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Verstraete, Ginette

Verstraete, Ginette

Ginette E.E Verstraete, born in Zele, Belgium, in 1961. Ph.D. from State University of New York, Buffalo. Professor of Comparative Arts and Media at VU University Amsterdam.

Fellow (1 September 2012 – 31 January 2013)

NETWORKED MOBILITIES: MEDIA, MOVEMENT, AND URBAN SPACE

My research at NIAS focused on the way location-based mobile media and their applications (such as GPS on iPhones) have transformed mobility through urban space.These sociotechnical transformations raise new substantive issues for the study of movement in cities but also for a humanities-based study of media usage. I looked at the convergence of media, mobility and place as elaborated in existing literature in the fields of media studies, network theory, mobility studies, urban planning, and cultural geography. On the basis of that I developed a theoretical-critical framework to assess and analyze these location-based developments in mobile media. In a second article I specifically dealt with the technological and commercial (historical) development of the smartphone and the way location-based applications have played a role in pushing locational services delivered through the smartphone. I looked at the technological infrastructures that made this possible, the way the advertising worked, and the enormous industry (of location-based services, networks and games) that have emerged from this.

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