Abstract
The article presents an analytical concept, the Constitution of Accessibility through Meaning of Public Places (CAMPP) model. The CAMPP model distinguishes different manifestations of public places according to how they facilitate and restrict communication between urbanites. It describes public places along two analytical dimensions: their degree of perceived accessibility and the elaboration of knowledge necessary to participate in place-related activities. Three patterns of communicative interaction result from these dimensions: civil inattention, small talk, and sociability. We employ the CAMPP model as an analytical tool to investigate how digital annotations affect communicative patterns and perceptions of accessibility of public places. Based on empirical observations and interviews with users of smartphone apps that provide digital annotations, such as Foursquare City Guide, we observe that digital annotations tend to reflect and reinforce existing patterns of communication and rarely evoke changes in the perceived accessibility of public places.
Highlights
Public places are the historical nucleus of the modern public sphere
We develop a typology that dis‐ tinguishes different types of public places with respect to their perceived accessibility and the way it is consti‐ tuted by ascription of meaning
The CAMPP model is built on the basic assump‐ tions of interactionist urban sociology as laid out by Strauss (1961)
Summary
Public places are the historical nucleus of the modern public sphere. Scholars have pointed out the impor‐ tance of public places as sites for encounters where mutual strangers can communicate face‐to‐face and experience a sense of belonging (e.g., Goffman, 1963; Jacobs, 1961; Lofland, 1998; Sennett, 1977; Strauss, 1961). Gerhards and Schäfer (2010) refer to this ear‐ liest and interpersonal level of the public sphere as “encounter publics” (p. 144). This dif‐ ference is evident when considering the meeting places of marginalized social worlds, such as those of drug addicts or the homeless These places are legally accessible, many city dwellers avoid them because they attribute a poor reputation to these places. Digital annotations have the potential to transform these knowledge‐based modes of perceiving accessibil‐ ity because they provide city dwellers with new channels for creating and sharing knowledge about public places. To investigate this transformative potential, we proceed in two steps. Considering the spatial con‐ densation of public encounters there, we assumed we would find more creative appropriations of digital anno‐ tations in Tokyo than in Berlin, with regard to the perceived accessibility of public places, this assump‐ tion has not been confirmed
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