TREND: THE GLOCAL VILLAGE (M The proliferation of devices and methods for connecting to the world through the Internet is producing a paradoxical interest in creating interest in local issues and tools. Radio, a once neglected media, is reinventing itself. Geolocation apps like Foursquare and Yelp are allowing people to use information technology to explore their neighbourhoods in more sophisticated ways. Local-focused news media have arisen, providing neighbourhood level coverage within a larger city news section (e.g., BlogTO). The Glocal Village is one where the tools that make the world big, also make it small.
Signals: The late 2000’s saw a rise in availability and popularity of new hyper-local digital and print news media (e.g. BlogTO, Torontoist, Toronto Standard, Spacing, NOW Magazine, The Grid), filling a vacuum created by traditional print and television media sources that were increasingly cutting staff and focusing on more newswire stories that are generic and rarely relevant to specific neighbourhoods. Radio, once considered a dying media, has been revitalized by local or culturally- focused stations (e.g., CHIN, Proud FM), news radio, and campus channels replacing the previously dominant pop culture programming . For example, CBC Radio 1’s flagship morning show, Metro Morning, has seen its audience rise and overall market share to the largest in its history and tops in the Toronto market (CBC, 2011). The trend towards revitalizing forgotten or neglected historic buildings and areas such as the Distillery District, Wychwood Barns, Brickworks, Liberty Village and the stockyards has created new economic opportunities through commerce and tourism, but also for digital imaging as they have become popular sites for movie production, photography, and arts programming. Geolocation apps such as Foursquare, Urbanspoon, Groupon and Yelp allow users to discover places, products and services near them by name, type and availability. This is reinvigorating the experience of users walking in neighbourhoods, allowing people to better engage with where they are in the physical world, while simultaneously linking to online opinions, reviews and knowledge from the online (and possible global) world. This real-world experience can be further enhanced through the use of augmented reality technology such as that provided by Google’s Project Glass (https://plus.google.com/+projectglass/posts) or Brock University History professor Kevin Kee’s project that allows people to travel back through history by seeing what historical events took place wherever a person stands (Medland, 2012). Already apps such as Layar can be used to add informational layers to an image scanned via an iPhone allowing people to learn details about the physical environment around them helping navigation and exploration. 23