Reconstructing place attachment through social media: A systematic review for sustainable urban governance

Abstract

Social media platforms have become pivotal actors in the realm of digital urban governance, actively reshaping how individuals cognitively, affectively, and behaviorally engage with urban environments. Following the PRISMA protocol, this review synthesizes 99 Chinese and English-language articles to examine how platforms reshape place attachment through algorithmic recommendation, emotional mobilization, and spatial re-presentation, addressing critical theoretical and policy gaps in platform governance and spatial cognition. Building on the classic Person–Process–Place model, the Platform-Embedded Place Attachment Framework is proposed, revealing place attachment as a governance variable co-constructed by platform logic, user behaviors, and urban feedback loops. The analysis identifies three interactive dimensions: (1) User Dimension—residents, tourists, and content creators co-construct emotionally charged urban spatial expressions; (2) Place Dimension—platform algorithms mediate the transformation of physical sites into affectively resonant digital places, sustaining offline–online–offline experiential loops; (3) Process Dimension—platforms modulate cognitive-affective-behavioral cycles by integrating user feedback into algorithmic systems and governance responses. Findings demonstrate that under platform modulation, place attachment evolves into a critical factor influencing spatial cognition, platform operations, and urban governance strategies. Finally, this review offers actionable governance insights by proposing three practical pathways—developing urban sensing systems based on user emotional data, establishing integrated platform-government-community management frameworks, and optimizing culturally inclusive recommendation algorithms—to directly support the construction of inclusive, resilient, and sustainable cities aligned with Sustainable Development Goal 11.