Mapping
the
Australian spatial imaginary
via
social media
PETA MITCHELL @petamitchell
TIM HIGHFIELD @timhighfield
ELIZABETH ELLISON @liz_ellison
Queensland University of Technology
Digital Media Research Centre
ANZCA 2015, Queenstown NZ, 9 July 2015

Overview
This is a position paper, setting out our aims and rationale for
a project that brings together cultural studies, digital
methods, social and digital media, and cultural
geography…
Our proposal brings into dialogue two areas of research that
have to date had little or nothing to say to one another,
namely social media research and the branch of Australian
studies typified by its focus on spatial enquiry
Mapping the Australian spatial imaginary via social media | ANZCA 2015, Queenstown NZ, 9 July 2015
@petamitchell + @timhighfield + @liz_ellison 02

Aims + rationale
The project builds on the premise that georeferenced social
media data constitute ‘spatial stories’:
acutely involved in place-making through tweets,
Instagram posts, and other place-related online activity
The enacting of the Australian spatial imaginary through
social media: moving beyond ‘iconic’, distinctive, or singular
narratives within national imaginary to socially mediated
micronarratives of space that contribute to a socially
mediated spatial imaginary
Mapping the Australian spatial imaginary via social media | ANZCA 2015, Queenstown NZ, 9 July 2015
@petamitchell + @timhighfield + @liz_ellison 03

Representing space/place
Countering the monolithic representation of landscapes (be
they bush or beach settings), as by letting these spaces exist
as representative of all spaces, the image becomes an icon for
the nation.
A tension between naming and abstract (see Carter), as the
transition between place and space
an unnamed space can remain more abstract and
imaginary
yet social media may privilege the explicit naming/
locating of places and content?
Mapping the Australian spatial imaginary via social media | ANZCA 2015, Queenstown NZ, 9 July 2015
@petamitchell + @timhighfield + @liz_ellison 04

Representing space/place
Looking beyond the myths and tropes, our aim is to
challenge these abstract spaces as identified in, for example,
tourist representations, instead trying to capture the more
‘expressive’ places.
Our work is located in the everyday or ordinary, rather than
the mythic;
the difference between the perceived and conceived and
the lived spaces
Mapping the Australian spatial imaginary via social media | ANZCA 2015, Queenstown NZ, 9 July 2015
@petamitchell + @timhighfield + @liz_ellison 05

The spatial turn(s)
Research into mediated representations of Australian space
has focused on narrative, fictional, or aesthetic texts or has
taken a ‘spatial history’ approach to examine the cultural
construction of Australian regional or national space
This body of research is both evidence of and a continuing
response to the ‘spatial turn’ noted by Edward Soja and
Fredric Jameson in the late 1980s and early 1990s
(a movement that Australian spatial studies was at the
forefront of).
Mapping the Australian spatial imaginary via social media | ANZCA 2015, Queenstown NZ, 9 July 2015
@petamitchell + @timhighfield + @liz_ellison 06

Geosocial media
A more recent second—digital—spatial turn, particularly
evident in the rise of ‘geosocial’ media.
Locative media, platforms and services shaping experience
of place (e.g. Foursquare), geodata within everyday social
media
Ambient geographic information (Stefanidis, Crooks, and
Radzikowski, 2013), as distinct from volunteered geographic
information and crowdsourced (and explicit) geosocial
content.
Mapping the Australian spatial imaginary via social media | ANZCA 2015, Queenstown NZ, 9 July 2015
@petamitchell + @timhighfield + @liz_ellison 07

Methods + platforms
TrISMA: Tracking Infrastructure for Social Media in Australia
(ARC LIEF, 2014-2015)
Treating everyday social media as ‘geosocial’ (but with limits)
Twitter
Tags, keywords, geolocation (limited) – filtering posts from
Australian users
Instagram
Tags, geolocation (higher percentage of location data in
Instagram media)
Mapping the Australian spatial imaginary via social media | ANZCA 2015, Queenstown NZ, 9 July 2015
@petamitchell + @timhighfield + @liz_ellison 08

Pilot: G20 on Twitter
Peta Mitchell (2014)
Attempt to create close-
to-real time social media
map of Brisbane during
G20, geovisualising
related Twitter content
Map G20 social media
across Brisbane, moving
beyond geotag (Crampton
et al.) by geoparsing
Mapping the Australian spatial imaginary via social media | ANZCA 2015, Queenstown NZ, 9 July 2015
@petamitchell + @timhighfield + @liz_ellison 09

Pilot: G20 on Twitter
Mapping the Australian spatial imaginary via social media | ANZCA 2015, Queenstown NZ, 9 July 2015
@petamitchell + @timhighfield + @liz_ellison 10

Pilot: G20 on Twitter
https://mappingg20.cartodb.com/
17499 tweets, 23 Oct – 22 Nov 2014 (1652 geotagged)
Mapping the Australian spatial imaginary via social media | ANZCA 2015, Queenstown NZ, 9 July 2015
@petamitchell + @timhighfield + @liz_ellison 11

Pilot: #thisisqueensland
Queensland
Tourism-
promoted
Instameet,
October 2014:
Visual
representations of
Queensland,
comparing style/
content/etc.
Mapping the Australian spatial imaginary via social media | ANZCA 2015, Queenstown NZ, 9 July 2015
@petamitchell + @timhighfield + @liz_ellison 12

The project: the Gold Coast
Stereotypes and perceptions of the Gold Coast
(Surfers Paradise et al.)
sun, surf, high-rise, touristy, sleaze, crime…
However, how is the Gold Coast represented in and through
social media by those who live there? Those who visit?
The social media narratives constructed on Twitter and
Instagram, and how they relate to/counter/conform to
existing tropes
Mapping the Australian spatial imaginary via social media | ANZCA 2015, Queenstown NZ, 9 July 2015
@petamitchell + @timhighfield + @liz_ellison 13

The project: the Gold Coast
Focus on the Gold Coast as an event city
Commonwealth Games 2018
+
Schoolies
The narratives created during these events – and the
different experiences of the Gold Coast, the various purposes
behind them – offer a means for examining the social
mediation of location, and for further expansion
(methodological, conceptual) through other cases
Mapping the Australian spatial imaginary via social media | ANZCA 2015, Queenstown NZ, 9 July 2015
@petamitchell + @timhighfield + @liz_ellison 14

Thanks!
Questions and such:
Peta Mitchell peta.mitchell@qut.edu.au @petamitchell
Tim Highfield t.highfield@qut.edu.au @timhighfield
Elizabeth Ellison er.ellison@qut.edu.au @liz_ellison
QUT Digital Media Research Centre
qut.edu.au/research/dmrc @qutdmrc