Web GIS Semiosis: building a plural space

The present study applies a semiotic perspective to cartographical studies with the aim to show the iconizing role of webmaps, i.e. their ability to generate meta-geographical knowledge. Our analysis focuses on a specific type of maps known as Web GIS, whose relevance lies in their effective overturning of paper-based cartography. Rather than figuring as the static outcome of intentional representation, Web GIS maps exhibit unique interactive functions, which enable them to make sense of territory through the perspectives of the web user and to bring forward a sense of place whereby the appeals of culture and identity are restored. Eventually, such interactivity gives rise to a plural cartography and yields a sense of place which relies on a postmodernist view of territory. In that view, new common spaces, stipulated by unofficial groups of social intervention, successfully challenge the definition of “public place” held up by a dominant society.