The Constitution of Dubai’s Mobile-App-Mediated Spatiotemporal Glocalization: Postphenomenology and Postdigitality in Dialogue

Abstract

The present study proposes the notion-complex of “spatiotemporal glocalization” as a potentially postdigital phenomenon inhering in the touristscape representations mediated by mobile apps, with an analytic focus on the Dubai Travel mobile app. An integrative tripartite approach has been adopted with three theoretical models at work: (1) Don Ihde’s postphenomenological perspective as reconcilable with Roudometof’s model of refracted glocalities; (2) Vásquez and Cooren’s theoretical model of Communicative Constitution of Organizing (CCO); and (3) Jürgen Habermas’s pragmatic model of speech acts. Three findings have resulted from the approach-informed analysis. First, there existed various postdigital refracted touristic glocalities about Dubai with globally flowing cultural landscapes: ethnoscapes, mediascapes, financescapes, ideoscapes, and technoscapes. Second, it was demonstrated that the app-mediated glocalities have been organized through three spacing practices: (1) presentifying the materiality of glocalized hybrid interactions of techno-human actors, (2) ordering the glocal scripted trajectories of Dubai touristscape by creating more space and time across a 5-day regular framework of intervals, and (3) accounting as associated with the glocal narrative of Dubai touristscape through specifying its scripted trajectory at traditional and modern levels. Third, speech act theory has been instrumental in defining the “discourse worlds” in which human–nonhuman interactions communicatively unfolded, namely, mobile-interface technological actors and app users.