What happens when geography meets communication? In short, it shows how messages—texts, images, maps, posts—not only describe places but actively help make them. The course follows this thread: why some narratives stick, how media reshape what we notice (and what we overlook), and who gets to speak in public space.
We begin with Cultural Geography (Sauer and beyond) to set the building blocks: place, space, territory, representation. These aren’t glossary items; they’re tools to read the world.
With the narrative turn, we examine how stories and counter-stories remake territorial identities—from institutional storytelling (tourism, urban marketing) to bottom-up narratives (activism, memory work, artistic practices). The guiding question: who tells what, to whom, and with what effects?
With the digital turn, we step into platforms: algorithms, datafication, and geolocation reconfigure how narratives circulate and gain authority. We learn to detect traces, filters, and biases (including gendered ones) in linguistic landscapes and toponymy, asking how names in space legitimise some memories and eclipse others.
The Media Geographies strand shows how film, TV, social media, and digital maps produce space rather than simply represent it. We track how geographical stereotypes emerge (the exotic, the marginal, the “that neighbourhood that.”) and how to dismantle them through careful analysis and fairer communicative practices.
What you will actually learn:
to read texts and images critically, beyond the packaging.
To identify and debate biases (especially gendered) in linguistic landscapes and territorial narratives.
To connect theory and cases: from concepts to posts, films, maps, and campaigns.
To build well-grounded arguments about how stories shape urban policy, tourism, and perceptions of safety and belonging.
To assemble a compact toolkit (discourse analysis, visual methods, digital ethnography) for independent, rigorous inquiry.