TY - JOUR
T1 - The dynamics of place ratings: platforms, effects, and their discontents
AU - Ballatore, Andrea
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© The Author(s) 2025.
PY - 2025/4/8
Y1 - 2025/4/8
N2 - Digital place has been variously characterised as a set of online augmentations and representations that influence how physical places are imagined, cognised, and interacted with. In an evolving media ecosystem, star ratings enjoy a pervasive presence on platforms. Ratings provide information and alter people’s decision-making not only when choosing consumer products but also places. Focusing on numeric ratings, through a scoping review, this article (1) traces the origins and rapid proliferation of place ratings, categorising them into primary, secondary, volunteered, transactional, expert, and user-generated types, and examines how they are applied geographically, from countries to points of interest. Then, it reports on (2) a global survey of rating platforms, accounting for their variety and similarities across sectors and countries. (3) It engages with significant issues are entangled with place ratings: the challenges in their interpretation and aggregation; their potential cognitive, spatial, and demographic biases; their impact on power dynamics between businesses and consumers; and their contribution to the socio-spatial inequalities that exist between digital and physical realms. These insights converge into a geographical research agenda to study place ratings’ deep and ubiquitous effects.
AB - Digital place has been variously characterised as a set of online augmentations and representations that influence how physical places are imagined, cognised, and interacted with. In an evolving media ecosystem, star ratings enjoy a pervasive presence on platforms. Ratings provide information and alter people’s decision-making not only when choosing consumer products but also places. Focusing on numeric ratings, through a scoping review, this article (1) traces the origins and rapid proliferation of place ratings, categorising them into primary, secondary, volunteered, transactional, expert, and user-generated types, and examines how they are applied geographically, from countries to points of interest. Then, it reports on (2) a global survey of rating platforms, accounting for their variety and similarities across sectors and countries. (3) It engages with significant issues are entangled with place ratings: the challenges in their interpretation and aggregation; their potential cognitive, spatial, and demographic biases; their impact on power dynamics between businesses and consumers; and their contribution to the socio-spatial inequalities that exist between digital and physical realms. These insights converge into a geographical research agenda to study place ratings’ deep and ubiquitous effects.
KW - place ratings
KW - online ratings
KW - city ratings
KW - digital place
KW - online reviews
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=105003310649&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1007/s10708-025-11327-3
DO - 10.1007/s10708-025-11327-3
M3 - Article
SN - 0343-2521
VL - 90
JO - GeoJournal
JF - GeoJournal
IS - 2
M1 - 83
ER -