The semiotics of digital cartography at the Geoguessr interface: A practice-oriented case study

Abstract

In digital cartography, Google Maps and Google Street View (GSV) are often used side-by-side at the computer interface. This study consists of an analysis of recordings of Geoguessr, an online game that presents players with GSV imagery and challenges them to guess the location of the images on a digital map. Gameplay requires semiotic moves that put the diagrammatic signs of the GSV images and the map into a dynamic interplay. By specifying these practices, the present analysis offers a processual, practice-oriented perspective on theoretical debates in the study of digital mapping. Rather than existing a priori, the constructed or transparent nature of the map, as well as the kind of cartographical subject involved in manipulations of the map both emerge and change through the practical use of the two representations. Furthermore, the abductive inferences that characterize particular moments of gameplay constitute an intersection of reasoning and play.