MAPPING DIGITAL NETWORKS From cyberspace to Google

This paper examines how the metaphor of mapping has been formative in the public's apprehension of Internet technologies since the early 1990s. It explores how cyberspace was represented as a map in popular films and novels as well as by popular commentators and thought leaders. Jean Baudrillard's contention that the ‘map precedes the territory’ is indicative of a view of cyberspace or virtual reality that was contained and separate from lived experience. But with the introduction of Web 2.0 technologies, this began to change. Frederic Jameson's conception of the cognitive map better describes how users have come to order and plot their lives into dynamic interfaces. Google Maps and the myriad of applications that followed brought the physical location of users and data into clear view. While location has promised tremendous freedoms for users, this paper questions whether or not those freedoms are outside the significant constraints of the consumer network.