Redai dili (Aug 2024)
Build Their Living Space: Research on the Salvation of Stray Cats via Geomedia
Abstract
Homeless cats in cities mainly include feral, roaming/stray, and community cats, which are collectively referred to as stray cats within the current social framework and norms. The large numbers of stray cats found in society and social spaces are more often than not regarded as problematic luminal animals, and their value in spatial construction and reflective significance are largely obscured. In fact, stray cats play a crucial role in human living spaces, and their survival activities have rich spatial production significance. In particular, in the era of digital intelligence, state-of-the-art media technology plays an important role in the spatial production of cultural and interpersonal interactions. Thus, on the basis of geomedia theory, we used case analysis, text analysis, technical walkthrough, participatory observation, and in-depth interviews in this study to better analyze the media practice of helping cats and elaborate on the reconstruction of space by geomedia and its role in shaping the relationships between people, media, stray cats, and space. By focusing on the interactions between people, stray cats, and media in both society and virtual space, we explored 1) the process of helping stray cats and the methods cat helpers used to construct cat assistance spaces; 2) how cat helpers interact with stray cats; and 3) the interpersonal communication or conflicts that occurred during the process of assisting cats and the roles they played in shaping and recognizing spatial locations. The Jiemao APP was the main tool used for observation and data collection, whereas TikTok and Station B were used as auxiliary tools for these same purposes. Concurrently, four communities (J, H, M, and Y) where cat houses were located were selected in W City, J Province for a 3-months offline observation. The reason for choosing these four communities is that their cat houses have a higher number of Jiemao APP subscribers in the same city, and cat house applicants are more proactive in managing their cat houses. Our study found that with the support of geomedia such as mobile phones and the Jiemao APP, multiple actors have constructed a cat assistance space that breaks through virtual and real dimensions in terms of dynamic interaction. On the one hand, the constructed virtual space expands the boundaries of meanders for cat lovers. On the other hand, the deployment of different platforms and monitoring systems exposes past offline as well as previously unseen, overlooked, and obscured events to the network, enhancing visible density and unleashing the effect of super visibility. Second, as non-human actors, the flow (transfer, relocation, and demolition) of cats and cat houses in cat assistance spaces is accompanied by dialogue, negotiation, and struggles between humans and space. Specifically, the impacts of environmental and climatic factors, as well as changes in the movement trajectory of stray cats, affect the transfer of cat houses. The human destruction of cat houses affects their relocation, whereas the decisions made by property management and their management styles affect the demolition of cat houses. Third, the cat helper encounters different actors in the constructed mixed space through geomedia, and the same or an opposite relationship is generated during this process. The interaction between stakeholders not only affects their understanding of the place but also shapes their local memory as well as the cultural atmosphere, meaning of existence, and evolution of the place. From a practical perspective, the contemplation of survival relationships between different species in the same space contributes to the reflexive and constructive significance of this study. From a theoretical perspective, this study found that previous research frameworks have mainly focused on exploring co-creations between humans and the environment, with stray cats being typically overlooked in such studies. Therefore, this study further subdivided geomedia into "technological geomedia" and "life-form geomedia" to break out of the framework of past research perspectives and thereby describe the mechanism of spatial construction of coexistence between humans and stray cats.
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