The Map in the Machine

Charting the Spatial Architecture of Digital Capitalism
1. Auflage 2024
ISBN: 978-0-520-38932-8
Verlag: University of California Press

Buch, Englisch, 222 Seiten, Trade Paperback, Format (B × H): 139 mm x 216 mm, Gewicht: 388 g

Digital technologies have changed how we shop, work, play, and communicate, reshaping our societies and economies. To understand digital capitalism, we need to grasp how advances in geospatial technologies underpin the construction, operation, and refinement of markets for digital goods and services. In The Map in the Machine, Luis F. Alvarez Leon examines these advances, from MapQuest and Google Maps to the rise of IP geolocation, ridesharing, and a new Earth Observation satellite ecosystem. He develops a geographical theory of digital capitalism centered on the processes of location, valuation, and marketization to provide a new vantage point from which to better understand, and intervene in, the dominant techno-economic paradigm of our time. By centering the spatiality of digital capitalism, Alvarez Leon shows how this system is the product not of seemingly intangible information clouds but rather of a vast array of technologies, practices, and infrastructures deeply rooted in place, mediated by geography, and open to contestation and change.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Alvarez Leon, Luis F.

Fachgebiete

• Sozialwissenschaften Politikwissenschaft Regierungspolitik Kultur-, Wissenschafts- & Technologiepolitik
• Geowissenschaften Geographie | Raumplanung Humangeographie
• Wirtschaftswissenschaften Wirtschaftssektoren & Branchen Medien-, Informations und Kommunikationswirtschaft Informationstechnik, IT-Industrie
• Technische Wissenschaften Bauingenieurwesen Vermessungswesen
• Mathematik | Informatik EDV | Informatik Technische Informatik Computersicherheit Datensicherheit, Datenschutz
• Sozialwissenschaften Politikwissenschaft Politische Ideologien

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Contents

List of Illustrations and Table

Acknowledgments

1. Introduction

2. Assembling the Base Map: From MapQuest to Google Street View

3. Location, Geolocation, Allocation

4. Eyes in the Sky and the Digital Planet

5. People, Platforms, and Robots on the Move

Conclusion: The Spatial Architecture of Digital Capitalism and the Power of Place

Notes

Bibliography

Index

Über Autor(innen)

Luis F. Alvarez Leon is Assistant Professor of Geography at Dartmouth College. He researches the political economy of geospatial data, media, and technologies.