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Digital Geographies of Hope: Situated Futures in a Data-Driven World

Author

Listed:
  • Cornelia Brantner

    (Department of Geography, Media and Communication, Karlstad University, Sweden)

  • Kaarina Nikunen

    (Faculty of Information Technology and Communication Sciences, Tampere University, Finland)

  • Georgia Aitaki

    (Department of Geography, Media and Communication, Karlstad University, Sweden)

Abstract

This thematic issue advances digital geographies of hope as a lens for examining how possibilities for action, connection, and alternative futures take shape in a deeply datafied and platformized world. While critical scholarship has documented extraction, surveillance, bordering, and algorithmic injustice, the contributions foreground hope as situated, relational, and contested, emerging within crisis rather than outside of it. Drawing on utopian and feminist thought, queer and decolonial critique, and research on affect, care, and solidarity, the thematic issue conceptualizes hope as both affective and infrastructural: enacted through everyday practices, collective struggles, and sociotechnical imaginaries that expand “room to act.” Cases range from feminist and anti-war organizing to rural and regional media ecologies, post-digital work cultures, and AI governance debates. Read across these contexts, hope appears as ambivalent yet generative, enabling refusal, repair, solidarity, and world-making across scales.

Suggested Citation

  • Cornelia Brantner & Kaarina Nikunen & Georgia Aitaki, 2026. "Digital Geographies of Hope: Situated Futures in a Data-Driven World," Media and Communication, Cogitatio Press, vol. 14.
    • Handle: RePEc:cog:meanco:v14:y:2026:a:11973
    DOI: 10.17645/mac.11973
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. Weijie Huang & Payal Arora & Marta Zarzycka, 2026. "Geographies of Hope: Rethinking Deepfake Harms and Gender AI Safety in the Global South," Media and Communication, Cogitatio Press, vol. 14.
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