City Walk as Platform-Native Counter-Mapping: Entangled Resistance and Algorithmic Visibility in Chinese Digital Urbanism

Di Xu and Yanyu Chen
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Di Xu: School of Journalism and Information Communication, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, China / Philosophy and Social Sciences Laboratory of Big Data and National Communication Strategy, Ministry of Education, China
Yanyu Chen: School of Journalism and Information Communication, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, China;

Media and Communication, 2026, vol. 14

Abstract: As digital platforms increasingly structure how cities are navigated, seen, and valued, urban walking practices have become sites of both algorithmic capture and tactical improvisation. This study examines the emergence of City Walk (城市漫步) in China as a form of platform-native counter-mapping. This user-led spatial practice utilizes digital tools to document, reframe, and disseminate alternative urban narratives. Drawing on digital ethnography, platform content analysis, and interviews in four Chinese cities, the study examines how participants engage in entangled resistance—tactically negotiating visibility algorithms while remaining embedded within platform infrastructures. Rather than rejecting platforms, City Walk participants leverage them to perform affective spatial storytelling, explore non-recommended routes, and archive marginal spaces. These practices are conceptually situated within the literature on algorithmic resistance, everyday spatial tactics, and critical cartography. While some City Walk content is commodified through lifestyle aesthetics and platform branding, others sustain oppositional potential through semantic drift and infrastructural appropriation. By reframing City Walk as a counter-cartographic practice situated within the logics of platform urbanism, this article contributes to broader debates on digital spatial agency, mediated urban practices, and the politics of algorithmically curated visibility.

Keywords: algorithmic resistance; City Walk; counter-mapping; digital spatial practices; platform urbanism (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2026
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:cog:meanco:v14:y:2026:a:11021

DOI: 10.17645/mac.11021

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