Media Practices and Urban Politics

Conceptualizing the Powers of the Media-Urban Nexus

Bibliographic Data

ID4476573
AuthorsSusan Rodger (0000-0002-1544-8743, Birkbeck, University of London), Scott Rodger, Scott Rodgers (University of London), Clive Barnett (0000-0002-1291-1421, University of Exeter), Allan Cochrane (0000-0003-0320-4642, The Open University)
Year2014
Volume32
Issue6
Pages1054-1070
Publication date2014-12-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueEnvironment and Planning D Society and Space (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0263-7758 • E-ISSN: 1472-3433
PublisherSAGE Publications Inc (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1068/d13157p
OpenAlexW2124038736
LanguageEN
Citations received15
References cited81

The spatial imaginations of media studies and urban studies are increasingly aligned, illustrated by a growing literature on what can be identified as the media-urban nexus. This nexus has attracted scholarly interest not only as a cultural phenomenon, but also as a site of emergent political dynamics. We suggest that literature on the media-urban nexus points to the always-already present conditions of possibility for a translocal, relational urban politics. Current conceptualizations of the politics of urbanized media, however, tend to fall into one of two registers: conflicts over the access to and regulation of urban media spaces; or the silent politics that media inscribe into the affective textures of urban life. Both tend to envision media as instrumental supplements to politics, overestimating the powers of 'media' within urban living. Drawing on recent uses of practice theory in media studies, we highlight how thinking of media-in-practices provides a basis for more nuanced conceptualizations of the powers of the media-urban nexus. Fully realizing this conceptualization requires that the restriction of the insights of practice theory to everyday life be lifted. An expanded view of media practices is required, one which emphasizes the coordination between organized fields of communication and everyday urbanized media practices

Conceptualization · Everyday life · Media relations · Media studies · Media system dependency theory · Nexus (standard · Political science · Politics · Public relations · Social science · Sociology · Urban politics · Cultural Industries and Urban Development · Engineering · Law · Media Studies and Communication · Public Spaces through Art

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