new media & society
2015, Vol. 17(10) 1643­–1660
© The Author(s) 2014
Reprints and permissions:
sagepub.co.uk/journalsPermissions.nav
DOI: 10.1177/1461444814531364
nms.sagepub.com
The spatial self: Location-based
identity performance on social
media
Raz Schwartz
Cornell Tech, USA
Germaine R Halegoua
The University of Kansas, USA
Abstract
As a growing number of social media platforms now include location information from
their users, researchers are confronted with new online representations of individuals,
social networks, and the places they inhabit. To better understand these representations
and their implications, we introduce the concept of the “spatial self”: a theoretical
framework encapsulating the process of online self-presentation based on the display
of offline physical activities. Building on previous studies in social science, humanities,
and computer and information science, we analyze the ways offline experiences are
harnessed and performed online. We first provide an encompassing interdisciplinary
survey of research that investigates the relationships between location, information
technology, and identity performance. Then, we identify and characterize the spatial self
as well as examine its occurrences through three case studies of popular social media
sites: Instagram, Facebook, and Foursquare. Finally, we offer possible research directions
and methodological considerations for the analysis of geocoded social media data.
Keywords
Facebook, Foursquare, identity, Instagram, location-based social media, performance,
social media, spatial self
Corresponding author:
Raz Schwartz, Cornell Tech, 111 8th Ave #302, New York, NY 10011, USA.
Email: raz.schwartz@cornell.edu
531364NMS0010.1177/1461444814531364new media & societySchwartz and Halegoua
research-article2014
Article
1644	 new media & society 17(10)
Introduction
As the incorporation of geocoded information into text, images, and video on social
media platforms continues to grow, so do the norms, practices, and meanings that surround
these digital–physical traces. Public officials, urban planners, technology developers,
and researchers have begun to gather and analyze geotagged photos and videos,
status updates, and location-announcements in order to make claims about the use and
design of public space, urban infrastructure, mobility patterns, local sentiment, and experiences
of place. These efforts raise many questions about the use of location-based
social media and the representation and documentation of physical mobility and physical
presence that are in need of further investigation. For example, what can we learn about
users from the growing number of visualizations of their physical activity on social
media? What are the intentions, conditions, and situations under which these digital
traces are produced and understood? How do these geocoded data inform our understanding
of mobility, the meaning of physical place, and identity performance that occurs
via location-based social media? This article is an effort toward answering these questions
and understanding how people harness location-based technologies in order to represent
themselves through social media.
We recognize the display of physical activities on social media as particular expressions
of the “spatial self.” The spatial self refers to a variety of instances (both online and
offline) where individuals document, archive and display their experience and/or mobility
within space and place in order to represent or perform aspects of their identity to
others. We focus on a particular articulation of the spatial self, one that is performed
through digital applications that record activities and experiences in physical places,
which can be shared with others via social media. In other words, the way we present
ourselves to our online audiences is no longer only by textual and visual cues such as
status messages, photos, or videos but also through geocoded digital traces, geographical
data visualizations, and maps of individual patterns of mobility.
To introduce the concept of the spatial self, we build on previous studies in social science,
humanities, information and computer science as well as previous theories of
online and offline identity and self-presentation, critical and feminist geography, and
presentations of place on social media. This article reviews these studies and unites them
through the concept and characteristics of the spatial self. In order to introduce this concept,
we will focus on three case studies that illustrate different online performances of
the spatial self. First, we examine Instagram and the way participants’ photos are presented
and plotted in relation to geographic locations. Second, we describe the use of
geotagged data and mapping tools on Facebook. Finally, we trace the various affordances
of Foursquare in regard to physical activity sharing practices.
By considering geocoded practices on social media as part of the spatial self, this
article offers three main contributions. First, we provide an interdisciplinary survey of
works that study the relationships between location, information technology, and social
identity. Second, we introduce and discuss the characteristics and potential applications
of the spatial self. We extend current discussions of the socially driven, performative
aspects of location-announcement in order to present the spatial self as a theoretical
framework for making sense of practices of location-announcement and expressions of
Schwartz and Halegoua	 1645
place online. In addition to recognizing the spatial self as a theoretical lens, we also suggest
the spatial self as a critical way to revisit the increasingly voracious collection of
location-based data and to reevaluate the geocoded traces that become data, in terms of
their social functions, intentions, contexts, and situations under which they are
produced.
Identity, place, and social media
Studies concerning practices of self-presentation and impression management on popular
social networking sites (SNS) have increased significantly in recent years. As Hogan
(2010) observes, Goffman’s theories regarding identity and self-presentation, “front
stage” and “back stage” presentations, and a focus on situations, contexts, and audiences
for social behavior have been incredibly prevalent in social media literature.Additionally,
Butler’s notion of performativity has been utilized in discussions of mobility and subjectivity
(Gregson and Rose, 2000) as well as collocated online representation and sharing.
For example, Van House (2009) analyzed how both Goffman and Butler’s interpretations
of performance apply directly to mobile photography and concluded that by taking and
posing for photographs, we enact identities and manage impressions of ourselves, both
individually and collectively. Overall, scholars tend to agree that through images, video,
status updates, profiles, friend lists, visible conversations, tastes and interests, and comments
that appear within their profile, social media participants present a highly curated
version of themselves (Mendelson and Papacharissi, 2010).
However, studies concerning the combination of social media or location-based social
media, identity performance, and place are still rare. Previous work has discussed the interfacing
of these elements in terms of the diverse physical locations of members of virtual
communities, or identity formation and performance in relation to online and offline spaces
(Goodings et al., 2007). Sutko and De Souza e Silva (2011) introduce the “presentation of
place” in order to explain the performance of identity via location-aware technologies.
However, “presentation of place” tends to focus on the impressions of a physical place
provided by its visitors or the social construction of place through location-based social
media, rather than the harnessing of place to perform identity to a social network. De Souza
e Silva and Frith (2012) expand on this concept by arguing that the “presentation of location
(not only places)” might encourage homophily, bonding, and trust among those who
frequent certain locations and participate in location-based social media.
Location-based social media and the self
In the years preceding the pervasiveness of location-based social media platforms, feminist
geographer Mei-Po Kwan (2002) suggested that geocoded digital traces such as
photographs, audio, and video clips can be gathered and analyzed in order to access the
complexities and local knowledge of mobility and urban experience. She notes that studies
like these can lead to qualitative rather than exclusively quantitative analysis utilizing
geographic information system (GIS). More specifically, Kwan and others (Alibrandi et
al., 2000) have noted the value of geocoded digital expressions in creating “life maps,”
“body inscriptions,” “spatial stories,” or “biographical accounts” of everyday life from
1646	 new media & society 17(10)
specific demographic and cultural perspectives. Locative media projects from the early
2000s explicitly encouraged the use of mobile technologies in this way. Farman (2012)
analyzes these platforms as “interfaces of re-membering” or means to create and disseminate
embodied individual and community histories of place.
Locative media applications focused primarily on location-announcement (such as
Dodgeball, Google Latitude, BrightKite, Foursquare, Loopt) have been analyzed through
a slightly different lens. Instead of representations of personal histories of place, spatial
stories, or body inscriptions, scholars have noted the ways in which these applications
promote new relationships between physical and digital spaces, local information, spatial
and social relations, and feelings of presence and proximity. Terms such as “net locality”
(Gordon and De Souza e Silva, 2011) and “hybrid mediated spatiality” (Sheller,
2012) have been used to describe the overlay of physical space, digital information, and
socio-spatial relations and contexts that occur through these mobile applications. The
game mechanics integrated into location-based services like Foursquare and Gowalla
have been understood to render sociality and place into a networked game (Hjorth et al.,
2012) or to turn “life into a game” by encouraging participants to alter mobility patterns
based on game-based rewards (Frith, 2013).
Moreover, studies have shown that diverse motivations and contexts for locationannouncement
over social networks lead to socially driven decisions about disclosure or
non-disclosure of location. De Souza e Silva and Frith (2012) note that although location-based
social media have been promoted in terms of coordination or meeting up with
other users in physical space, many users choose to selectively broadcast their location
even when there is limited or no possibility for a face-to-face meeting. Humphreys
(2012) suggests that practices of cataloging and archiving personal mobility and presence
within place encourage intimate bonding with friends, are used in the service of
bragging or “showing off,” self-promotion, making inside jokes, recording places as a
memory aid, or receiving points or rewards for particular habits or actions. Locationbased
social media users often understand their participation in location-announcement
as augmenting or reinforcing other online profiles (Frith, 2012; Humphreys, 2007; Patil
et al., 2012). In all of these instances, the personal narratives and individual representations
of physical mobility on social media undoubtedly omit certain locations, emphasize
others, and reveal traces of mobility which are calculated but imprecise.
Larissa Hjorth notes the playful, creative, and diverse social practices that emerge on
these platforms (Hjorth, 2013). As Barkhuus et al. (2008) observed, expressing “where
you are” over a social network does not solely inform others of your location, but may
also signal mood, lifestyle, or life events and maintain or support intimate social relationships.
The manner in which certain locations or activities are named, captioned, or annotated
can be understood as performative. Cramer et al. (2011) provide evidence for this
claim in their study of Foursquare users and the common practice of creating “imaginary”
places, and fictitious or creative names for places or events. Relatedly, Sheller
(2013) has noted that several mobile media artists and activists have attempted to override
the commercial and surveillance aspects of mobile technologies and platforms and
to create creative and “disruptive spaces of resistance, of sharing, and of convivial publics”
and “serendipitous play.”
Schwartz and Halegoua	 1647
We agree with the aforementioned scholars in that we recognize the diversity of
practices circulating within mobile social media and location-based systems. We present
the concept of the spatial self as an effort to identify and examine the ways in which
individual and collective agency is routinely enacted by participants within these systems.
Building on previous and ongoing research, this article considers expressions of
the spatial self as performance in addition to play, equating the spatial self more along the
lines of self-presentation, ontology, and identity production rather than coordination,
ludology, or creative misuse.
In the following section, we introduce the concept of the spatial self as a lens through
which to read the myriad expressions and performances of identity and place online via
social media. As our case studies will illustrate, there is ample opportunity to produce
and share the spatial self over these platforms, and this is regularly done. However, these
visualizations of mobility and “presentation of place” are not always read in accordance
with identity formation and exhibition. In the subsequent sections, we will discuss what
can be gained from doing so.
The spatial self
Previous and ongoing research about identity, place, and social media is the foundation
for the spatial self—a theoretical framework that explores the presentation of the self,
based on geographic traces of physical activity. The spatial self might be a novel term,
but it is not a new concept. We employ the “spatial self” to refer to a variety of instances
(both online and offline) where individuals document, archive, and display their experience
and/or mobility within space and place in order to represent or perform aspects of
their identity to others. These are historically rooted practices that combine lived and/or
imagined social and spatial realities in order to express identity and socio-spatial
position.
Pre-digital examples of the spatial self abound. Diaries of urban flaneurs, maintained
as early as the Victorian era, not only archive individual physical movement through
urban environments, but also document social and cultural change and serve as a window
into relationships between social class, gender dynamics, public and private spaces, and
the city (Wilson, 1992). The curated photo album, slideshow, or home video footage that
documents vacations or personal moments and might have been put on display or shown
to friends and family members are expressions of where someone was located both
socially and spatially (Walker and Moulton, 1989). Postcards with photographs of distant
locales or familiar places, annotated by the sender, articulate something social and spatial
about presence at particular moments in time (Milne, 2010).
Digital expressions of the spatial self are becoming increasingly embedded in our
spatial practices and the social production of space. As millions of people use these tools
to annotate their physical locations and instantly share them with various social groups
such as “friends” and “followers,” the spatial self is becoming a prominent part of our
daily life. However, the spatial self is not merely a byproduct of mobile social media use,
nor is it simply an aggregation of geocoded data. The spatial self refers to intentional
socio-cultural practices of self-presentation that result in dynamic, curated, sometimes
idealized performances of who a user is, based on where they go.
1648	 new media & society 17(10)
Unlike hand-drawn maps requested by researchers, check-ins and images produced
over location-based social media are embedded with layered significations and social
signals that are produced for pre-selected audiences (as well as unintended audiences in
some cases), under various contexts, and for different reasons. In this article, we suggest
that through social networks like Instagram, Foursquare, and Facebook, participants present
the spatial self without explicitly being invited to do so, in more “organic” circumstances
than via directed research studies.
The spatial self on social media portrays similar characteristics to other instances of
online self-representation. As Papacharissi notes, through social media, an individual
“gains access to a variety of multimedia tools that enable the possibility for more controlled
and more imaginative performances of identity online …” (Papacharissi, 2011:
307). Building on this understanding of identity performance and social media, we consider
digital expressions of the spatial self to be a particular type of “networked self,”
one that primarily relies on the curation of representations of physical place and mobility
to perform identity online. As is the case with other types of self-presentation, the
spatial self is enacted in both synchronous and asynchronous online environments
and may be coordinated across a variety of platforms. As Hogan (2010) notes, selfpresentation
practices on social media can be split into performances, which take place
in synchronous “situations” and artifacts that take place in asynchronous “exhibitions.”
This distinction also applies to locative media practices as users are both sharing their
location with others in real time as well as archiving these physical actions which are
then aggregated and presented in various forms such as dots on a map or summarized
statistics.
A common feature across digital platforms is that when a user signals their location,
a built-in mechanism notifies other nearby friends of the current location of the user. This
synchronous notification system encourages users to perform their offline experience in
real time. In this way, the real-time synchronous nature of this social interaction takes on
different meanings throughout various days of the week and times of the day. The significance
of real-time sharing disappears when we look at the exhibition aspects of the spatial
self. When aggregating users physical actions and location data over time, the
subtleties of the temporal nature of these actions are removed in favor of artifacts such as
maps and infographics that showcase an aggregated representation of the user’s entire
historical online–offline actions.
Much like many other online identity practices on social networks, the spatial self is
based on a highly curated depiction of the individual. Users of these services do not share
every offline, physical action with their online social circles, but carefully choose the
places and times when these actions are broadcast. Drawing on the theoretical frameworks
of identity performance put forth by Goffman and Butler, we recognize the spatial
self as a practice of identity performance that is constituted over time through “a stylized
repetition of acts” (Butler, 1988: 519). In this case, the spatial self relies on a stylized
repetition of presenting certain places, with certain connotations and meanings, as constitutive
of one’s identity performance. By curating their experiences, people share only
a portion of their daily life, mostly focusing on physical locations that can shape others’
perceptions of who they are and where they go, or places and events that they select to
archive over time.
Schwartz and Halegoua	 1649
Frith (2012) observes that these curated performances regularly occur via locationbased
social media and categorizes some of these practices as “presenting an idealized
self to others” and “the presentation of the present self to the future self.” In this way,
visits to mundane, intimate, embarrassing, or private venues might not be considered
venues worth sharing while more social or public venues, or venues that have shared
meaning for an individual’s social network or specific significance for an individual, will
appear more prominently in these online actions. As such, users select which kind of
places they would like to associate with their constructed “social identity” online and
utilize their social identity “to construct a performance that will allow them to negotiate
social situations” (boyd, 2002: 22). Therefore, the traces that manifest on these systems
are usually filtered, choreographed displays of mobility and experiences of place that
play a significant role in identity performance as well as sociability: they are not absolute
or precise but abstracted, symbolic, and performative.
The spatial self is shaped by the character of a physical place and the ways users associate
themselves with physical place. The character of a place is a social construct that is
continuously created and adjusted by the plethora of visitors to that location and the connotation
of that place. When a user chooses to broadcast their location in relation to a
specific venue, they are relating themselves with the values and social groups that are
represented by that specific physical place. In this way, users are building their online
identity through attaching themselves to the specific narrative of a physical place
(Schwartz, 2014). This combination of “private geographies” or geographies that have
shared meaning among an intimate group (Brown et al., 2007), wider social connotations
and understandings of particular places, and the selection of particular places to be added
to ones online profile combine to produce the representations of the spatial self.
Moreover, like other aspects of our identities, the spatial self is not a unique, singular
representation but rather a multifaceted and fragmented depiction of the self that has
many different versions, each with its own characteristics and targeted audience (Van
Zoonen, 2013). Its representations are therefore messy, sometimes even contradictory, as
people commonly perform more than one spatial self in different situations or contexts,
at different times, and to different audiences. As different social networks cater to users’
interaction with various social groups or audiences, each user can create several distinct
depictions of their physical activity, taking into consideration how each platform will
showcase their actions and how audiences will interpret them. A user’s geotagged activity
on a certain platform such as Facebook can differ from their activity on other platforms
such as Foursquare and Instagram.
These digital traces can be read as new styles of inscribing the body within digital and
physical socio-cultural environments, revealing fragments of larger ontological stories
about space, place, and embodied mobility. As Grosz (1992) and Farman (2012) recognize,
both bodies and stories inscribe themselves (and each other) within space and place
and are inscribed by their environments. The spatial self is constituted from a bricolage
of personal and collective, private and public meanings and narratives of place.
Finally, although the spatial self is constructed by many small, recorded actions at the
coffee shop, the bar, the park, or the movie theater, it is often experienced by the audience
as an aggregated representation. The spatial self is therefore the result of computational
processes, social and physical practices that “connect the dots” and produce a depiction,
1650	 new media & society 17(10)
often in the form of a map or networked visualization, that conveys the user’s archive or
catalog of broadcasted physical actions. The images on Instagram Photo Map, the distance
between locations represented in Foursquare check-ins, and the place markers on
Facebook and Twitter applications are not merely lines on a map but a “mapping of bodies
onto space-time that emanates from their pre-discursive practices of everyday life”
(Kwan, 2002: 653).
Case studies
In the following section, we will examine the expressions of the spatial self on popular,
mainstream social networking platforms where geocoded digital traces are routinely produced
as part of users’everyday activities. Each of these platforms is somewhat different
in terms of intended use and technological system. While we do not offer a direct analysis
of these platforms and practices, we identify certain technological and social
affordances that enable the performance and expression of the spatial self and social
practices that might be reinterpreted in terms of the spatial self. We focus on three categories
of social media platforms that exhibit three distinct ways of representing the spatial
self via social media: photographic, mixed use, and location-based social media
networks. (As new platforms, design innovations, online communities, and social norms
emerge within pre-existing social media services, these categories will undoubtedly
change.) For each platform and category, we will present descriptions of the platform and
its affordances, as well as examples of actual use that have been documented in other
research. In the subsequent section, we will utilize these descriptions and examples in
order to present potential themes and questions that may be interrogated through the
framework of the spatial self.
Photographic social networks
Acurrent trend in social media and location-based services is the production of geocoded
photographs that represent images of particular locations and the events that take place
within these locations, which are then shared with a social network or more public audience.
More recently, several photographic locative media services have also added video,
and a few geocoded video-sharing services have been launched. The location-based
social media categorized as “photographic” in this article utilize photography as the primary
mode of expressing the spatial self. These platforms are centered around the creation,
exhibition, and sharing of geocoded photographic images and highlight the camera
as the primary tool needed in order to participate on these platforms.
Instagram is a mobile photo-sharing social network that offers its users the ability to
take photos directly from their mobile phone and instantly share them with friends as
well as the general public. The application was first launched in October 2010 and has a
reported user base of more than 150 million international subscribers (Instagram, 2013).
Recording the physical location where the photos were taken is a fundamental part of the
platform. Photographs that are uploaded and shared on the user’s “Photo Map” contain
the exact longitude and latitude coordinates of the photo. Users can also choose to tag an
image to a specific venue from of a list of nearby venues presented to them during the
Schwartz and Halegoua	 1651
publishing process. The location is then displayed to other users in a timeline or news
feed where participants can view photos taken by the users they follow.
As users upload more and more photos, their Photo Maps are augmented, showcasing
their activity in various physical locations around the world. Other Instagram users can
view these maps through the individual user’s profile page. Users can also “drill down”
using this interactive map and study the various places a user has taken photographs,
down to street level specificity. In this way, local and individual patterns of mobility can
be visualized and archived as well.
By utilizing Instagram’s application programming interface (API), recent works have
tried to make sense of the massive collections of photographic representations on
Instagram (Hochman and Manovich, 2013; Hochman and Schwartz, 2012). While studies
that focus on methods for analysis of geolocated photographic images (Crandall et al.,
2009) or studies that utilize geocoded photographs to make claims about urban space
(Doersch et al., 2012) have gained traction, scholars are still investigating questions pertaining
to motivations for use and social practices and norms on Instagram.
Mixed-use social networks
We consider SNS such as Facebook and Twitter to fall into the category of “mixed-use
social networks.” These sites do not rely primarily on location-announcement or photographic
representation in order to function. Instead, these platforms employ a variety of
modes of communication (rather than a primary type of functionality) in order to connect
with members of a social network and often combine photography, video, text, links,
graphics, and location-announcement within individual profiles. These platforms most
closely illustrate Ellison and boyd’s (2013) definition of SNS.
Following the growing popularity of check-in services and the rapid growth of companies
like Foursquare and Gowalla, Facebook and Twitter began to offer users similar
location-announcement functionality on their platforms. In addition to posting a status
update or uploading a photo or video or link, Facebook mobile application users have the
option to check-in to a physical venue. The check-in action is then displayed to the user’s
friends via timeline or through a mobile notification, similar to a status update. Users can
also check-in to places and tag friends who are collocated with them. In this way, the
check-in action is augmented with some social context indicating to other friends in the
user’s network the situation under which the user is experiencing that specific location.
These check-ins are then aggregated and appear on the user’s account as a significant
part of their profile timeline. If enabled by the user, their account has an additional tab
named “Map” that plots the users’ check-ins numerically on a world map (Figure 1).
Similar to Instagram’s Photo Map, users can zoom in and examine an individual’s checkins
based in their geographical clustering. Facebook imagines this location functionality
as an archive of past, present, and future personal mobility (Cox, 2011).
Facebook data scientists have conducted a few studies on the demographics of participants
who utilize the check-in function, including information about where and when
they check-in. Facebook researchers were able to visualize popular vacation routes,
ages and political affiliations of check-in users, and check-in activity in Midtown
Manhattan during a typical workweek (Moore, 2012). However, researchers have yet
1652	 new media & society 17(10)
to address motivations for using the Facebook check-in function or identify how locationannouncement
via mixed use social media platforms is read and understood by participants
and audiences.
Location-based social media
Foursquare is a location-based social network that was first launched in March of 2009
and offered participants a way to “check-in” to the places they visit and instantly share
that information with their friends. In January 2013, the company reported that the service
had garnered over 30 million users worldwide, making it one of the largest locationbased
services in the world (Foursquare, 2013). Every day, millions of users share their
check-ins with friends and explore new places in their local surroundings as the application
is designed to encourage the sharing of local knowledge as well as finding out where
your friends are located.
Figure 1.  A user profile map on Facebook.
Schwartz and Halegoua	 1653
In addition to venue recommendations and tips, Foursquare offers discounts and
rewards for certain check-in behaviors. While Foursquare’s gaming elements have been
recognized as a popular use of the system, studies about Foursquare use have also
revealed that participants are sometimes concerned about acquiring virtual rewards
such as mayorships and/or badges that might “threaten” their online identity or selfpresentation,
which often led to non-disclosure of their location (Cramer et al., 2011;
Lindqvist et al., 2011). For example, some users are concerned about game mechanics
and gamification elements because they do not want to receive a badge that rewards an
avid nightlife when colleagues are members of their Foursquare friend network.
Additionally, game mechanics or community norms around gaming elements might
restrict the visibility of certain types of mobility (Halegoua et al., 2012).
Motivations for location disclosure as well as non-disclosure via location-based social
media have revealed interesting connections between check-ins, impression management,
and presentation of self through these platforms. Some reiterated reasons for nondisclosure
include the following: embarrassment, privacy concerns, professionalism and
ethics, self-presentation, and not wanting to spam a social network with superfluous
check-ins. Many of these concerns stem from the fact that Foursquare participants understand
their check-ins as part of their presentation of self online.
Ethnographic studies of Foursquare and other location-based social media use have
noted participants’ desire for self-quantification and cataloging of personal mobility patterns
and physical presence over time. Foursquare users have noted that an archive of
their check-ins can be used as a memory aid (to remember where they have been, when,
and with whom). Examining Foursquare check-ins, geocoded images, and annotations
through the lens of the spatial self can add a qualitative framework for understanding
individual patterns of mobility and sociality and can highlight the online social contexts
and practices within which location-announcement and documentation of personal
mobility occur.
Discussion
We have proposed the spatial self as a term that categorizes a common cultural practice
as well as a lens through which to study the growing number of geocoded representations
on locative and social media. Given the multiple and distinct depictions of the spatial self
produced over a variety of platforms and within a variety of contexts and situations, this
section identifies some of the unique opportunities the spatial self introduces for studying
individuals, physical places, and social networks. More specifically, we consider
how studying articulations of the spatial self via social media may yield valuable information
pertaining to differential mobility patterns, polysemic meanings of place, and
collective geographical patterns of social networks.
The spatial self is an additional means through which people perform their online
identity and manage self-presentation on SNS and location-based social media. Just like
other online representations of self, this form of representation carries many biases and
limitations that researchers should take into consideration in their work. While there is
still much to be learned about relationships between digital productions of mobility,
1654	 new media & society 17(10)
self-presentation, sociality, and place, these representations of physical activities should
not be assumed to be accurate. The spatial self reminds researchers that these digital
traces are produced and embedded within particular social contexts, significations systems,
and subject to certain audiences and norms. If anything, they are more performative
than precise. Therefore, the spatial self is a concept that urges methodological
caution in analyzing location-based social media data, patterns of mobility iterated
through social media, and location-announcement online.
However, these streams of data might provide researchers, technology developers,
and urban planners with ways to access local insights and behaviors that were not previously
available. The spatial self provides several unique aspects that can help researchers
better understand collective and individual experiences and mobilities within urban
space. In the following section, we identify three categories of possible directions of
study that set the spatial self apart from other forms of online representation of the self.
Individual users
The spatial self offers a way to study the profile of individual social media users based
on their physical activity. Instagram, Facebook, and Foursquare users exhibit and archive
physical experiences alongside other markers of identity and employ the spatial self as a
way to communicate where they are/were, what they are/were doing, as well as who they
are. For example, during an interview with a food blogger (Halegoua, 2011), the interviewee
noted that she would only check-in to restaurants that she personally recommends
and that mesh with her tastes and sensibilities displayed on other online profiles
and sites. This type of selection and curation of check-ins demonstrates one way social
media users coordinate and incorporate the places displayed in their profile with other
presentations of self. This aspect of the spatial self might speak more directly to social
media researchers who are interested in analyzing ways in which people express themselves
online and we encourage them to think about place and space as strategically
chosen markers of identity and active agents in the process of online identity work.
The spatial self is a way to gain access to personal and collective memories and a way
to share and display these memories in order to connect with others. Through investigations
of the spatial self on social media, researchers can gain access to diverse experiences
of geography and mobility in relationship to class, race, gender, sexuality, and other markers
of social identity; potentially disrupting hierarchical or hegemonic manners of understanding
physical space and place. Moreover, the production of geocoded digital traces
can reveal unique, selective daily patterns of mobility. Aggregating and visualizing data
from social media platforms can provide researchers with new ways to study patterns of
different users based on their historical activity throughout the city. As some users take
pictures, tweet or, check-in in many geographical locations, others’activities are confined
to a small subset of the city’s area, revealing the unique patterns for each user. In the
Phototrails project, Hochman and Manovich (2013) demonstrated how researchers can
follow an individual user’s online activity and visualize their pattern of mobility based on
the type of places frequented (Figure 2). As the user’s actions are highly curated and
intended to present a certain depiction of the self, the type of places users select to checkinto
or take photos of hold valuable meaning beyond their physical location.
Schwartz and Halegoua	 1655
Physical place
Using large amounts of digital traces, researchers can study the character of specific
physical places through new lenses. Utilizing users’ historical actions on social media
sets the foundation for dynamic narratives of a physical place. Examining the patterns
that emerge from the users’ demographics, comments, tips, photos, and videos, we can
infer how certain places function within particular social landscapes (Schwartz and
Hochman, 2014).
The communicative act of cataloging inner space (social distance or intimacy between
people), outer space (physical distance between people in public space), and metaspace
(which we expand to mean social space or social interactions that take place under certain
conditions, contexts, or situations at given times) is present within all of the platforms
discussed in this article and can be used to signify important markers of identity
(Humphreys, 2012). Studying expressions of the spatial self can teach us about the popularity
and the patrons of a specific place. For example, vast work has been done in the
field of computer science to identify landmarks and points of interests that have high
visibility (most shared or tagged) on social media data (Kennedy and Naaman, 2008).
Other studies utilized users’ profile data such as home city and past activity to denote a
place most frequented by tourists or locals (Fischer, 2011).
Finally, the spatial self can help researchers uncover the polysemic meaning of a
physical place. Places have multiple meanings to the same person or to different types
of people, and these meanings may change over time. Representations of the spatial self
can provide an entry point into accessing and reading these polyvocal interpretations
and meanings of place. The contexts and situations under which these digital expressions
of place are produced inform the image or check-in and the motivation
Figure 2.  Matrix plot comparing activity of 289 most active Instagram users in Tel Aviv, Israel.
Available at: http://phototrails.net/lines-users-matrix/ accessed 25 September 2013.
1656	 new media & society 17(10)
for location-announcement. For example, we might be able to glean the polysemic
interpretations of place by exploring the type of photos taken by different people at a
certain place and how people are both creating and harnessing polysemic meanings and
social constructions of place to represent themselves to others. Each photo tagged to a
venue tells a different story about the individuals who took them, the moments and
reasons they were taken, and the meaning of the place.
Social networks
Individual actions in physical places can help characterize and uncover collective geographic
patterns of social networks. For example, when users check-in with their friends
in a certain location, they send cues to their online audience about the relations between
the place and the social network that is attached to it. Studying online cues about geographic
contexts of social networks can augment profiles created by urban planners in
order to represent different types of interactions between groups, political constituencies,
demographic populations, tourists, and so on, within public space. An understanding
of the spatial self can more robustly represent patterns of mobility for different
groups of people and what these patterns might signify. For example, the Livehoods
project offers a glance into the areas of the city that like-minded people visit (Cranshaw
et al., 2012). The project shows how a series of bars, restaurants, parks, or shops may
carry a strong connection for a certain group of people who include them in their social
media profiles.
A related study that examined the profile pictures of bar patrons in Austin, Texas,
illustrated how Foursquare profile photos conveyed information about the character and
connotations of specific venue based on impressions about the types of people who frequent
these venues (Graham and Gosling, 2011). In a more recent work, researchers used
geotagged tweets from the city of Los Angeles to understand the relationships between
geographic regions and gang territories (Bora et al., 2013). This kind of work can trace
homophily in regard to patterns of mobility and collective understandings of place and
make patterns of differential mobilities among certain groups more visible. Researchers
can gain insight into how certain geopolitical inequalities are experienced and uncover
strategies for managing high or low mobility in both physical space and digital
environments.
Conclusion
Digital expressions of the spatial self might help researchers highlight and understand
new performances of self and re-inscriptions of the body in place and space. The digital
traces that people produce through location-based social media networks may help
inform researchers’ understanding of urban experience and urban mobility, but should
be recognized as performed or exhibited “traces” or fragments of larger articulations
of physical presence and spatial realities. Geolocated posts, tweets, images, check-ins,
and other forms of location-announcement and artifacts of personal mobility are parts
of larger narratives and performances of embodiment and experience of place.
However, this geolocated information often masquerades as quantitative when, upon
Schwartz and Halegoua	 1657
closer inspection, it is actually a mix of qualitative and quantitative data and should be
treated as such.
GIS, global positioning system (GPS), maps, and digital technologies of navigation
and monitoring in general are often connoted as accurate, precise, and are articulated
with concepts like surveillance and security rather than performativity and flexibility.
As Farman (2010) notes, by conceptualizing maps and cartographic practice as direct,
accurate representations of reality and ignoring the subjectivity and social construction
of cartographic representations, we also eschew important cultural interpretations of
these visualizations. Because an image, text, or artifact is geocoded, it does not mean
that it is a representation of objective “reality” or precise location. Instead, because
these digital traces are geocoded representations of particular ways of being and representing
the world, they require cultural interpretation in order to be unpacked and
analyzed.
Moreover, there are privacy concerns (locational privacy and otherwise) that need to
be considered when gathering user-generated geolocated data, especially since researchers
and planners are not an intended audience for these expressions, and the isolation and
re-circulation of these digital productions was not consented to by participants. While we
urge researchers to apply ethical caution in gathering and analyzing these digital traces
of mobility and presence, we also urge methodological caution as well. As tools of analysis
for user-generated geocoded data are still under development, we need to figure out
ways to verify user-produced information (or volunteered geographic information),
understand the biases in their production, and use these data sets without overestimating
what they actually reflect.
In this article, we have provided examples of how researchers can use location-based
social media data to draw conclusions about people and places without exaggerating
what these digital traces illustrate, practicing apophenia in regard to vast amounts of
data (boyd and Crawford, 2011), or mistaking qualitative data for quantitative. To think
about Instagram images, Facebook or Foursquare check-ins as representing the places
that are “most important” to participants or as the “places that matter” is inaccurate. We
need to understand not only the motivations for producing these images and check-ins
but also what they mean to the participants and their audiences—how they are being
used as a form of self-presentation as well as (re)productive practices of experience and
reception of urban space.
Performativity within social media and the expression of place as linked to self-presentation
within SNS is deserving of further study. We suggest that the spatial self is a lens
through which to read some of the texts produced over social media and to understand
the biases and limitations of the geographic and temporal precision of this data. We also
argue that it is important for researchers to employ both qualitative and quantitative
methods for analyzing user-generated geolocated content. Expressions of the spatial self
are not always precise in terms of calculating actual mobility or physical presence, but
they are precisely calculated, choreographed articulations of space and the self based on
identity production and self-expression.
Acknowledgements
There was no lead author and both authors made equal contributions to this article.
1658	 new media & society 17(10)
Funding
This research received no specific grant from any funding agency in the public, commercial, or
not-for-profit sectors.
References
Alibrandi M, Thompson A and Hagevik R (2000) Documenting a culture. ArcNews, vol. 22, issue
3, p. 27.
Barkhuus L, Brown B, Bell M, et al. (2008) From awareness to repartee: sharing location within
social groups. In: Proceedings of CHI’08, Florence, 5–10 April, pp. 497–506. New York:
ACM Press.
Bora N, Zaytsev V, Chang Y, et al. (2013) Gang networks, neighborhoods, and holidays: spatiotemporal
patterns in social media. In: 2013 ASE/IEEE international conference on social
computing projects, Washington, DC, 8–14 September.
boyd d (2002) Faceted id/entity: managing representation in a digital world. MA Thesis,
Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA.
boyd d and Crawford K (2011) Six provocations for big data. Paper presented at a decade in
Internet time: symposium on the dynamics of the Internet and society, Oxford Internet
Institute, Oxford, 21 September.
Brown B, Taylor A, Izadi S, et al. (2007) Locating family values: a field trial of the Whereabouts
Clock. In: Proceedings of UbiComp ‘07, Innsbruck, 16–19 September, pp. 354–371. Berlin
and Heidelberg: Springer.
Butler J (1988) Performative acts and gender constitution: an essay in phenomenology and feminist
theory. Theatre Journal 40(4): 519–531.
Cox C (2011) Making it easier to share with who you want. In: The Facebook Blog. Available
at: https://blog.facebook.com/blog.php?post=10150251867797131 (accessed 25 September
2013).
Cramer H, Rost M and Holmquist LE (2011) Performing a check-in: emerging practices, norms
and “Conflicts” in location-sharing using foursquare. In: MobileHCI 2011, Stockholm, 30
August–2 September.
Crandall D, Backstrom L, Huttenlocher D, et al. (2009) Mapping the world’s photos. In:
Proceedings of 18th international WWW conference, Madrid, 20–24 April.
Cranshaw J, Schwartz R, Hong J, et al. (2012) The Livehoods project: utilizing social media to
understand the dynamics of a city. In: Proceedings of the 6th international AAAI conference
on weblogs and social media (ICWSM-12), Dublin, 4-6 June.
De Souza e Silva A and Frith J (2012) Mobile Interfaces in Public Spaces: Locational Privacy,
Control, and Urban Sociality. New York: Routledge.
Doersch C, Singh S, Abhinav G, et al. (2012) What makes Paris look like Paris? ACM Transactions
on Graphics 31(4). SIGGRAPH 2012 Conference Proceedings.
Ellison NB and boyd d (2013) Sociality through social network sites. In: Dutton WH (ed.) The
Oxford Handbook of Internet Studies. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 151–172.
Farman J (2010) Mapping the digital empire: Google Earth and the process of postmodern cartography.
New Media & Society 12(6): 869–888.
Farman J (2012) Mobile Interface Theory: Embodied Space and Locative Media. New York:
Routledge.
Fischer E (2010) The Geotaggers’ World Atlas. Available at: http://www.flickr.com/photos/walkingsf/sets/72157623971287575/
(accessed 25 September 2013).
Foursquare (2013) About. Available at: https://foursquare.com/about/ (accessed 25 September
2013).
Schwartz and Halegoua	 1659
Frith J (2012) Constructing location, one check-in at a time: examining the practices of Foursquare
users. Doctoral Dissertation, North Carolina State University, Raleigh, NC.
Frith J (2013) Turning life into a game: foursquare, gamification, and personal mobility. Mobile
Media & Communication 1(2): 248–262.
Goodings L, Locke A and Brown SD (2007) Social networking technology: place and identity in
mediated communities. Journal of Community & Applied Social Psychology 17(6): 463–476.
Gordon E and De Souza e Silva A (2011) Net Locality: Why Location Matters in a Networked
World. Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell.
Graham L and Gosling S (2011) Can the ambiance of a place be determined by the user profiles
of the people who visit it? In: ICWSM-11, Barcelona, 17–21 July, pp. 145–152. Palo Alto,
CA: AAAI Press.
Gregson N and Rose G (2000) Taking Butler elsewhere: performativities, spatialities, and subjectivities.
Environment and Planning D: Society and Space 18: 433–452.
Grosz E (1992) Bodies-cities. In: Colomina B (ed.) Sexuality and Space. New York: Princeton
Architectural Press, pp. 241–253.
Halegoua GR (2011) Foursquare Checkins in Claimed Venues (Unpublished raw data).
Halegoua GR, Leavitt A and Gray ML (2012) Jumping for fun? Negotiating mobility and
the geopolitics of Foursquare. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the International
Communication Association, Phoenix, AZ, 16–18 March.
Hjorth L (2013) Relocating the mobile: a case study of locative media in Seoul, South Korea.
Convergence 19(2): 237–249.
Hjorth L, Wilken R and Gu K (2012) Ambient intimacy: a case study of the iPhone, presence, and
location-based social networking in Shanghai, China. In: Hjorth L, Burgess J and Richardson
I (eds) Studying Mobile Media: Cultural Technologies, Mobile Communication, and the
iPhone. London and New York: Routledge, pp. 43–62.
Hochman N and Manovich L (2013) Zooming into an Instagram City: reading the local through
social media. First Monday 18(7). Available at: http://www.firstmonday.dk/ojs/index.php/
fm/article/view/4711/3698 (accessed 25 September 2013).
Hochman N and Schwartz R (2012) Visualizing Instagram: tracing cultural visual rhythms. In:
Workshop on social media visualization in conjunction (ICWSM-12), Dublin, June 2012.
Hogan B (2010) The presentation of self in the age of social media: distinguishing performances
and exhibitions online. Bulletin of Science, Technology, & Society 30(6): 377–386.
Humphreys L (2007) Mobile social networks and spatial practice: a case study of Dodgeball.
Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication 13(1): Article 17.
Humphreys L (2012) Connecting, coordinating, cataloguing: communicative practices on mobile
social networks. Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media 56(4): 494–510.
Instagram (2013) Instagram today: 150 million people. In: Instagram Blog. Available at: http://
blog.instagram.com/post/60694542173/150-million (accessed 25 September 2013).
Kennedy LS and Naaman M (2008) Generating diverse and representative image search results
for landmarks. In: Proceedings of WWW ’08, 21–25 April, Beijing, China, pp. 297–306. New
York: ACM.
Kwan MP (2002) Feminist visualization: re-envisioning GIS as a method in feminist geographic
research. Annals of the Association of American Geographers 92(4): 645–661.
Lindqvist J, Cranshaw J, Wiese J, et al. (2011) I’m the Mayor of my house: examining why people
use Foursquare—a social driven location sharing application. In: CHI 2011, Vancouver, BC,
Canada, 7–12 May.
Mendelson A and Papacharissi Z (2010) Look at us: collective narcissism in college student
Facebook photo galleries. In: Papacharissi Z (ed.) A Networked Self: Identity, Community
and Culture on Social Network Sites. New York: Routledge, pp. 251–273.
1660	 new media & society 17(10)
Milne E (2010) Letters, Postcards, Email: Technologies of Presence. New York: Routledge.
Moore J (2012) Visualizing activity on Facebook. In: Facebook Data Science Notes. Available
at: https://www.facebook.com/notes/facebook-data-science/visualizing-activity-on-facebook/10150884743158859
(accessed 25 September 2013).
Papacharissi Z (2011) Conclusion: a networked self. In: Papacharissi Z (ed.) A Networked Self:
Identity, Community and Culture on Social Network Sites. New York: Routledge, pp. 304–
318.
Patil S, Norcie G, Kapadia A, et al. (2012) Check out where I am! Location-sharing motivations,
preferences, and practices. In: Proceedings of CHI’12, Austin, TX, 5–10 May, pp.
1997–2002. New York: ACM.
Schwartz R (2014) Online place attachment: exploring technological ties to physical places. In:
De Souza e Silva A and Sheller M (eds) Location, Mobile Technologies and Mobility. New
York: Routledge.
Schwartz R and Hochman N (2014) The social media life of public spaces: reading places through
the lens of geo-tagged data. In: Wilken R and Goggin G (eds) Locative Media. New York:
Routledge.
Sheller M (2012) Mobile mediality: In: Flow 17(1). Available at: http://flowtv.org/2012/11/
mobile-mediality/ (accessed 25 September 2013).
Sheller M (2013) Mobile conviviality. In: Flow 17. Available at: http://flowtv.org/2013/03/mobileconviviality/
(accessed 25 September 2013).
Sutko DM and De Souza e Silva A (2011) Location-aware mobile media and urban sociability.
New Media & Society 13(5): 807–823.
Van House NA (2009) Collocated photo sharing, story-telling, and the performance of self.
International Journal of Human-Computer Studies 67: 1073–1086.
Van Zoonen L (2013) From identity to identification: fixating the fragmented self. Media, Culture
and Society 35(1): 44–51.
Walker AL and Moulton RK (1989) Photo albums: images of time and reflections of self.
Qualitative Sociology 12(2): 155–182.
Wilson E (1992) The Sphinx in the City: Urban Life, the Control of Disorder, and Women.
Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.
Author biographies
Raz Schwartz is a postdoctoral researcher at Cornell Tech NYC and a Magic grant fellow at the
Brown Institute for Media Innovation at Columbia Journalism School. Raz studies social media
usage in urban settings and focuses on examining local social interactions by applying computational
social science methods. Prior to joining Cornell Tech NYC, Raz was a postdoctoral
researcher at the Social Media Information Lab at Rutgers University. Raz completed his PhD in
the Science, Technology & Society (STS) program at Bar-Ilan University and was a visiting
scholar in the Human Computer Interaction Institute at Carnegie Mellon University. His research
was presented in various prestigious academic settings and was featured in media outlets such as
the Wall Street Journal, Wired, Rhizome, and The Atlantic.
Germaine R Halegoua is an Assistant Professor in the Film and Media Studies Department at the
University of Kansas. She received her PhD from the Media and Cultural Studies program at the
University of Wisconsin, Madison. Her research interests focus on relationships between urban
environments and digital media, social media and location, power relations and emerging technologies,
and cultural geographies of digital media.