It’s So Ridiculously Soulless: Geolocative Media, Place And Third Wave Gentrification

Abstract

The impact of gentrification in cities is well established. The continuous evolution in geolocation and social media is intensifying the contest between competing stakeholder claims to authenticity about gentrifying places. In this article, we examine the way that different geolocative social media define a struggle over the rights to authenticity in a rapidly gentrifying neighborhood in Brisbane, Australia. Local voices are often submerged by the voices of commercial imperative, particularly when the rent gap in gentrifying neighborhoods begins to attract abstract capital with a vested interest in commodifying local culture. We use Instagram and Facebook to critically examine how the hegemonic influence of social media can construct a gentrifying neighborhood in immaterial space and argue that these constructions work to eradicate the complex array of communities that comprise this neighborhood in material space.