Week Five: I Need My Space, My Virtual Space

Image received from: http://andrew.tumblr.com/

During this week’s lecture, we were told about how space becomes place through the meanings and symbols given by humans. At first I was at a loss for how I was going to relate this to my virtual network, tumblr. But then I saw that the PowerPoint slides explained that “a sense of place is created through humans perceiving and constructing that location.” (Van Luyn, 2013). This applies to places which aren’t necessarily physical. On tumblr, your blog is your own space, constructed by your own perceptions.

This has a lot to do with the naming of blogs. In this week’s reading, the author talks about how giving a feature in the landscape a name, such as “Mount Misery,” makes it stand out from other features which are not named as inventively (Tuan, 1991). In the same way, the name of a person’s blog can make it stand out from other blogs if it is good enough.

For example, a blog name such as this, does not give any indication of the blog style. However with Lost in Paradise as a blog name, you can tell that the blog has things to do with paradise and things that a person loves. Also, with a blog name such as Sweet Dreams*, you can tell that the blog is based around things seemingly innocent or beautiful, such as pretty girls. The names create a “space” where images, text and videos are presented in regards to the name.

Reference List:

Van Luyn, A. (2013). BA1002: Our Space: Networks, narratives and the making of place, Lecture 5: Stories and Places. [PowerPoint slides]. Retrieved from http://learnjcu.edu.au.

Tuan, Y. (1991). Language and the Making of Place: A Narrative-Description Approach, Annals of the Association of American Geographers, 81(4), 684-696.