The Hyper(active) Local

The neighbourhood was once a network of streets. Then telephony bridged the gaps and brought us closer. Then the internet. And now with Wi-Fi capabilities there is no single section of the grid that has been left untouched, or inaccessible. Alex Iskold (2007) notes that users now interact with their local environment in ways never thought possible. They will blog about what it "feels" like to be in a particular locality, people will record "countless hours" and bytes of photography and video of their surroundings.

The content is uploaded and something very peculiar is happening with it. Users are tagging their information, geotagging to be precise, and very precise it is. Information can now be pinpointed down to its exact latitudinal and longitudinal coordinates. The national news no longer covers our thirst for local information; the newspaper is too broad also. So locals are now turning to information that is truly local, hyperlocal in fact. This hyperlocalisation of information possesses one particular quality that other information simply cannot mimic. Relevance. And it is this capacity which is seeing its surge in popularity through the wires.

Advertisers too, have noticed the relevance factor of hyperlocal information. Iskold (2007) notes that the humble classified adverts have long joined the local community, but the online world is fast catching up; it applies these principles to not only sales, but information, image, video, and text alike. Information now reaches the community who most need it, or find it relevant. The process is now taken even further still, and with the capacity to include vertical lines of research, linked to the data we are looking at, hyperlocalised information is our one-stop-shop.

With the creation of local media, there must of course be the local network of creators and users adding to the log of available data. But these creators no longer wish to operate in isolation. And so we have sent he rise of social networking sites; but these too are now hyperlocal, and rather than connecting the masses, they connect the proximate community. Take StreetAdvisor for example; users are able to rate their street and neighbourhood, exposing their thoughts, and be notified of events. They are truly involved in their community. Gone are the days of the bickering and private neighbour, and here is the day of the active and localised citizen.

Boyles (2008) recognises that the traditional sender/receiver communication model has been redefined, and that this is to do with the blurring of the lines between the “publisher, producer, distributor, consumer and reviewer”. No longer are these separate entities but individuals one in the same. Bruns (2008) describes the rise of the active consumer as “produsage”; the trend for consumers to create the content that they wish to use and interact with, which lies at the heart of the hyperlocal media surge.

As the globalisation phenomenon continues, the networks proliferate, and data and information is consistently barraged to the online environment. But with the spread of our connections, comes the hyperlocalisation of media. We crave what is relevant, we crave proximate information, and we crave localised involvement. So as technology breaks down the walls of geographical segregation, we maintain at least figurative boundaries, tying ourselves and our information to a specific geography. Becoming hyper(active) locals.