IEEE Technology and Society Magazine - Spring 2014 - 74

ocation-based services
comprise the fastest growing sector in
web technology business [1, p. 9]. These
services, be they location-based
social networks, satellite navigation devices in cars, or augmented
reality browsers as applications on
mobile phones, have opened questions about their mediating effects
on the awareness of location and
engagement with location for users.
McCulloch [2] argues that location-based services are a channel
for specialized information, in that
the information reaching users is
now about where they are, rather
than decontextualized information
with no relevance to the location of
the user. Analyses of the impact of
location-based services have been
myriad in consideration [3], but
some major areas of research have
emerged. Wilken [3] identifies the
major themes as research directed
towards analyzing how locative
technologies mediate the relationship between technology use and
physical or digital spaces [4]-[12],
discussions of power and politics
in location-based services [13], and
assessments and discussions on
the nature of the representation of
space that emerge through locative
media [14], [15]. In addition, the
area of privacy has been a major
area of interest [16]-[19].
This article focuses on the representations of location made
possible by the affordances of computational code, in particular with
regards the encoding of location
in location-based social networks.
This encoding of location allows
for a repositioning of cartography and mapping. By conducting
a close reading of the code of the
location-based social network
(LBSN) Foursquare, this article
aims to assess how the code of the
application and the use of a database
of places may act as a mediator of
location. The argument here is that
smartphones within particular contexts of use become devices that
74

project a processual agency of computational code [20]. This action is
a radical departure from traditional
forms of cartography. Moreover, the
use of LBSN in everyday life is an
important indicator of the increased
encountering of computational
code in everyday tasks. This paper
explores how code shapes the experience of place for users of LBSN
through the features of LBSN:
social gazetteers, numbers of other
users, other information contributed
by users about their activities in that
location and other information on
the place that could not by conveyed
in traditional maps. This new cartography is contingent on the structure and functioning of the code that
underpins the location-based application, and the representation of
place that the code provides is critical to the experience of the place
on the part of the user. The purpose
of this paper is therefore: i) to position LBSN as a key component in
users understanding of place; ii) to
understand why these applications
fulfil that role through an analysis of
what features of place are encoded
in LBSN; and iii) to understand
through a discourse analysis how
the structure of LBSN code influences users understandings of place.

Pre-Code Cartography
The emergence of computational
code as an important "actor" in the
locating of oneself and the understanding of place can be contextualized as a new development in the
history of cartography. Cartography has been described as a purely
top-down activity [21] where power
is exercised through the creation of
maps as political artifacts. Cartographers are affected by the ideological and cultural influences placed
upon them in their role in society,
and maps as products and artifacts
generate specific territorial knowledge or what Olsson [22] calls
cartographic reason. Cartographic
reason can be linked to Foucault's
notion of bio-politics [23] and the
political production of knowledge.

The top-down position of cartographers allows the map produced to
be seen as a product of the state,
which exists to normalize concepts
of territory and space and normalize power relations within the state.
In the historical development of
maps, one observes that the creation
of maps goes through a series of
orderings that satisfy needs - military, economic, political, or commercial [24] - that have the effect
of organizing the representation of
location. This kind of technological
ordering of the world encourages a
form of spatial thinking about the
world and all things in it, of which
the map acts as a representation.
Place is nothing more than spatial
"position" or "a node within a uniform spatial array" [25].

GPS
Global Positioning Systems (GPS)
are an extension and perfection
of this mapping. The technology
locates an individual or object within
the range of the technology by pinpointing their position on Earth
through communication between a
GPS enabled device and a network
of 24 satellites known as the Global
Positioning System [26]. GPS is
not purely graphical but also precise and relational to other entities
based on the spatial coordinates of
latitude, longitude, and altitude that
GPS technology uses to locate the
device or individual. In some ways,
GPS is like a map in that it is a tool
for location; however, the method of
locating makes GPS a very different
case. In operating a GPS device, the
user is actively locating themselves
in the world in isolation to other
objects, persons, and landmarks.
The means of location - through
communication with a satellite that
triangulates the location of the user -
marks the process as one of active
de-territorialization at a place that
is located within a space defined
through a database held by the
device. As Coyne [27] argues, GPS
is a highly technological response
to the desire to orient to location,

IEEE TECHNOLOGY AND SOCIETY MAGAZINE

SPRING 2014

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