https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7088-3994
Abstract
Hybrid Spaces emerge from the blending of physical and digital spaces produced by the mobility of people communicating via mobile technologies. This articulation of Hybrid Space has influenced scholars of communication, media, mobilities, and other fields, as evidenced by our analysis of literature. Over the last two decades, however, Hybrid Spaces have morphed and adapted to our changing sociotechnical landscape. This article updates the concept, identifying developments with its key dimensions of mobility, connectivity, and sociability, while analyzing how it has been taken up in literature. Our analysis indicates Hybrid Space has, thus far, exclusively been taken up for inductive scholarship. We propose an updated conceptual model of Hybrid Space that can inform ways in which the concept can help with both inductive and deductive theorizing, expanding its scope in promising new directions.
Introduction
We live in Hybrid Spaces. Every day, people around the world carry mobile devices connected to each other and the Internet, including smartphones/watches, fitness monitors, Bluetooth tracking tags, and other networked wearable technologies. These devices help with everyday navigation and communication, such as tracking bus routes, buying groceries, locating children, checking traffic, or simply coordinating and socializing with others. Even if not carrying a device, most people in the world today are likely within range of some kind of wireless network (Boase, 2024). Routine interactions with mobile technologies, geolocated information, and digital networks is nothing new. Almost two decades ago, de Souza e Silva (2006) suggested Hybrid Spaces had been taking root, with people not only occupying them, but producing them via mobility and sociability through mobile networked technologies. More than just combining physical and digital (Harrison & Dourish, 1996), Hybrid Spaces, she argued, were produced by ongoing and emerging networked relationships between mobile technologies, mobility, and communication. Hybrid Spaces were defined as “mobile spaces, created by constant movement of users who carry portable devices continuously connected to the Internet and to other users” (de Souza e Silva, 2006, p. 262). By walking around connected to the Internet (and consequently to other geolocated users) people could experience both digital and physical spaces simultaneously, and for this reason, it was increasingly problematic to address physical and digital as two disconnected spaces.
de Souza e Silva’s (2006) iteration of Hybrid Space was a direct response to views from early 2000s that digital and physical spaces occupy separate domains. Scholarship and popular media commonly described how people “entered” digital spaces to socialize with others (Benedikt, 2000; Rheingold, 1993), and how media use detached people from their physical surroundings (Gergen, 2002; Putnam, 2000). Although some focused on how digital (online) lives influenced physical (offline) contexts and vice versa (Dibbell, 1999; Turkle, 1995), they were commonly treated as discreet. With few exceptions (Mante-Meijer et al., 1998; Milgram & Colquhoun, 1999; Harrison & Dourish, 1996) digital and physical were rarely understood or experienced as one unified space. One reason is because in the early 2000s the Internet was mostly accessed through fixed desktop computers. To enter “cyberspace,” people had to be tethered in physical space.
This articulation of Hybrid Space influenced scholars of communication, media, mobilities, and other fields, evidenced by the ensuing analysis of literature citing it. Hybrid Space was advanced to explain a sociotechnical landscape from two decades ago when mobile phones were among the few ways of connecting on the move for most. When de Souza e Silva first advanced the concept, mobile phones had tiny screens and a physical keypad. Most barely supported Internet connection, and 2G networks offered painfully slow—and expensive—data transmission speeds. As a result, most people used mobile phones primarily to text and talk. However, a few pioneer innovations at the turn of the millennium pointed toward a future where digital and geolocated information would be more integrated into common spaces of mobile communication. Among them were location-based mobile games, such as Botfighters (2000) and Can You See Me Now? (2001) (Benford et al., 2006; Sotamaa, 2002). These games contained the seeds of Hybrid Space by interconnecting physical and digital spaces via the mobility of players networked with mobile communication devices, including tablets, walkie-talkies, GPS devices, and feature phones. Since then, the range of mobile media and infrastructures has grown in scope and complexity (Boase, 2024). People now interact with myriad technologies in everyday life.
We argue viewing contemporary sociotechnical landscapes through a Hybrid Space lens is not only still relevant, but may be transformative to how scholars study mobilities, technologies, and societies. In addition, we suggest Hybrid Space offers wider theoretical utility than what we have seen so far, and can be used to help generate testable hypotheses, extending it beyond the literature’s present inductive scope. However, for Hybrid Space to be truly useful for generating and explaining research, we need to gain a systematic sense of how Hybrid Spaces have been changing and how the concept has been taken up in the literature.
We start by revisiting the original concept of Hybrid Space as proposed by de Souza e Silva (2006) by advancing a conceptual visual model that represents its original scope. We then provide an in-depth analysis of how the concept has been engaged with, exploring how its dimensions of mobility, connectivity, and sociability are portrayed in literature. Insights are used to identify developments and gaps, revealing updates and areas for expansion for each of its original dimensions. We then discuss how power dynamics are reflected and negotiated through Hybrid Spaces, producing different levels of access and agencies that shape how people experience them. Those insights provide traction for re-conceptualizing Hybrid Space as uneven and laden with power imbalances. Finally, building on various inductive ways in which the concept has been taken up in literature, we propose an updated conceptual model of Hybrid Space. Noting it has thus far only been used for inductive scholarship, we draw from the updated conceptual model of Hybrid Space to propose ways it might also enrich and inform deductive scholarship.
Locating Hybrid Space in literature
Although de Souza e Silva (2006) was not first to use the language “Hybrid Space” to refer to merging physical and digital spaces (Harrison & Dourish, 1996; Kazmer, 2005), she was first to conceptualize it as produced by mobility, connectivity, and sociability.1 Hybrid Space differs from other concepts that refer to digital-physical integration, such as augmented (Azuma, 1997) and mixed realities (Milgram & Colquhoun, 1999), where physical spaces are overlayed with digital content, as well as augmented space (Manovich, 2006) and code/space (Dodge & Kitchin, 2004), where physical space is embedded with digital screens and technologies that inject it with data or extract data from it. Hybrid Spaces are produced not because technologies are integrated into physical spaces, but because people use mobile technologies to carry the Internet around as they communicate through them.
de Souza e Silva’s (2006) article argues Hybrid Space is a new logic of space produced by three elements: mobility, connectivity and sociability. To clarify this definition, she adds that: (1) connectivity refers to both social networks as well as information networks (p. 262); (2) mobility refers both to the movement of people in physical space as well information moving through networks—when people become the nodes of information networks by carrying portable Internet connected devices (p. 266); and (3) sociability refers to the communication that occurs between people connected through these portable devices (p. 270). From de Souza e Silva’s original definition, Hybrid Space emerges when all these elements come together, which creates a new spatial logic in which the boundaries between digital and physical spaces no longer exist (p. 271).
Figure 1 below shows a simplified model of de Souza e Silva’s (2006) advancement of Hybrid Space. Although the original article does not include a visual representation, we find it is helpful to visualize its main components and understand their interactions. Because Hybrid Space is a new spatial logic that blurs the boundaries between physical and digital spaces, “digital+physical” stands at the center of the model. This physical+digital space is encompassed by mobility, sociability, and connectivity, elements that produce Hybrid Spaces. The circle indicates no hierarchy among the elements; they are all connected to each other and influence each other in the construction of this new spatial logic.
Depiction of original Hybrid Space conceptualization
de Souza e Silva’s (2006) original Hybrid Space concept was influenced by Deleuze and Guattari’s (1987) definition of smooth space as a nomadic space. As she put it, “Although a nomad is not ignorant of points, he or she focuses on paths, on the movement that happens between these points. In a nomadic network, the points are subordinated to the paths” (de Souza e Silva, 2006, p. 267). Understanding Hybrid Space as a nomadic space means focusing on the relationships (paths) among its elements (connectivity, mobility, and sociability) rather than the elements themselves (points), because meaning emerges from the connections within a network. Another important point is that Hybrid Space is composed of multiple elements. Following Deleuze and Guattari’s (1994) logic, each concept is a multiplicity, that is, an idea composed by multiple parts or a “fragmentary whole”. Deleuze and Guattari also explain every concept is in a constant state of becoming, that is, they are mobile entities themselves, permanently transforming—because the world to which they relate also changes.
Hybrid Space, thus, should be understood as a dynamic space characterized by interactions and interconnections among its evolving parts. Therefore, we should primarily focus on the networked relationships among its components, and how they influence each other, instead of each individual element. The circle in Figure 1 above represents how all components are inter-connected and function together, rather than in isolation. Like a rhizomatic network (Deleuze & Guattari, 1987) Hybrid Space’s components have no hierarchy among them. Taking a Hybrid Space approach means we do not privilege the technologies, the social aspects, or the mobilities involved in the production of space. In addition, we do not analyze components without overlooking the relationships and connections among them, as Hybrid Space’s meaning emerges from dynamic connections among parts.
This articulation of Hybrid Space has been highly influential over the last almost two decades, evidenced by over 900 Google Scholar citations at the time of this writing. To understand how Hybrid Space has been treated in literature, we thematically analyzed a corpus of scholarly journal articles that engage with it. Articles for analysis were selected through two sampling strategies, one driven by Google Scholar metrics, the other by researcher expectations and understanding of the field. As we explain, Google Scholar provides breadth in sampling by identifying citations across the universe of fields and journals, while a targeted journal search conducted by the authors provides depth in identifying references to Hybrid Space in the venues most relevant to Communication and Media.
Sampling began in Summer 2023 when we applied Google Scholar’s “most relevant” filter to generate an ordered list of over 800 references to the de Souza e Silva’s (2006) source article. Moving down the list, conceptual engagement noticeably decreased, informing the decision to work with the top 200 “most relevant” references. From the top 200, the second author manually filtered for scholarly journal articles available in English and accessible through institutional and online resources. They then searched each resulting article for “hybrid” and “Souza” to identify all citations and references to Hybrid Space. Each article was thoroughly examined by the second author to identify: (1) elaboration on Hybrid Space; and/or (2) repeated references to it, which were used as criteria for inclusion. Articles offering either (or both) of these criteria were included, while those with little or no relevant mention of Hybrid Space were filtered out, due to lack of analytic traction. The second author consulted with co-authors to arrive at these parameters and in making determinations for inclusion. This initial sampling strategy resulted in 19 articles.
Whereas Google Scholar was useful in identifying many references across the universe of academic journals, we also recognize its algorithm for “most relevant” may not align with our centering in Communication and Media. For a more comprehensive look at field-relevant references to Hybrid Space, we employed a second sampling strategy within journals the authors deemed “most relevant” to Communication and Media.2 Through consultation, the authors generated a list of 16 journals they deemed “most relevant,” and the second author then searched for “Hybrid Space” on main pages of each journal. They went through all article “hits” to filter out redundancies with the 19 articles already sampled in the strategy above. As with the strategy above, they then searched each remaining article for “hybrid” and “Souza,” while filtering out those that do not elaborate on or make repeated references to Hybrid Space. This second strategy generated 14 articles, in addition to the 19 from above, bringing the combined total to 33 journal articles with some degree of conceptual engagement with Hybrid Space.
Both second and third authors read through and analyzed each article, seeking out instances of engagement with Hybrid Space, specifically looking for how the dimensions of mobility, connectivity, and sociability were reflected and addressed. Shortly into analysis, they chose to also examine how Hybrid Spaces entail power imbalances, because this emerged as an early theme in the literature, and to look for other emergent themes and developments over time. They each took notes in places where Hybrid Space was referenced, periodically sharing and discussing. The first author helped refine notes into themes. In the ensuing sections we present themes from the article analysis, while situating each in relevant literature and updates in the world. This approach offers a view of how themes associated with the uptake of Hybrid Space inform and reflect themes in the literature and in everyday life.
Expanding the dimensions of Hybrid Space
Mobilities of Hybrid Space: from urban mobilities to uneven mobilities
Although not urban by definition, the source 2006 article and literature citing it focus solely on cities as settings for Hybrid Space, which makes sense because cities are highly connected spaces of circulation (Scott & Soja, 1998; Swyngedouw, 2006) and innovation (Florida, 2003), where new technologies are first diffused and adopted (Johnson, 2010; Townsend, 2013). Mobilities scholars Freudendal-Pedersen and Kesselring (2017) explained contemporary urban landscapes are comprised of networked mobilities, which entail mobility processes occurring in local but highly connected urban spaces.
Cities epitomize Hybrid Space because they make networked mobilities visible. For this reason, most scholarship previously analyzing interconnections and mobilities between digital and physical spaces has characteristically focused on urban settings and environments. For example, Castells’ (2000) “space of flows” emphasized mega-cities as global hubs of information networks and mobilities. Manovich (2006) exemplified augmented space with screens and surveillance cameras people encountered as they walked around urban areas of Tokyo, Hong Kong, and Seoul. Dodge and Kitchin’s (2004) code/space was illustrated by portraying Tokyo and London airports as nodes of urban mobility networks. And de Souza e Silva’s (2006) Hybrid Space used location-based mobile games played in major cities, including Stockholm (Botfighters), Tokyo (Mogi), and Rio de Janeiro (Alien Revolt), as examples.
The articles we analyzed also share this focus on cities and urban environments. Except for two, all reflect an explicit interest in industrialized cities. The exceptions are recent efforts by de Souza e Silva herself, who encouraged scholars to consider Hybrid Spaces in rural and poorly connected areas (de Souza e Silva, 2023; de Souza e Silva & Xiong-Gum, 2021). Several scholars characterized Hybrid Space as increasingly ubiquitous, claiming it was pretty much everywhere and commonly experienced in daily life. For example, Bilandzic and Foth (2012) highlighted how “ubiquitous connectivity” of mobile devices has broadly “transformed our urban environments into ‘Hybrid Spaces,’ where social interaction and communication patterns traverse through physical, digital, and a mix of both spaces” (p. 66). Others recognized how the physical world is “increasingly” shaped by digital information as people move through Hybrid Spaces (Frith & Richter, 2021), and how Hybrid Spaces have worked their way into “mundane” (Woods, 2020) and “every day” lifeworld practices of digitally enabled placemaking (Richardson, 2010; Wang, 2022). Campbell and Ross (2022) further suggested the pervasiveness of Hybrid Spaces could make it challenging to socially disengage when seeking solitude.
These insights reveal a notable tension in the literature. Hybrid Spaces are supposedly everywhere, yet there is a narrow focus on cities and open urban areas. Cities are important, but as Wang (2022) noted, they only make up about three percent of global surface area. Rural and poorly connected areas also support Hybrid Spaces, providing an opportunity for better understanding their spatial heterogeneity. We should not forget it is cellular technology that brings digital communication to many remote areas around the world. Even a 3G tower and mesh networks provide some sort of connectivity (Donner, 2015), and therefore should be considered in the production of Hybrid Space. While in 2022 high-speed 5G technology only covered 35% of global landmass, over 95% is now covered by some kind of cellular signal (Taylor, 2023). Coverage, however, is spotty and uneven. In rural and low-income areas people sometimes must walk to community centers or rely on a neighbor for connection. They might own only one device, and it might not be state-of-the-art. However, even if they own no device, they are still likely within range of networked technologies and infrastructures. Beyond the highly connected spaces of Global North cities, Hybrid Spaces are also produced where connections are poor, access to networked technology is uneven, and mobilities are challenging. These include urban spaces in the Global South (and some in the Global North), as well as rural and low-income areas around the world.
In addition, Hybrid Spaces do not just unfold in open public spaces. We also need to consider bounded places, like homes and offices, which tend to be overlooked. There are many enclosed and private settings of connected mobility. However, the articles in our sample mostly overlooked bounded Hybrid Spaces. This trend is interesting because bounded spaces were the original environments of Hybrid Space. Indeed, when ubiquitous technologies were first envisioned at Xerox PARC Research Center in the early 1990s, they were meant to be used in offices because public Wi-Fi and broadband cellular networks were not yet widely available. Mark Weiser (1991) and colleagues (Weiser & Brown, 1996) proposed PARC Tabs, Pads and Boards as early technologies of mobility connected to office wireless networks. These devices not only tracked employees’ locations, but also helped people collaborate and access the Internet wherever in the office.
While offices might be the original Hybrid Spaces, domestic environments have been increasingly transformed into networked spaces, such as with “smart homes.” As Dourish (2016) noted, smart homes incorporate “networked computation into the fabric and furniture of daily life, and particularly into ‘smart’ versions of everyday objects, such as door locks, refrigerators, power switches, lightbulbs, pedometers and thermostats” (p. 27). Smart homes turn domestic spaces into computational systems, remote-controlled via apps linked to automated sensor networks. Although the networked aspects of domestic spaces have been extensively discussed (Bell & Dourish, 2007; Fortunati, 2017; Silverstone & Haddon, 1996), less attention has been paid to how mobility and sociability occur within homes and other bounded spaces. Yet, mobility at home is a highly common situation in which people are moving while connected, especially since the COVID-19 pandemic. In fact, a multi-national study conducted during the pandemic shows how people can have different needs for mobile media when moving around inside the home compared to going about urban areas (Campbell et al., 2023). Hybrid Spaces are constructed not only through moving about between places, but also within them.
Connectivities of Hybrid Space: from mobile devices to networked infrastructures
de Souza e Silva (2006) originally proposed Hybrid Space is produced through the mobility of people connected via mobile technologies, as they “carried the Internet” away from desktop computers in enclosed spaces into open public spaces. In mid-2000s, these mobile technologies included feature phones with 2–3G Internet connectivity, stand-alone GPS devices, personal digital assistants with Wi-Fi capabilities, walkie-talkies, or some combination of the former. de Souza e Silva stressed that for mobile phones to work, they needed to be connected to a physical infrastructure of cellular towers. These towers, when not disguised as trees, are visible, but there are other infrastructures such as Internet cables and Wi-Fi signals hidden or invisible to human eyes. Nonetheless, they comprise the fabric of Hybrid Space.
The articles we examined show how, over the last two decades, an expanding ecology of networked technologies and applications has emerged, allowing people to experience Hybrid Spaces in new ways and for a variety of purposes. Some used Hybrid Space to frame questions about how smart cities use searchable systems and ambient intelligence to make them sentient and reduce friction (Crang & Graham, 2007; Frith, 2012; Wang, 2022). Some recognized how barcodes, radio-frequency ID, and wearables are used to produce Hybrid Spaces (Frith & Özkul, 2019), and how connected vehicles move and track people and objects (Crang & Graham, 2007; Kabisch, 2008).
Location-aware smartphones are a notable technology of Hybrid Space. The first GPS smartphone, the iPhone 3G, was launched in 2007. Since then, a myriad of apps supporting Hybrid Space have emerged. Location-based and mobile social networks, such as Loopt (de Souza e Silva & Frith, 2010), Sense Networks, Britekite (Sutko & de Souza e Silva, 2011), Foursquare (Frith, 2013), and Yik Yak (Frith & Saker, 2017) gained popularity. Locative mobile technologies have also been increasingly used for participatory storytelling (de Souza e Silva, 2013; Farman, 2013; Frith & Richter, 2021), mapping and annotating physical spaces with location-based information (Gordon & de Souza e Silva, 2011; Kabisch, 2008), shopping (Wang, 2022), constructing shared soundscapes (Frith & Ahern, 2015; Rueb, 2015), and navigating museums (Scarles et al., 2020).
Location-based mobile games were originally used as examples of Hybrid Space and continue to be a major theme as the literature evolves, with eight articles from our sample dedicated to studying or analyzing mobile games as producers of Hybrid Space. They showed how the technologies used for game play changed over time with smartphones and augmented reality (AR) headsets (Grandinetti & Ecenbarger, 2018; Woods, 2020). Notably, de Souza e Silva continued exploring location-based games as producers of Hybrid Space (de Souza e Silva, 2008, 2009, 2016; de Souza e Silva et al., 2021; de Souza e Silva & Sutko, 2008), an area that includes works from Hjorth (2011) and Richardson (2010). Many in the sample took special interest in Pokémon GO due to its popularity as being the first large-scale game of its kind. Some articles explored Pokémon GO’s AR components, noting how they altered “mundane and intimate practices and how they are emplaced, or integral, to how we dynamically perceive and ‘make’ place’” (Woods, 2020, p. 1008).
The analysis also reveals the proliferation of several different types of networked devices and personal technologies for connecting to the Internet, such as watches, fitness trackers, AR glasses, tablets, and vehicles (Crang & Graham, 2007; Frith & Özkul, 2019; Kabisch, 2008). These technologies move with people and are simultaneously connected to other types of devices and infrastructures, including sensors and Intelligent Transport Systems, to name a few (Dourish, 2016; Kitchin, 2014). Another example is driverless cars (Thadani, 2023), which are not augmenting physical space with digital information, but rather infusing the physical+digital space into a multi-dimensional environment comprised of technology, mobility, and various levels of social agency, structure, and constraint. Hybrid Space will increasingly involve drones, robots, goggles, and other technologies supported by 5G (Campbell et al., 2021) and subsequent generations of network infrastructure. These technologies not only provide connectivity; they shape mobility and communication. In addition, mobility-tracking technologies during the COVID-19 pandemic were used for monitoring, contact-tracing, and enforcing quarantine and travel restrictions (Goggin, 2020; Kitchin, 2020). Some are no longer around, but people still interact with similar networked technologies during their daily mobility through Hybrid Spaces, with or without awareness. It is also important to bear in mind Hybrid Spaces are not created by technologies themselves, but rather through the social connectivity they support, which we turn to next.
Sociabilities of Hybrid Space: from constructing to encountering Hybrid Space
The original 2006 article offered a perspective on how Hybrid Spaces were produced at grassroots levels, as people (nodes of social networks) moved about while connected. This focus is clear and explicit as de Souza e Silva (2006) writes, “I analyze Hybrid Spaces as mobile spaces defined by mobile social networks and by the shift from static to mobile interfaces” (emphasis added) (p. 263). Early examples of Hybrid Space included mobile media art and games produced by artists and small start-up companies. They were isolated experiences, which participants had to make a conscious choice to join. However, as we have seen in the previous section, increasingly networked technologies are embedded into the fabric of living spaces. These technologies include not only the devices we choose to carry around or add to our homes, but also tracking, sensor, and surveillance technologies embedded into urban public spaces and all sorts of corporate and private settings. People now do not always have the choice, or agency, to join Hybrid Spaces, as they increasingly encounter Hybrid Space by chance going about daily life.
The articles from our sample reflect how the sociabilities of Hybrid Space have become institutionalized, that is, embedded into social structures such as governments and private corporations. One way people experience Hybrid Space at the institutional level is through active participation, for example in the case of someone joining a location-based game such as Pokémon GO. In that scenario, people do have the choice to sign up for the game, but their agency is nonetheless highly structured—they need to follow interest points (Pokéstops) established by the game developer (Niantic) and interact with other players based on the constraints of the app—for example, players are allowed to send gifts to each other but cannot directly chat. Another type of experience is when Hybrid Spaces are encountered. In these cases, Hybrid Spaces are set up by social institutions, such as governments and corporations, to shape and monitor the mobilities and sociabilities of people in them. In these cases, people do not have much choice, but to interact with Hybrid Space. International borders, for example, are government-produced Hybrid Spaces in which networked technologies are used to speed up or slow down mobilities. Access to mobile passports and facial recognition services keep frequent travelers circulating, while foreign nationals with paper passports wait in lines. Hybrid Spaces are not always experienced in volitional and evident ways when structured by institutions.
The institutionalization of Hybrid Spaces is evident in articles reporting on the ways they have been taken up for commercial purposes, such as Frith’s (2017) research on how businesses use Pokémon as digital lures to drive foot traffic into their stores. Grandinetti and Ecenbarger (2018) viewed such practices as representing a fundamental shift in social practices taking place in Hybrid Space, which were now commodified and shaped by corporate interests. Beyond commerce and capitalism, the articles also reflected an interest in ways Hybrid Spaces were produced by urban planners and governments. Scholars noted how “smart cities,” as Hybrid Spaces, were driven by fantasies of being friction-free as they collected and analyzed geo-located data with intelligent systems (Crang & Graham, 2007). Wang (2022) examined an “intelligent shopping mall” as a case of smart city development, finding businesses and corporations could dramatically confine citizens’ agency in Hybrid Spaces when they dominated the interests being served.
Collectively, these articles show how the literature has expanded in scope, from an original focus on individual agency to include the recognition that institutional agency also plays a role in the production of Hybrid Spaces. Hybrid Spaces are increasingly structured into the functioning of organizations, businesses, governments, and other societal institutions. Much like mobile texting and calling made the journey from being new to having societal reach (Ling, 2012), Hybrid Spaces have become embedded into the wider social structure. There are degrees of agency and transparency within Hybrid Spaces, and considering how they are structured at the institutional level can enhance understanding of how they are experienced and who benefits. Recognizing that Hybrid Spaces are produced both by individuals connecting among each other and institutions connecting with individuals opens new ways of thinking about how Hybrid Spaces are produced and experienced, with implications for how we understand the power dynamics embedded in them.
The politics of Hybrid Space
Hybrid Spaces are spaces of mobility, but that does not mean mobility is given and equal to everyone. Hybrid Space today emerges from different configurations and connectivities among networked technologies, (im)mobilities, and sociality. Speed and quality of connectivity, placement and design of networked infrastructures, and location and distribution of communities influence how Hybrid Spaces are produced and how people experience them. The source 2006 article did not go into details about power dynamics involved in the production of Hybrid Space. As Hybrid Space was an emergent and niche phenomenon, it was clear only a few had means to be connected, particularly while mobile. We should not forget mobile phones in late 1990s and early 2000s were still considered a status symbol (Ito et al., 2005; Ling, 2004).
However, as Hybrid Spaces became more embedded into everyday life, encompassing more diverse mobilities, technologies, and communities, as we have shown, the literature has increasingly considered the power dynamics embedded in the production of Hybrid Spaces. Articles in our sample questioned different ways unevenness of access, marginalization and differential mobilities shape the production of Hybrid Spaces. These articles reflected how Hybrid Spaces are spatially, technologically, and socially uneven. Importantly, as we have mentioned, de Souza e Silva’s research has developed in ways that clearly highlight the power dynamics embedded in the construction of Hybrid Spaces by exploring issues of technology access, social agency, and control. This scholarship shows how Hybrid Spaces are sometimes constrained by conditions of marginalization (de Souza e Silva, 2023), and sometimes constructed to creatively overcome conditions of marginalization (de Souza e Silva & Xiong-Gum, 2021).
A recurring theme in our sample is how Hybrid Spaces are also spaces of surveillance and control. These articles examined the power dynamics at play when participation in Hybrid Space is beyond individual choice. As Hybrid Spaces become more institutionalized, surveillance does not only happen collaterally, as in mobile games or location-based social networks. Surveillance also happens “top-down” through corporations and governments (de Souza e Silva & Frith, 2012). Addressing corporate surveillance, Grandinetti and Ecenbarger (2018) highlighted the underlying power dynamics of commerce and capitalism driving Pokémon GO and other mobile games in Hybrid Spaces. Anyone who tried to play these games in rural areas knows they were not designed for low-density spaces with poor network connectivity. It is difficult to find a Pokéstop in a rural area; the game automatically excludes people who live in these kinds of spaces. Crang and Graham (2007) examined how sentient cities are Hybrid Spaces that not only support commerce and consumption, but also government surveillance, with movements of the citizenry digitally recorded, analyzed, and stored for future use. Reflecting on the emergent workings of top-down surveillance in Hybrid Spaces, Woods (2020) argues, “Understanding and theorising these workings will provide insight into new forms of governance, regulation and surveillance being digitally configured and reproduced within the contemporary world” (p. 1016).
The articles also revealed collateral surveillance was still a relevant characteristic of Hybrid Space. de Souza e Silva and Sutko (2008) examined how anonymity and an open culture of surveillance in hybrid reality games could foster a safe environment for experimenting with one’s identity. In this case, the “public play” nature of the game provided safety through visibility and transparency, and as a result, surveillance could be ultimately a positive quality of the game (de Souza e Silva & Sutko, 2008, p. 456). This perspective on surveillance in Hybrid Space was also reflected in de Souza e Silva and Frith’s (2010) article conceptualizing “locative mobile social networks,” which they proposed unfold in Hybrid Spaces. As with hybrid reality games, the locative mobile social networks examined in that article embraced an open culture of surveillance, which the authors viewed as part of an important shift in Hybrid Spaces.
The articles also reflected an interest in the ways institutional systems of power could lead to exclusion in Hybrid Spaces. In their discussion of locative mobile social networks, de Souza e Silva and Frith (2010) highlighted issues of differential mobility, explaining how access to networked technology determined who had the right to move and how people moved. As they put, people move and communicate differently depending on their socio-economic status, culture, race, gender, and access to networked technologies. Cresswell (2010) addressed these differential and uneven mobilities under what he called the “politics of mobilities.” According to Cresswell, the political aspects of mobilities emerge from power asymmetries embedded into the uneven ways people move through spaces. As Wood and Graham (2006) pointed out, differential mobilities are not new; they have existed since some people rode or were carried while others walked. Today, however, differential mobilities are intrinsically connected to mobile and networked technologies. According to Koolhaas and Whiting (1999), Peter Sloterdijk used the term “kinetic elites” to describe frequent travelers who could cross borders easily, having access to fast-speed transportation (e.g., airplanes) and border services like Global Entry. Meanwhile, forced migrants and refugees also travel, albeit not by choice. They do not take the most straightforward and fastest routes (Heller, 2021), getting stuck at borders, tracked by GPS, or being unable to move at all. The wide range of networked bordering technologies are the foundations of what Wood and Graham called “software-sorted society.”
Hybrid Space is configured by networked technologies of mobility, and its configurations change depending on people’s levels of access to these technologies, which in turn depends on demographic privileges and socio-economic status. While these technologies help some to move faster, it slows down others. In the case of Hybrid Spaces, these power asymmetries not only afford and constrain mobility, but also shape ways people experience space. de Souza e Silva and Frith (2010) suggested uneven access to mobile and locative technologies not only led to differential mobilities, but also to differential spaces. Differential spaces occur every time some people have access to certain technologies helping them to experience space in a specific way and others do not. For example, someone with a smartphone touristic AR app might be able to see a place as it was in the past or read geolocated information about a specific place during a walk, while others will just see the plain physical space around them. Likewise, for a Pokémon GO player the commute home is transformed into a game space, while for others it is just a way of traversing the city (de Souza e Silva et al., 2021). Frith and Ahern (2015) echoed these concerns in their study of mobile soundscapes as Hybrid Space, explaining they “may introduce new forms of differentiation and exclusion to public space, allowing certain groups to construct shared soundscapes while others are left with the unfiltered ‘noise’ of the city” (p. 506).
The politics of Hybrid Space emerge from both differential spaces and differential mobilities. As much as people could never avoid differential mobilities, people also cannot avoid differential spaces. The politics of Hybrid Spaces affect everyone—not just those with agency and access to networked technologies. In fact, the most dangerous power asymmetries occur when people do not have awareness they are in Hybrid Spaces. Surveillance technologies are embedded into public spaces and invisible to the human eye, configuring what Andrejevic and Burdon (2015) called “the sensor society.” The sensor society is produced by the increased presence of embedded and distributed sensors in the environment leading to the “passiveication of interactivity” (Andrejevic & Burdon, 2015, p. 19), that is, passive, distributed, and always-on data collection mechanisms. Devices such as smartphones, CCTV cameras, environmental sensors, and drones are constantly monitoring and collecting, as they are networked to other infrastructures that enable data extraction, storage and processing. Andrejevic and Burdon suggest the amount of data a smartphone generates about its user each day far surpasses the amount of data actively communicated by them in the form of text messages, emails, and phone calls. In Hybrid Spaces, data are constantly collected, oftentimes without awareness of people in them. As Andrejevic (2019) showed, these types of “automated surveillance” put people in what he called “digital enclosures” (Andrejevic, 2007), where participation in digital spaces is necessary for participation in society. Over the past two decades, digital enclosures transformed into Hybrid Space enclosures, that is, a hybrid networked environment that encompasses all bodies and activities. Unless one is isolated in a space with absolutely no connectivity, Hybrid Space is not a choice, but a given.
In addition to awareness, to understand the power dynamics embedded into Hybrid Spaces today, we need to recognize how they are differently configured depending on people’s levels of agency. The COVID-19 pandemic, for example, completely reconfigured the status-quo politics of Hybrid Spaces. Kinetic elites stopped moving and worked remotely, while essential workers, forced migrants, and refugees had to keep moving to survive or to help others survive. However, while the stillness of kinetic elites was mostly voluntary, essential workers, migrants, and refugees had very little agency over their choice to move or not. In addition, they were subject to all sorts of software sorting (Wood & Graham, 2006), such as contact-tracing apps, heat sensors, and vaccine passports to be able to keep moving through zones of interest and concern.
The politics of Hybrid Spaces reflect a new way of understanding the topologies of power relationships in contemporary society. Ultimately, power in Hybrid Spaces is concentrated in the hands of those who have access to data collection technologies and surveillance mechanisms. As such, people’s agency in Hybrid Spaces depends on their awareness and level of knowledge about how to interact with networked technologies. Unfortunately, as Andrejevic (2014) suggests, the few who have access to this “knowledge” have an advantage over others, because they are able to access data not only unavailable for the majority of people, but also incomprehensible to them. Thus, Hybrid Spaces offer different levels of engagement. Sometimes people contribute volitionally by using, managing, and interacting with technologies supporting Hybrid Spaces, other times they passively or unknowingly encounter them.
In summary, power asymmetries in Hybrid Spaces emerge from people’s levels of: (1) access to networked technologies; (2) awareness about whether they are in fact in a Hybrid Spaces; and (3) agency to deploy and control networked infrastructures that configure Hybrid Spaces and extract data from them. As such, the politics of Hybrid Spaces are about access, awareness and agency. For example, with access to a smartphone and Waze, a driver may decide to change their route to avoid traffic. People might still get stuck in traffic, but they have the agency to make that decision. However, if a hidden camera is collecting information from passersby and sending it to private corporations or the government without their awareness, people have no agency over the situation.
Expanding the concept and its theoretical reach
We are now at a point to propose an updated conceptual model of Hybrid Space to account for the changes described above (Figure 2). Hybrid Space is still a three-part concept emerging from interconnections between mobility, connectivity and sociability. But as we have demonstrated, each component of Hybrid Space morphed and gained granularity. The mobilities of Hybrid Spaces no longer happen only in highly connected urban spaces, but also in poorly connected spaces, such as rural areas and low-income informal settlements, where access to technologies is uneven and precarious. The new model replaces “mobility” with “mobilities” because it recognizes there are multiple forms of mobilities, which are shaped by power dynamics. Following Hannam et al. (2006), mobilities also includes immobilities and moorings, that is, what prevents people from being mobile. Immobility can be a consequence of lack of access to transportation infrastructures and networked technologies, socioeconomic inequalities, race and gender inequalities, or a combination of the above. For example, He and Zhang (2023) show how mobility restrictions in China during the pandemic produced new types of Hybrid Spaces, and Campbell and colleagues (2023) show how the home served as a unique kind of Hybrid Space during pandemic immobilities in China and the U.S.
Updated conceptual Hybrid Space model
Similarly, we replaced connectivity with connectivities because the networked technologies that produce Hybrid Spaces are now much more diverse. They no longer include just mobile technologies (or interfaces, as the original article put it) that people carry with them. In addition to smartphones and smart watches (portable technologies), the fabric of Hybrid Spaces is composed by sensor and tracking networked technologies and infrastructures embedded into both urban public spaces and enclosed private spaces (such as homes and commercial establishments). Finally, while the sociability of Hybrid Spaces included only people connected via mobile technologies, we can now pinpoint multiple sociabilities: not only those social networks created by people communicating with each other, but also communications with social institutions, now active actors that also produce Hybrid Space.
Importantly, Hybrid Space emerges from (im)mobilities, connectivities, and sociabilities in situations where mobility is uneven, connectivities are diverse, and sociabilities might not always be a choice. This is why we add power (and its associated elements of agency, access, and awareness) as the backdrop that holds this new logic of Hybrid Space together. Just like (im)mobilities, connectivities, and sociabilities produce digital+physical (hybrid) spaces, uneven levels of agency, awareness, and access produce the power dynamics in Hybrid Spaces. As explained for the original model, there is no hierarchy among how agency, access, and awareness influence the power dynamics in Hybrid Space, as they can be related to any of the Hybrid Space original elements in no particular order.
Importantly, as we argued above, power becomes a connective tissue permeating and regulating all the other components. In our model, access refers to access to mobilities and to networked technologies. Agency is about personal choice and is supported by the awareness of being in (and producing) Hybrid Space. Awareness is about levels of transparency, alertness, and knowledge (e.g., of surveillance mechanisms), so that skills (e.g., privacy protection) can be put into action. From a Hybrid Space perspective, any analysis of current sociotechnical contexts must take into consideration the connections and interdependencies among all its components. Understanding our sociotechnical landscape via a Hybrid Space approach requires us to think about situations as complex and dynamic configurations of multiple moving parts.
In addition to informing an updated conceptual model, our analysis helps generate new thinking about the theoretical utility of Hybrid Space. It reveals a notable gap, with no cases of Hybrid Space used to support deductive theorizing. All articles in our sample are either inductive studies or conceptual pieces situated in inductive research traditions. They demonstrate theoretical utility in that Hybrid Space is used to frame, justify, and explain research, and as a building block for advancing other concepts. However, this utility has been epistemologically bound—so far. We reflect here on the concept’s potential to support deductive social science research. The Critical Media Effects framework serves as inspiration because of its aim to bridge the intellectual divide between inductive and deductive research on media. With Critical Media Effects, Ramasubramanian and Banjo (2020) proposed ways of enriching deductive theorizing by incorporating critical-cultural scholarship, particularly for better understanding of how power and agency shape media effects. We envision similar opportunities for Hybrid Space.
To begin with, Hybrid Space offers theoretical grounds for hypothesizing that social uses of technology while mobile (connected + mobile + social) will foster perceptions of physical+digital integration, as opposed to separate online/offline environments. This hypothesis would essentially be a direct translation of de Souza e Silva’s (2006) original argument into a deductive proposition. As we turn to soon, it could also directly inform emerging survey research with a focus on perceptions of physical+digital integration (Colledani et al., 2024). Our updated conceptual model also serves as theoretical grounds for examining the power dynamics that shape outcomes, by including access, agency, and awareness as meaningful conditions of Hybrid Space. For example, we might hypothesize that the tendency to be aware (i.e., mindful) during media use, would strengthen effects of Hybrid Space on perceptions of integration by making those experiences more salient or “present,” as opposed to the habitual mode of not noticing aspects of mobility, connectivity, or sociability.
In addition to explaining perceptions of Hybrid Space, as an outcome, we can also theorize ways in which they can have different kinds of consequences themselves. For example, from a Hybrid Space perspective, we might consider perceptions of integration to be a marker of media literacy. After all, de Souza e Silva’s (2006) original point was to push back on misguided views of physical and digital spaces as necessarily separate. Through the lens of Hybrid Space, perceptions of integration could reflect a more sophisticated understanding of how mobilities, connectivity\ies, and sociabilities come together in meaningful ways. This line of thinking could be incorporated with scholarship on media literacy to develop theoretically-driven hypotheses that perceptions of physical+digital integration can help protect against digital harms, such as misinformation and privacy violations, and yield the benefits of being more literate.
Without a Hybrid Space approach, deductions about the outcomes of physical+digital integration can look quite different, as we see with Colledani and colleagues’ (2024) recent work in the area. Colledani and colleagues developed a survey measure for perceptions of physical+digital integration, with items such as, “I would say that physical and digital data are fused in an indissoluble mix.” They do not engage with Hybrid Space, instead framing perceptions of physical+digital integration as a deficit, leaving an individual less capable of distinguishing between physical and digital aspects of reality. This point is reflected in the scale item, “Nowadays, there is no longer a clear distinction between physical and digital data.” They use this line of reasoning to frame hypotheses that perceptions of physical+digital integration have negative outcomes, particularly for non-digital activities, recognizing others’ emotions, and psychological well-being. Hybrid Space is theoretically generative in that it offers a very different way of thinking about the situation. It argues the world is becoming increasingly integrated, and that when people perceive and understand digital+physical integration, they are better equipped to create and navigate these environments. As argued above, if we were to consider the potential literacy benefits of Hybrid Space, we would also want to consider how those benefits are uneven across different levels of access to technologies, agency to make choices, and awareness as people construct and encounter Hybrid Spaces.
These illustrations provide some initial insights into ways in which Hybrid Space might be taken up in deductive social science research. Moving in this direction helps advance Hybrid Space from concept toward theory, while helping to bridge gaps between inductive and deductive approaches to studying media and communication. Moving forward, it is important to keep in mind the methodological work that also needs to be done for hypotheses to be tested with rigor. Measures of Hybrid Space (perceptions, experiences, conditions, etc.) need to be developed, and those supporting survey research should undergo the rigors construct validity (Chaffee, 1991). While acknowledging the needs on the methodological front, our present contribution is with theory, particularly in suggesting how Hybrid Space can inform deductive theoretical models.
Conclusion
This article revisited de Souza e Silva’s idea of Hybrid Space to advance an updated conceptual model and theoretical approach for understanding how our living spaces are produced by mobilities, networked technologies and social connections. The multifaceted nature of this approach provides guidance for studying the complex and dynamic nature of sociotechnical situations and their multiple moving parts. The updated Hybrid Space conceptual model starts from mobilities, connectivities, and sociabilities, while recognizing that technologies of connectivity are diverse, mobilities are uneven, and sociabilities can vary in meaningful ways with regard to agency and structure.
Our analysis accounts for ways the concept has been taken up in literature to help inform developments with the dimensions of (im)mobilities, connectivities, and sociabilities. It reveals how the power dynamics embedded in Hybrid Space have developed as a strong theme in the literature and offers direction for bringing aspects of access, awareness, and agency as an integral part of a new updated Hybrid Space conceptual model. It is our hope this model can inform media and communication scholars to frame research on how individuals, communities, and societies experience space, networked technologies, and engage with each other. Toward that end, this article helps expand the utility of Hybrid Space, from a concept used in the past exclusively for indicative scholarship, toward theoretical application in deductive media effects research. Our discussion of a Hybrid Space approach to media effects research provides guidance for identifying and organizing theoretically-informed variables, while highlighting conditions of power and agency that can play important, yet overlooked, roles in shaping and explaining effects. Our hope is that it also provides guidance for harnessing Hybrid Space’s power to predict outcomes. Such an approach would complement the inductive work on Hybrid Space, offering grounds for triangulation and integrated perspectives. Our efforts to move in this direction are meant to widen the scholarly terrain in which Hybrid Space is used so that such perspectives might be gained, recognizing different disciplines and methodologies have their own strengths, limitations, and considerations. Altogether, contributions from this article help pave ways forward for different types of scholarship, including inductive and deductive approaches, as Hybrid Spaces continue to become embedded into daily life movements and social structure.
Conflicts of interest: None declared.
Notes
de Souza e Silva has earlier publications laying conceptual groundwork on Hybrid Space (de Souza e Silva, 2003, 2004). However, these articles do not have the same level of impact as Space and Culture’s, which more fully elaborates the concept.
Journals searched: Communication and Critical/Cultural Studies; Communication Monographs; Communication Theory; Communication Research; Convergence; Critical Studies in Media & Communication; First Monday; Human Communication Research; Journal of Communication; Information, Communication, & Society; International Journal of Communication; Media, Culture, & Society; Mobile Media & Communication; Mobilities; Social Media + Society; and Space & Culture.
Data availability
The data underlying this article will be shared on reasonable request to the corresponding author.
