Seeing spatially: people, networks and movements in digital and urban spaces

Abstract

Recent social movements have been figuratively and digitally ignited in digital media and yet these movements took form, materialised and claimed power in urban public spaces. Digital media and physical urban spaces have become interdependent dimensions of social movements. Together, they can provide ‘spaces’ for people to interact for the establishment of human agency and the expansion of social networks of the movements. By reading social movements spatially, this article offers to conceptualise the dialectical interplay between digital media and physical urban spaces in the making of contemporary social movements.