ABSTRACT
This chapter explores how spatial technologies have impacted on that history and discusses how their application might lead to common approaches in the areas of spatial narrative and spatial data infrastructures. It argues that spatial methodologies impact on the reception of text in three broad ways: as means of communicating, of organizing, and of reading. Communication between humans over distance can be spatially mediated by text; however, as described by Joshua Meyrowitz, the computerization of the text impacts on the spatiality of human interaction itself. Meyrowitz argues that the ability to communicate simultaneously with multiple people using text, irrespective of the physical distance, impacts on what humans communicate and how they communicate it. The process of organization moves beyond the process of communication to the ascription of meaning and context to the place reference, rather than just describing its structure.
