This small-scale case study used Nesta’s Destination Local programme (first round) as a lens to better understand the various ways in which location-based technologies are being used and experimented with to support local belonging, democracy and economies in 21st Century Britain. In so doing, it explored the degree to which ‘hyperlocal media’ might be understood as a convergence between aspirations for a renewed ‘localism’ and relatively novel mobile and locational technologies.

It focused on three themes:

1. the technical conditions of possibility for Destination Local (e.g. available mobile devices, geo-spatial data, technical standards, etc);
2. the fields of practice (e.g. journalism, software development, local government, community activism, philanthropy) involved in Destination Local and discussions around hyperlocal media in the UK; and
3. the places through which Destination Local emerged.