The exact shape of the world? Mapping and the media

Abstract

This paper introduces the journal’s special section on #Mapping and media by presenting an overview of the core debates addressing their mutual intertwining. By foregrounding the centrality of world-making, as well as its cognate mapping impulse, the essay advocates the need to go beyond an understanding of the relation between media and mapping based on indexicality, objectivity, and manipulation. Instead, it argues that conceiving media as both object and subject of geography (hence, of mapping) opens up research perspectives that, as the following essays demonstrate, further enrich the ongoing dialogue between media studies, geography, and critical theory.