Chapter 13 Mapping play: What cybercartographers can learn from popular culture

Abstract Although cybercartography is a new field of study, its arrival has long been rehearsed in popular culture and entertainment, including novels, films, Web sites and digital games. The widespread representation of cartographic, navigational and location technologies in popular texts have created cultural expectations that far exceed the current technical limits of mapping tools. At the same time, these popular narratives enable a growing familiarity with the concept of cybercartography that cannot but shape the way users approach the cybermaps of the future. This chapter will explore cybermaps as a popular concept, examining some of the cybercartographic interfaces (both real and fictional) that have been imagined and implemented in printed fiction, hyperfiction, Web sites, films and digital games. Through various forms of cultural analysis, I will show how the stories we tell about cybermaps today can inform future cybercartographic theory and practice. Note: View the SIM City Screen Capture Images on the Accompanying CD-Rom.

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