Rethinking communication geographies: Geomedia and the human condition

The aim of the sabbatical is (1) to complete the monograph Rethinking Communication Geographies: Geomedia and the Human Condition and (2) to write a journal article that extends the arguments of the book. The book illuminates the social, cultural, and profoundly human, consequences of new locative media, geomedia.

Above all, this emerging regime sustains the logistical significance of media, their penetration into almost all kinds of time-space coordination. Which forms of everyday expertise does the geomedia regime foster? How do different individuals and groups cope with the demands on digital adaptation?

Rethinking Communication Geographies is the outcome of more than a decade’s work within the interdisciplinary field of media and communication geography (MCG).

The book highlights the growing importance of the field as a humanistic response to the expanding “logistical society”.

The follow-up article will discuss what this argument means in relation to established disciplines, notably media studies.

Both publications will be completed during a ten-month sabbatical including two periods abroad: one month at the Department of Geography and the Environment, University of Texas at Austin, and one month at the Institut für Theorie und Praxis der Kommunikation, Universität der Kunste, Berlin.

The academic exchanges will enrich the field of MCG and pave the way for further collaborations between the research environments.