Description

This session considers mediated place experiences in theoretical and applied contexts. Mediated place images include static images, verbal descriptions, moving images, simulations, virtual reality experiences, and interactive computer applications. Place images in the media contribute to the more general experience of sense of place, which arises from both direct and mediated experience. This raises questions about the relationship between mediated and unmediated sense of place, how the former affects the latter, and how people’s actions in places are responses to differently mediated types of place experience. Practical applications of place image studies include hazard perception and response, navigation and wayfinding, urban planning methodology, and participatory mapping. Theoretical concerns include how mediated place images relate to generic and specific understandings of place, place stereotypes, commercialization, Orientalization, escapism, geographical imaginaries, and the naturalization of particular place images. The session will support dialogue between scholars exploring applied and theoretical studies of mediated place images.