When looking at the idea of cultural geography, it is important to understand what exactly that means first and foremost. When explaining this topic, Jon Anderson stats that “It exists to give us insights, feelings, and understandings of our place in the world.” (Anderson, 2015, p.3). Essentially, what this means is that cultural geography takes physical areas and gives them new meaning through our own implications and ideologies. Anderson also focuses on our place in the world here, another aspect of cultural geography as people may create associations to an area through lived experience, such as what it means to be British.

In terms of applications within forms of media such as television, the idea of cultural geography does have its benefits, yet there are also areas which one may consider it detrimental to people’s worldviews. Looking at benefits, cultural geography can be used as a way to craft an identity for a certain place by presenting themes of what it means to be from that place, almost like an advert. An example of this is the opening ceremony for the London 2012 Olympic Games. In this opening ceremony imagery of the history of Britain, including an homage to the NHS and traditional factory workers, was used as a way of representing the people of Britain in a specific way. Charlotte Higgins, writing for The Guardian, stated that this ceremony “forged a new mythology for Britain” (Higgins, 2012). Personally, my view on this is that Britain was able to use this opening ceremony as a way to move away from representations created from its past as an empire, and instead show that Britain is a country of hardworking people. There are also negatives surrounding cultural geography, however. One example of this is an idea known as the Other, a concept which in simple terms means that tension can be created between people as one is different to the majority. As stated by bell hooks, “fantasies about the Other can be continually exploited” (hooks, 2006) which is a theme seen commonly in modern news, with narratives around migrants from different geographical backgrounds creating a hostile sentiment. These migrants are often vilified due to their cultural geography, with certain publications giving them arguably unjust implications of danger simply based on their cultural origin.

Overall, cultural geography can be used as a tool by the media, however this tool that can create a positive image can just as easily demonise others. Countries can craft a new perspective around themselves using cultural geography yet are also able to exploit the Other using this same method.

References:

Anderson, J. (2015). Understanding Cultural Geography: Places and Traces. (2^nd ed.). Routledge. 

Higgins, C. (2012, December 5). The Olympics opening ceremony: my cultural highlight of 2012. The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2012/dec/05/olympic-opening-ceremony-2012-highlight

hooks, b. (2006) Eating the Other. In D. M. Kellner & M. G. Durham (eds.) Adventures in Media and Cultural Studies: Introducing the KeyWorks. (pp. 365-380). Blackwell.