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Short abstract:

Building on comparative empirical research in Tokyo, Cape Town and Berlin, this paper explores the process of platformisation by interrogating locative media such as mobile dating apps as fundamental drivers of everyday identity-making.

Long abstract:

This paper explores the process of platformisation by interrogating locative media – mobile apps that access the geolocation features of smartphones to locate their users in physical space and display web content tailored to their current location – as fundamental drivers of everyday identity-making. Building on comparative empirical research across three cities – Tokyo, Cape Town and Berlin – we shed light on how (queer) mobile dating apps such as Grindr co-configure identities of gender, place and community. To this end, we engage with the following research questions: How are locative media perceived as platforms of social change? What forms of identity-making are translated through apps such as Grindr and Tinder? How does the use of mobile dating apps differ across sociocultural contexts and along different gender identities? Comparing the use of mobile dating apps across three socio-spatial contexts, we investigate different forms of digital mediatisation of preexisting spatial realities and the cyber-physical construction of alternative spatial realities, focusing on constellations of conflict and coexistence. Doing so, this paper adds to existing accounts in STS that investigate how locative media represent space, facilitate spatial practice, thereby examining questions of power and the politics of location and locatability.

Keywords: locative media; dating apps; platformisation; digital mediatisation