You are where you go, the commodification of daily life through 'location

Bibliographic Data

ID5017154
AuthorsJim Thatcher (University of Washington Tacoma, corresponding author)
Year2017
Volume49
Issue12
Pages2702-2717
Publication date2017-12-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueEnvironment and Planning A Economy and Space (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0308-518X • E-ISSN: 1472-3409
PublisherSAGE Publications Inc (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1177/0308518x17730580
OpenAlexW2754969211
LanguageEN
Citations received15
References cited56

Recent years have seen an explosion in the investment into and valuation of mobile spatial applications. With multiple applications currently valued at well over one billion U.S. dollars, mobile spatial applications and the data they generate have come to play an increasingly significant role in the function of late capitalism. Empirically based upon a series of interviews conducted with mobile application designers and developers, this article details the creation of a digital commodity termed 'location.' 'Location' is developed through three discursive poles: Its storing of space and time as digital data object manipulable by code, its spatial and temporal immediacy, and its ability to 'add value' or 'tell a story' to both end-users and marketers. As a commodity it represents the sum total of targeted marking information, including credit profiles, purchase history, and a host of other information available through data mining or sensor information, combined with temporal immediacy, physical location, and user intent. 'Location' is demonstrated to exist as a commodity from its very inception and, as such, to be a key means through which everyday life is further entangled with processes of capitalist exploitation

Advertising · Business · Capitalism · Commodification · Commodity · Data science · Debugging · Economics · Economy · Everyday life · Immediacy · Internet privacy · Political science · Politics · World Wide Web · Computer Science · Geographic Information Systems Studies · Human Mobility and Location-Based Analysis · Sharing Economy and Platforms · Finance

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