The emergence of creative and digital place-making: A scoping review across disciplines

Abstract

The concept of ‘place-making’ emerged in media studies in 2015, but to date, there has been little theoretical engagement with the term. The primary research question this scoping review answers is how is ‘place-making’ defined across disciplines and which methodologies have been applied to creative and digital projects? A bibliometric analysis of 1974 publications from Web of Science (published in the last 30 years) were analysed to (1) define ‘place-making’ across disciplines, (2) model common themes in scholarship, (3) identify the methodologies used and (4) understand the impacts on citizens. The results show that ‘place-making’ first appeared in geography/urban studies in 1960s, was then adopted as ‘creative placemaking’ in the creative industries, and in the past 5 years (since 2015), it has appeared as ‘digital placemaking’ in media studies. It also highlighted areas (i.e. gaps) for future research into ‘creative placemaking’ and ‘digital place-making’ practices for cultural heritage sites.