igal Baum,
Rivka Ribak
Publication year - 2021
Publication title -
selected papers of internet research
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
ISSN - 2162-3317
DOI - 10.5210/spir.v2021i0.12142
Subject(s) - semiotics , presentation (obstetrics) , interactivity , perspective (graphical) , computer science , value (mathematics) , human–computer interaction , depiction , world wide web , artificial intelligence , art , epistemology , visual arts , radiology , medicine , philosophy , machine learning
The proposed presentation adopts visual-semiotic tools to analyze thevirtual environment conjured by the apps Waze, Moovit and Gett. Recent work has pointed tothe complicated relationship between maps and the spaces they purportedly depict,interpreting maps as simulacra that are intimately intertwined in the ideology and design ofgaming. In the presentation, we develop a semiotic walkthrough method that allows us toidentify four representational practices of these widely used navigation apps: the map ispersonalized and adopts the perspective of the user – in Waze the arrow represents the userrather than e.g. the North; the map is commercial in that it is informed by the economicmodel of the app, e.g Waze presenting only those gas stations that pay the company; the mapoffers a visual depiction of time – arguably, time rather than space is its raison d’être;and lastly, the map is reflexive, incorporating users’ data both to regulate their behavior(speed alert) and to seemingly subvert surveillance (police alert). In this cartographicregime, the map user adopts a “self as business” (Gershon, 2017) logic in which navigationmust constantly create value, as the map becomes less a tool for regulating behavior andmore, a tool for producing it (Zuboff, 2019).