With the majority of the world's population now living in cities, questions about the cultural and political trajectories of urban societies are increasingly urgent. Media and the City explores the global city as the site where these questions become most prominent. As a space of intense communication and difference, the global city forces us to think about the challenges of living in close proximity to each other. Do we really see, hear and understand our neighbours? This engaging book examines the contradictory realities of cosmopolitanization as these emerge in four interfaces: consumption, identity, community and action. Each interface is analysed through a set of juxtapositions to reveal the global city as a site of antagonisms, empathies and co-existing particularities. Timely, interdisciplinary and multi-perspectival, Media and the City will be essential reading for students and scholars in media and communications, cultural studies and sociology, and of interest to those concerned with the growing role of the media in changing urban societies.

The percentage of people living in cities and the adoption rates of communication technologies continue to grow across the planet. Our age has come to be defined as one of urbanism and communication; but how are those two intertwined? How do they shape each other? Where and in which ways do they diverge, support or fold into each other? As new tensions emerge and old ones find new solutions, social sciences are forced into a dialogue with media studies and urban studies in order to make sense of the new reality. New theoretical and methodological paradigms are urgently needed, and can be produced only through a fertile and eclectic dialogue. This volume presents some of the latest research in this exciting, cross-disciplinary field. Issues of conflict, mobility, crime, art, memory, ethnicity, identity, and city marketing and branding come under rigorous scrutiny in their mutual and constitutive relationship with urban space and communicative technologies and practices. The volume is divided into three broad sections. The first section deals with the role of media in the social production of urban space – that is, with how media interact with other forces in giving shape to the materiality of the city. The second section deals with how urban space acts as a context for a variety of media-related practices – especially in relation to the popularization of mobile geo-localization technologies which have given us mass phenomena such as Foursquare. The third and final section deals with how urban space is mediatised and communicated through ICTs – or in other terms, how urban space is represented by specific media through specific discursive strategies.

Bringing together leading scholars from around the world and across scholarly disciplines, this collection of 32 original chapters provides a comprehensive exploration of the relationships between cities and media. The volume showcases diverse methods for studying media and the city and posits "media urbanism" as an approach to the co-construction and interactions among media texts and technologies, media users, media industries, media histories, and urban space. Chapters serve as a guide to humanities-based ways of studying urban imaginaries, infrastructures and architectures, development and redevelopment, and strategies and tactics as well as a provocation toward new lines of inquiry that further explore the dense interconnectedness of media and cities. Structured thematically, the chapters are organized into four distinct sections, introduced with editorial commentary that places the chapters into conversation with each other and frames them in relation to an overarching question, problem, or method. Part I: Imaginaries and cityscapes focuses on screen representations and mediated experiences of urban space produced and consumed by various actors; Part II: Architectures and infrastructures highlights the different ways in which built environments and socio-technical substrates that sustain differential mobilities, urban rhythms, and systems of circulation and exchange are intertwined with various forms of media and mediation; Part III: Development and redevelopment examines efforts by urban planners and designers, municipal governments, and community organizers to utilize media forms to imagine and shape the construction of the space and meaning of the city; finally, Part IV: Strategies and tactics uses categories for practices of control and resistance to investigate media and struggles for power within urban environments from surveillance and place-branding to activist media and the right to the city. The Routledge Companion to Media and the City provides a definitive reference for both scholars and students of urban cultures and media within the humanities.

I-Media-Cities. Innovative e-Environment for Research on Cities and the Media presents the results of an innovative project undertaken by the film archives of Athens, Barcelona, Bologna, Brussels, Copenhagen, Stockholm, Frankfurt, Turin and Vienna, in conjunction with several leading research centres and technological innovators. Together they have developed a digital platform for viewing a wide range of images and motion pictures. More than 1,000 films dating from 1890 to 1989 have been incorporated in the platform, expressly selected to give the project coherence and meaning. Each city is represented both singularly and generally, revealing similarities and differences between them. The producers, actors, directors, places, people, and historical, social and political events are listed to facilitate analysis in areas such as sociology, urban anthropology, town planning, and architectural history, among others. The objective is to propose a new way of disseminating film collections, bringing them to a wider public, and stimulating research into cities in the fields of the humanities.

This book explores city branding in the public sector as an aspect of e-governance from a privileged linguistic, discursive and semiotic perspective. It analyses how local administrations and public bodies engage their stakeholders by addressing key issues such as active citizenship, social inclusion and promotion of cultural heritage and events.

"If only more new media commentators had this level of historical-critical reference, engaging, good stories, and a degree of wonder at what media and windows bring to the city, to life." - John Hutnyk, Goldsmiths, University of London "Just when you thought the last word had been said about cities and media, along comes Scott McQuire to breathe new life into the debate. When revisiting existing pathways, his always ingenious eyes produce startling and original insights. When striking out into new territory, he opens up before us inspiring new vistas. I love this book." - James Donald, University of New South Wales "A book that crams into a single chapter more insights and illustrations than seems feasible, yet which ties all threads together through a consistent, theoretically rich analysis of the interplay of media and city... Writing with effusiveness uncharacteristic of back-cover blurbs on academic tomes, James Donald says ′I love this book′. But I will end by echoing his praise, and make a promise to readers: you will love The Media City, too." - European Journal of Communication "Refreshingly clear, getting to grips with some of the key concepts of urban sociology in a way that moves beyond the wistful evocation and splatter of undigested terms that characterises so much academic writing on culture and cities." - Media, Culture & Society Significant changes are occurring in the spaces and rhythms of contemporary cities and in the social functioning of media. This forceful book argues that the redefinition of urban space by mobile, instantaneous and pervasive media is producing a distinctive mode of social experience. Media are no longer separate from the city. Instead the proliferation of spatialized media platforms has produced a media-architecture complex - the media city. Offering critical and historical analysis at the deepest levels, The Media City links the formation of the modern city to the development of modern image technologies and outlines a new genealogy for assessing contemporary developments such as digital networks and digital architecture, web cams and public screens, surveillance society and reality television. Wide-ranging and thoughtfully illustrated, it intersects disciplines and connects phenomena which are too often left isolated from each other to propose a new way of understanding public and private space and social life in contemporary cities. It will find a broad readership in media and communications, cultural studies, social theory, urban sociology, architecture and art history. Winner of the 2009 Jane Jacobs Urban Communication Award, awarded by the Urban Communication Association.

Providing a much-needed de-Westernising perspectives of Dubai’s social media influencing industry within the broader context of global platform capitalism, Zoe Hurley offers an important contribution to the field of social media through illustrating visible economies in a city circuited by social media influencing.

We live in a self-proclaimed Urban Age, where we celebrate the city as the source of economic prosperity, a nurturer of social and cultural diversity, and a place primed for democracy. We proclaim the city as the fertile ground from which progress will arise. Without cities, we tell ourselves, human civilization would falter and decay. In Cities in the Urban Age, Robert A. Beauregard argues that this line of thinking is not only hyperbolic—it is too celebratory by half. For Beauregard, the city is a cauldron for four haunting contradictions. First, cities are equally defined by both their wealth and their poverty. Second, cities are simultaneously environmentally destructive and yet promise sustainability. Third, cities encourage rule by political machines and oligarchies, even as they are essentially democratic and at least nominally open to all. And fourth, city life promotes tolerance among disparate groups, even as the friction among them often erupts into violence. Beauregard offers no simple solutions or proposed remedies for these contradictions; indeed, he doesn’t necessarily hold that they need to be resolved, since they are generative of city life. Without these four tensions, cities wouldn’t be cities. Rather, Beauregard argues that only by recognizing these ambiguities and contradictions can we even begin to understand our moral obligations, as well as the clearest paths toward equality, justice, and peace in urban settings.

The widespread adoption of smartphones has led to an explosion of mobile social media data, more than a billion messages per day that continuously track location, content, and time. Social Media in the Contemporary City focuses on the effects of social media on local communities and urban space in a variety of political and economic settings related to social activism, informal economic activity, public art, and global extremism. The book covers events ranging from Banksy art installations, mobile food trucks, and underground restaurants, to a Black Lives Matter protest, the Christchurch mosque shootings, and the Pulse nightclub shooting. The interplay between urban space, local community, and social media in each case study requires diverse methodologies that are both computational (i.e. machine learning, social network analysis, and natural language processing) and ethnographic (i.e. semi-structured interviews, thematic analysis, and site analysis). The book views social media not as a replacement for the local community or urban space but rather as a translation of the uses and meanings of all three realms. The book will be of interest to students, researchers, and instructors in a number of disciplines including urban design/planning, media studies, geography, and communications.

Create the foundation for a successful career in the theatrical and media make-up industry with this new textbook, endorsed by City & Guilds for theatrical, special effects and hair and media make-up artistry qualifications at Levels 2 and 3. - Study with confidence, with content covering the latest qualifications and industry standards, including the 6010 specifications. - Get ready to work in make-up, film, TV or theatre with handy hints from experienced professionals. - Hone your practical skills with hundreds of photographs showcasing creative ideas from look books and industry portfolios. - Understand complex topics such as anatomy and physiology with ease with simple explanations and all of the important terminology explained. - Prepare effectively for the written exams and practical synoptic test with practice questions, scenarios and invaluable guidance.