This chapter investigates how we can facilitate a sensitive digital and collaborative place design process to promote a more nuanced and sustainable development of digitalised experiences and services in harmony with a local place. The use of technology-driven experiences and place-specific digital services at destinations has expanded, especially within the tourism industry. These services may range from digital map functions, place-specific information, or narratives to augmented reality experiences and virtual representations. The common feature among these media technologies is that they, in different ways, reference a place, known as geomedia technologies, which connect media, local places, and local narratives. However, the development and implementation of these technologies tend to overlook spatial implications and lack critical reflection, failing to align with local conditions or highlight unique local assets. Consequently, tourism stakeholders and residents experience a loss of control over development and information, which favours generalised technical solutions and user-generated content from visitors. We therefore propose a collaborative and inclusive place design process that considers the relationship between people, place, and media technology concerning the present, the past, and the future. In this chapter, we present geomedia sensibility. These theoretical underpinnings frame sensitive digital place design and illustrate how to conduct a collaborative design process guided by geomedia sensibility through a specific design case. © 2026 selection and editorial matter, Fredrik Hoppstadius, Mekonnen Tesfahuney and Ulrika Åkerlund; individual chapters, the contributors.

This paper draws the contours of a hitherto unexplored concept: connectivity justice. It refers to the rights and opportunities of individuals and organizations to manage whether and how they connect to different, especially digital, networks and infrastructures. It may range from having a bus-stop or mobile transmitter close to where one lives to possessing the means and skills for using digital authorization apps or booking platforms. As such, connectivity justice overlaps with, but also extends beyond mobility justice and data justice. The paper presents a conceptual overview of mobility justice, data justice and related terms – such as “mobility data justice” – showing how these terms overlap with connectivity justice, while at the same time crystallizing the distinct properties of the latter term. In a digital society, connectivity is largely a precondition for the capacity to move and to utilize media platforms involving datafication processes (with their positive and negative implications). At the same time, connectivity entails the capacity to withdraw from networks and thus avoid certain types of interactions, such as, surveillance. Connectivity justice is thus not only a matter of justly distributed opportunities to connect and utilize digital resources; it also concerns the right to disconnect. The latter aspect has been discussed especially in relation to certain forms of digital(ized) labor, but can be applied across social realms pertaining to citizens and consumers with various needs, desires and passions. As a case in point, the hospitality industry (including hotels, coworking spaces, etc.) provides good opportunities for studying how connectivity justice interacts with mobility and data justice pertaining to different clienteles. Connectivity justice may spur critical discussions within the field of geomedia studies that break away from any universalizing ethics in favor of an ethics of care. 

In a heritage context, physical objects as well as digitally produced representations can fulfill important functions in people’s experienced relationship to the past, but we need to investigate the actual foun­dations for such experiences. How can we understand the combined roles of objects, narrative, and spatial location in visitors’ feelings of connectedness to place­specific historical events? The article presents a model of what happens at the intersection of place, object(s), technol­ogy, visitor(s), and historical narratives, proposing imagination and play as a valuable, often neglected resource. The model builds on aug­mented reality/AR concepts developed in collaboration with visitors, artists, stakeholders, museum personnel and researchers for a heritage site, Långban, Sweden. Here, physical objects and digital technology were combined to involve visitors as co­creators of emotionally and intellectually captivating narrative game­based experiences. In such a setting fact and fiction meet. The imaginative is prompted by digital media interconnecting the physical (architecture, landscape, and objects), spatial movements, game mechanisms and narratives. We argue that it is potentially rewarding to make use of the visitor’s own imagination in the co­creation of an enhanced/enchanted experience at heritage sites or museums, as this can allow for a high level of imagi­native engagement that personal

The premiere of ABBA Voyage marked a milestone in the experience industry. In a purpose-built arena in London, the Swedish popular music group ABBA performed as holographic representations (ABBAtars) in their first concert in 40 years. This event combined hologram technology, animations, film sequences, live music, and pre-recorded vocals to create an immersive experience. In this article, ABBA Voyage forms a case study for investigating how the intersection between immersive live performances, transmedia narratives, and place unfolds. The analysis draws on interviews and observations conducted at the arena and online. Findings reveal how ABBA Voyage combines a specific site with a digitally based performance, interconnecting the web of transmedia narratives and fandom that constitutes the ABBA universe. This paper suggests the concept of 'phygital experiences' to address the significance of blending immersive experiences, transmedia narratives, fandom, and place-specific events in the expanding experience industry, contributing to the commercialization of public and semi-public spaces. © 2025 Vita e Pensiero. All rights reserved.

När ABBA Voyage hade premiär den 26 maj 2022, var det den första av sitt slag. I en särskilt byggd arena i London återuppstod den svenska musikgruppen ABBA som digitalt genererade avbilder av sig själva — avatarer — och gav sin första konsert sedan gruppen splittrades för 40 år sedan. Arenan är särskilt skapad för att hålla flera konserter alla dagar i veckan och har sedan premiären varit ett välbesökt event. ABBA Voyage är det första fygitala (fysiska och digitala) liveframträdandet i sitt slag och bryter därmed ny mark inom upplevelseindustrin. Avatarerna — eller ABBAtarerna — representerar ABBAmedlemmarna när de fortfarande var aktiva. Tillsammans med en liveorkester framför ABBAtarerna både låtar från sin aktiva tid och nyinspelat material i en visuellt baserad musikupplevelse. I denna kvalitativa studie undersöker vi hur publiken tar till sig och upplever ABBA Voyage. Resultatet visar att viktiga komponenter har varit att skapa fusion av förflutet och framtid, teknologi och nostalgi och att tillåta publiken samskapa fysiska, digitala och sociala upplevelser.

With the rapidly emerging development of technology-mediated tourism experiences and place-based digital services for visitors, there is a lack of awareness regarding the spatial implications of technological implementations. Based on a participatory action research method applied in this study on five research-based destination development projects in Sweden, we propose a spatially sensible approach when developing enhanced experiences for visitors through digital technology. This paper is motivated by the emerging criticism of how media technology is shaping and reshaping spaces. Drawing on the theoretical underpinnings of the growing field of geomedia studies, we propose “geomedia sensibility” as a way to offer a sensible approach in the co-creation of digital experiences at destinations.

This article draws on five participatory action research studies to address how geomedia theory can induce multiple imaginations of the future. Critical future research advocates that societies need to collectively create visions of multiple futures, transcending the single rational (neoliberal) future path. The studies were conducted in collaboration with rural communities and local tourism entrepreneurs who were exploring geomedia technologies to develop destinations. The tourism sector uses geomedia technologies but often depends on commercial platforms that seek upscaling and generalisation, becoming detached from local practices and place-specific settings. By applying critical geomedia studies, we problematised the relationship between people, place, and technology in the present, the past, and the future. Geomedia studies provided a critical lens that provoked future visions beyond preformatted technological infrastructures and media practices. The participants were asked to engage with complex issues such as access, restrictions, equality, authority, and legitimacy in relation to the specific place, bringing forth a multitude of local assets and narratives envisioning alternative geomedia technologies. As a result of this process, participants paid greater attention to local assets, gained a more critical approach towards technology, and dared to use digital solutions in a more visionary manner. We, therefore, argue that researchers need to engage with society to bypass hegemonic geomedia representations. By illustrating how geomedia theory can be utilised within community development, we provide a framework for how collaborative research can more explicitly engage with local actors’ thoughts and imaginings of possible futures.

This special issue of Culture Unbound directs attention beyond cities, to small towns and rural communities, and the practices taking place there. Referring to a previous special issue on ‘Rural Media Spaces’ from 2010, this special issue revisits the notion of ‘the rural’ versus ‘the urban’ through the concept of placemaking and geomedia. In a mediatized society, placemaking practices cannot be understood without simultaneously understanding different media practices and how they affect place. A geomedia perspective on placemaking beyond cities, therefore, brings new perspectives on media representations of small towns and rural communities, related to the materialization of space and how we engage with and perceive the world. Geomedia also includes a focus on layers of digitalization and new media in the relations between place and practice.

The issue brings together researchers from a wide range of subjects, and the articles in this volume address empirical examples from different rural places and small towns in Sweden and internationally. Taken together, a manifold of issues relating to media and placemaking beyond cities are covered, for example, inclusion/exclusion, representation, resistance, community building, belonging, and identification.

Covid-19 och de restriktioner som följde i pandemins spår förändrade musikbranschens förutsättningar över en natt. Scener och klubbar tvingades stänga när det infördes förbud mot allmänna sammankomster och alla uppmanades att hålla avstånd. Festivaler, turnéer och konserter ställdes in. Men hur påverkades och förhöll sig den svenska musikbranschen till restriktionerna under pandemin? Detta kapitel ger en bild av tiden under pandemin utifrån små och medelstora svenska musikaktörer. Aktörer som står utanför de stora major-bolagen och som är aktiva utanför Sveriges storstadsregioner. Utgångspunkten är enstudie som initierades när Sverige införde begränsningar av allmännasammankomster 2020 och som pågick fram till sommaren 2022. Kapitlet redogör för musikaktörers reaktioner, ageranden och de olika faser branschens aktörer genomgick under denna märkliga tid – från desperation till innovativt samarbete.