Social Media and the Academy : New Publics or Public Geographies?

Academia and the networks of knowledge and information that it is embedded in are changing. This response highlights three areas of concern within the coming-togethers of social media and geography. First, although blogs can create the fissures in media/social constellations, they more often than not form an integral part of those very mediascapes. Second, while social media may have allowed for some changing gatekeepers, it remains that the creation and dissemination of information are highly socially and spatially uneven. Finally, we are able to critically reflect on how much change we have actually seen in knowledge flows out of academia and whether we are truly seeing new forms and enactions of public geographies. The paper ultimately argues that while new channels and digital mediations of information might allow us to reach different publics, it remains that our digitally mediated work is far from being public