This article investigates how places are represented through social media, primarily via picture posts on Instagram. In a world where an increasing number of connections and interactions with the urban environment are mediated by digital interfaces such as smartphones, the focus was on how locales are portrayed on social media and whether their geolocation conveys value beyond mere geographical location. Five bridges in central London were used as locations for this study: the London Bridge, Tower Bridge, Westminster Bridge, Waterloo Bridge, and Millennium Bridge. Public Instagram Posts geotagged to five bridges were collected. All posts underwent systematic observation to analyze the intriguing contradictions and contrasts in the popular understanding of the usage of the geotags and hashtags against the image posted. This article’s findings highlight that the tangible and intangible aspects of social media usage can inform and impact how one experiences a place. Against this backdrop, this study provides important insights into how digital locative media plays a critical role in creating visual representations of bridges and landscapes and even perpetuate misinformation due to the failure to name locations correctly.
Kiminami et al. (Thu,) studied this question.