“Placeification” : The transformation of digital news spaces into “places” of meaning

Gutsche Jr, Robert and Hess, Kristy (2020) “Placeification” : The transformation of digital news spaces into “places” of meaning. Digital Journalism, 8 (5). pp. 586-595. ISSN 2167-082X

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Abstract

News websites, apps, and immersive environments have increasingly become places that extend one beyond her physical geography. Digital Journalism Studies requires ways to consider how journalism both shapes and is shaped by the places in which it is produced, practiced, and consumed. Current understandings of place in the news set a foundation for such understanding, though this work usually expresses meanings after a geography is demarcated and characterized whereas in digital journalism, newsmakers and users are frequently creating or reinforcing connection to “place” through mediated experience, interactivity, and amid new territories of online news environments. This article, therefore, argues for the concept of placeification that encourages scholarship examining how places evolve in digital news environments. For this article, we define placeification as “the array of processes and practices in which digital news spaces transform into places of meaning and significance. The term employs ification, a suffix that represents a process of becoming and which acknowledges the structure-agency of the place-making process.