%0 Journal Article
%T One map to rule them all? Google Maps as digital technical object
%A Scott McQuire
%J Communication and the Public
%@ 2057-0481
%D 2019
%R 10.1177/2057047319850192
%X Since its launch in 2005, Google Maps has been at the forefront of redefining how mapping and positionality function in the context of a globalizing digital economy. It has become a key socio-technical ¡®artefact¡¯ helping to reconfigure the nexus between technology and spatial experience in the 21st century. In this essay, I will trace Google¡¯s evolving strategy in the mapping space. I will argue that the evolution of Google Maps exemplifies way in which a contemporary digital platform ¡®succeeds¡¯ by becoming embedded as a foundational resource for a variety of other uses and services. At one level, this can be understood in terms of what Gillespie has conceptualized as the ¡®politics of platforms¡¯, contributing to the emergence of what has recently been dubbed ¡®platform capitalism¡¯. At a deeper level, I will argue that Google Maps exemplifies the complex dynamics of what Simondon calls ¡®technical objects¡¯ that always exist in relation to both an evolving technical system, and the other systems constituting a more or less integrated social milieu
%K Digital platforms
%K geomedia studies
%K Google Maps
%K mapping platforms
%K urban communication
%U https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/2057047319850192