Catherine Vera Lavrik
This research explores how virtual activities such as posting, tagging, scrolling and sharing on social media shape the symbolic image of Shtromka, a coastal area in North Tallinn. The focus of the project is not on how people physically use Shtromka, but on how the place is represented online and how these representations differ from the everyday lived experience of the neighbourhood.
Today, urban space is experienced not only through walking, seeing, touching and using it, but also through screens. People visit places, take photos, upload stories, add hashtags and share moments with friends and followers. These actions create a virtual layer of the city that exists alongside the physical one. This research asks how this virtual layer influences the way Shtromka is imagined, valued and talked about.
Shtromka as a layered urban space
Shtromka is a complex and layered place. On the one hand, it is a seaside park and beach where people swim, walk, do sports, watch sunsets and spend time with family and friends. On the other hand, it is surrounded by Soviet-era mass housing, long and monotonous streets, concrete courtyards and infrastructures shaped by post-socialist urban development. The area also carries a history of collective urban stigma, often associated with peripheral location, greyness and low prestige compared to central parts of Tallinn.
These different layers coexist in everyday life. Residents experience Shtromka across seasons, weather conditions and routines. Summer leisure, winter emptiness, everyday commuting, informal social encounters and long-term living all shape how the place is felt and understood. This richness and complexity, however, is not equally visible in virtual representations.
Selective virtual representations
Through the analysis of Instagram posts and hashtags such as #stroomi, #shtromka and #stroomisurfiklubi, the research shows that virtual representations of Shtromka tend to be highly selective. Online, Shtromka is mostly presented through aesthetic and sensory-pleasant images: golden sunsets, calm sea, green park landscapes, people walking dogs, surfing, running or enjoying leisure time.
The dominant visual language is soft, warm and peaceful. The mood is relaxed and positive. What is largely absent from these representations are the housing blocks, everyday infrastructures, monotonous streets, winter greyness, and signs of long-term living. As a result, social media produces a narrow slice of Shtromka that highlights beauty and leisure while hiding complexity and contradiction.
This does not mean that these online images are false. They are real moments, taken by real people. However, they show only a limited part of the lived reality. The tension at the heart of this research is therefore not between two separate versions of Shtromka, but between a highly selective virtual portrayal and a much richer, more multifaceted physical experience of the area.
Theoretical framework: socially produced space
To understand why this tension matters, the research draws on David Harvey’s idea of socially produced urban space. Harvey argues that cities are not shaped only by buildings, infrastructure and planning decisions, but also by images, symbols, narratives and collective imagination. Urban space is continuously produced through social practices, representations and meanings.
From this perspective, social media can be understood as part of the symbolic production of the city. Instagram does not create Shtromka physically, but it contributes to the way the area is imagined by residents, visitors and outsiders. Virtual activities help shape expectations, emotions and associations connected to the place. They influence who wants to visit Shtromka, how it is talked about, and which aspects of the area become visible or invisible.
This research does not claim that posting on Instagram is a direct political act or a full expression of the “right to the city.” Instead, virtual activities are understood as small, everyday acts of symbolic participation. Through repeated images, stories and tags, users contribute to a shared narrative about what Shtromka is and what it represents.
Tensions between represented and lived space
The selective visibility created by social media produces several tensions. One of them is the gap between how Shtromka is represented online and how it is experienced daily by residents. While Instagram highlights leisure and nature, everyday life includes routines, boredom, maintenance, seasonal changes and social inequalities.
Another tension lies in how these representations may influence future development and branding of the area. When Shtromka is widely imagined as a picturesque coastal park, this image may shape planning priorities, tourism interest and investment decisions, while the needs and realities of long-term residents risk being overlooked.
At the same time, virtual representations can also be seen as attempts to challenge stigma. By sharing positive images, residents may seek to reclaim the meaning of their neighbourhood and present it as a valuable and enjoyable place. In this sense, social media becomes a space where urban identity is negotiated rather than simply imposed.
Conclusion
This research shows that virtual activities play an important role in shaping the symbolic image of Shtromka. Social media produces a selective and aesthetic representation that emphasizes leisure and beauty while simplifying lived complexity. The tension between represented and lived space is central to understanding how urban meaning is produced today.
Rather than seeing digital and physical experiences as separate or opposing, this project highlights their uneven relationship. The physical experience of Shtromka is layered, diverse and contradictory, while the virtual one tends to be narrow and one-sided. Understanding this imbalance helps reveal how digital storytelling influences visibility, identity and imagination in contemporary urban spaces.
Surfing Shtromka, theref ore, is not only about waves or Wi-Fi. It is about navigating between the real and the represented city and about understanding how everyday virtual activities shape the way urban spaces are seen, felt and valued.
References
Harvey, D. (2008). The Right to the City. New Left Review.
Harvey, D. (2012). Rebel Cities: From the Right to the City to the Urban Revolution. Verso.
de Souza e Silva, A., & Noriega, Y. (2021). Urban (Digital) Play and Right to the City. Journal of Urban Technology.
de Certeau, M. (1984). The Practice of Everyday Life. University of California Press.
Lefebvre, H. (1991). The Production of Space. Blackwell.