The Urban Exploration Imaginary: Mediatization, Commodification, and Affect

2017 ◽  
Vol 20 (4) ◽  
pp. 372-384 ◽  
Author(s):  
Maja Klausen

Using George E. Marcus’ concept of the “activist imaginary” this article focuses on the imaginary of urban exploration (UE), an alternative form of organized action. The UE imaginary is investigated through visual material, produced and shared on social media by the Copenhagen-based UE duo CphCph. Grasping UE as an assemblage, the article suggests that the imaginary undergoes a dual process of mediatization and commodification. Through a discourse analytical and aesthetic-affective approach, it is argued that CphCph strategically uses the visually mediated explorer body as an effective tool on social media to both commodify the imaginary and create “spreadability” as well as to channel followers’ engagement in urban space. In keeping with Roopali Mukherjee and Sarah Banet-Weiser’s approach to contemporary, neoliberal modes of resistance the UE imaginary is understood both as a commodity produced by entrepreneurial explorers and as an imagined geography sparking participation and enabling practices of urban citizenship.

2012 ◽  
Vol 4 (3) ◽  
pp. 559-577 ◽  
Author(s):  
Maja Klausen

The article discusses practices of placemaking through empirical fieldwork undertaken in the subculture of urban exploration in Copenhagen. The making and experience of place is discussed, firstly, in relation to methodology and academic representation and secondly, in relation to urban space and media. The article begins by suggesting that the ethnographic research process should be grasped as the making of an ’ethnographic place’ (Pink 2010), which invites readers/audiences to imagine themselves into the places represented. Based on findings from the fieldwork, the article moves on to the methodologies associated with the examination of urban exploration and its academic representation. The article points to a ’multi-sited’ (Marcus 1995) and mobile ethnography (Lee & Ingold 2006) that acknowledges the ethnographer as ’emplaced’ (Howes 2005) in the research setting. Finally, urban exploration and the placemaking practices involved are positioned in a wider theoretical framework focusing on social media and urban space. The urban explorers use different social media platforms to share information and pictures, which is said to accelerate ’a mediatised sense of place’ (Jansson & Falkheimer 2006). Urban exploration is seen as a practice tied to the late modern ’media city’ (Fornäs 2006; McQuire 2010), where spatial experience is transformed due to the increased convergence of mobile and pervasive media with urban space.


2020 ◽  
Vol 73 (1) ◽  
pp. 239-268
Author(s):  
Konstantin Niehaus

AbstractThis article examines language and local identity in an urban space analysing the enregisterment of a local variety at one of the most relevant dialect borders in Germany: the Bavarian city of Augsburg which is in close proximity to both Upper Bavaria and Bavaria’s capital Munich. The local dialect of Augsburg mixes Swabian-Alemannic and Bavarian features and it is because of this mix that Swabians, the group to which the Augsburgians are generally deemed to belong to, are often regarded not to be ‘proper’ Bavarian speakers. Augschburgerisch has become a stylized register with authenticated sociolinguistic features and can thus be employed to construct local identity and index a stereotyped group of speakers, e. g. that local dialect speakers are down-to-earth but grumpy and close-lipped towards strangers. This study examines Augsburgian on social media by qualitatively analysing posts from a local Facebook group. In these posts, authentification practices are used to resolve the ambiguous nature of what it means to be ‘Bavarian’ and the intricacies imposed on the speakers by the border situation while also highlighting the users’ creativity via ironic role alignments.


2021 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Ping Wang ◽  
Yixia Hu ◽  
Qiao Li ◽  
Hanqin Yang

Purpose Journalism students, a special user group with the dual perspective of both social media general users and online journalists, and their trust in rumours is a valued but understudied topic in relation to preparing rational information users and professionals for rumour control. To reveal these trust mechanisms, this paper aims to identify salient psychological and behavioural factors related to journalism students’ different levels of trust. Design/methodology/approach Using structural equation modelling to analyse the survey data of 234 journalism students, this paper tested a theoretical model that considers self-efficacy and the expressive and consumptive use of social media rumours as the antecedents and consequences of trust belief and trust action, respectively. Findings Self-efficacy has a positive effect on trust belief but a negative effect on trust action. Trust belief positively affects expressive use of rumours, whereas trust action negatively affects consumptive use. Practical implications This study contributes to the cultivation of future online news gatekeepers. Originality/value This paper distinguishes journalism students’ trust mechanisms from those of general users and online journalists. The integration of dual process theories provides insights into trust-building processes related to rumours and advances the understanding of the anchoring and adjustment effects of self-efficacy on trust.


Media-N ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 17 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Alina Nazmeeva

As a method of cultural production and communication, remix has permeated the way the social space is perceived, conceived of and lived. Physical social space is captured, constructed and mediated with digital tools and by a multitude of users. The explosive use of cultural software and social media is actively shaping the experience of architectural and urban space. Smart city movement proponents advocate for a kind of participatory decision-making in cities that is akin to digital social space dynamics. Within the architectural practice, the space is first produced as a digital remix. The social space, both online or offline, physical or digital, crowdsourced or expert-designed, is socially produced as a collective assemblage of the fragments of digital images.  This essay aims to outline four trajectories by which physical (architectural and urban) social space is intertwined and remixed with digital (social media and the web) social space, and the broader implications of such cross-hatchings. Additionally, this paper aims to bring this term to architectural and urban discourse. Positing that remix has become the dominant model of spatial production in the contemporary world, what are the implications of it for the social space and for the public? 


2021 ◽  
Vol 77 (4) ◽  
Author(s):  
Mohammad T. Rahman ◽  
Muslim Mufti

This article suggests that social media and public spaces in contemporary Indonesia play an essential role as a context for Islamic ideologisation by developing social mobilisation methods and transforming its ideology and culture. This socio-phenomenological study highlights the historical and social processes that underlie pious youth’s rise in an Indonesia’s contemporary urban space, for example, Bandung. The Hijrah [Migrating] Youth Community is an Islamic movement based on mosques and social media such as Twitter, Facebook and YouTube to migrate Hijrah to a better life. This study draws on the forms of articulation culture that emerged from the ideals of the revival and reinvention of Islam in the materiality of secular popular culture. The religious activities of Hijrah youth may reduce the disorders of young people, however since the young are rebellious, extreme religious activities may also arise from the community. Thus, different parties, especially parents, the Bandung City government and other social institutions must supervise the development of the youths’ life based on religious parties.Contribution: This study describes the operation of a youth religious movement, which tries to overcome the problem they usually face, namely juvenile delinquency. This study can develop research patterns that can analyse social phenomena and and apply them to policy consideration.


2020 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 205630511989732
Author(s):  
Alireza Karduni ◽  
Eric Sauda

Black Lives Matter, like many modern movements in the age of information, makes significant use of social media as well as public space to demand justice. In this article, we study the protests in response to the shooting of Keith Lamont Scott by police in Charlotte, North Carolina, on September 2016. Our goal is to measure the significance of urban space within the virtual and physical network of protesters. Using a mixed-methods approach, we identify and study urban space and social media generated by these protests. We conducted interviews with protesters who were among the first to join the Keith Lamont Scott shooting demonstrations. From the interviews, we identify places that were significant in our interviewees’ narratives. Using a combination of natural language processing and social network analysis, we analyze social media data related to the Charlotte protests retrieved from Twitter. We found that social media, local community, and public space work together to organize and motivate protests and that public events such as protests cause a discernible increase in social media activity. Finally, we find that there are two distinct communities who engage social media in different ways; one group involved with social media, local community and urban space, and a second group connected almost exclusively through social media.


2020 ◽  
Vol 9 (6) ◽  
pp. 402 ◽  
Author(s):  
Zhenghong Peng ◽  
Ru Wang ◽  
Lingbo Liu ◽  
Hao Wu

During the early stage of the COVID-19 outbreak in Wuhan, there was a short run of medical resources, and Sina Weibo, a social media platform in China, built a channel for novel coronavirus pneumonia patients to seek help. Based on the geo-tagging Sina Weibo data from February 3rd to 12th, 2020, this paper analyzes the spatiotemporal distribution of COVID-19 cases in the main urban area of Wuhan and explores the urban spatial features of COVID-19 transmission in Wuhan. The results show that the elderly population accounts for more than half of the total number of Weibo help seekers, and a close correlation between them has also been found in terms of spatial distribution features, which confirms that the elderly population is the group of high-risk and high-prevalence in the COVID-19 outbreak, needing more attention of public health and epidemic prevention policies. On the other hand, the early transmission of COVID-19 in Wuhan could be divide into three phrases: Scattered infection, community spread, and full-scale outbreak. This paper can help to understand the spatial transmission of COVID-19 in Wuhan, so as to propose an effective public health preventive strategy for urban space optimization.


2020 ◽  
Vol 9 (8) ◽  
pp. 465
Author(s):  
Yue Ma ◽  
Changlong Ling ◽  
Jing Wu

The benefits of the natural environment in urban space have been explored in numerous studies. However, only a few statistics and studies have been conducted on the correlation between emotion and urban waterfront space, especially considering gender differences. Taking Wuhan city as an example, this study puts forward a new approach and perspective. Text emotion analysis is combined with the spatial analysis technique based on big data of social media. Based on the emotions of the public of different genders in urban space, suggestions are provided for urban planning and development from the perspective of POI (Point of Interest). The main steps are: (1) Analyzing the emotional score of Weibo texts published by citizens in the waterfront area of 21 lakes in Wuhan City; (2) exploring the public emotion characteristics of different genders in the urban waterfront; (3) classifying the waterfront according to the emotional response (score) of the public of different genders; (4) exploring the relationship between different POI types and waterfront types and proposing planning suggestions. The results of this study provide evidence for gender differences and spatial distribution of public emotions in the Wuhan waterfront area. It can help decision-makers to judge the prior protection and development direction of waterfront space, thus demonstrating the feasibility of this approach.


Author(s):  
Kilim Park

<p>Stories of migration tend to mark monumental moments in people's lives. In Indonesia, the experiences of labour migrants, in particular, female overseas domestic workers (usually referred to as <em>TKW: Tenega Kerja Wanita</em>), continue to make the news and has made its way into the Indonesian popular culture as well. In this conceptual paper, I offer a brief observation on the discussion of labour migration in Indonesia, and propose new ways to explore migration and urban space. In particular, with a focus on intersectionality of the two with respect to migrant women returnee's experience, I propose an approach that considers the details in their everyday lives and reflections upon them intertwined with formal and informal aspects of urban citizenship. Finally, by using Jakarta as a case study of urban space where migrant returnees live in, and influence and change, I suggest a research direction that centralizes migrant women as a storyteller and keyplayer in our understanding of urban, social, and cultural change in Indonesia and broadly, Southeast Asia.<em> </em></p>


Urban Studies ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 56 (14) ◽  
pp. 2977-2992 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ditte Brøgger

In the fast-growing cities of the Global South, urban forms of citizenship and urban rights are unequally defined and locally negotiated. The aim of this paper is to add the themes of property, landownership and housing as perspectives in the understanding of urban citizenship and to demonstrate how the urban is an arena for the negotiation of rights. This is done by examining urban citizenship and the graduated system of locally negotiated rights, including the right to property, the right to belong to an urban community and the right to urban resources. The research is located geographically in Nepal, where a typology of different classes of citizenship is developed in order to explain how classes of urban citizenship have different rights in the urban. Central to this is an analysis of unequal rights and unequal access to essential urban resources and services. The paper finds that the definition of (new) classes of urban citizenship in Nepal is critically embedded in historical practices and social structures. This demonstrates the relevance of further research into exclusionary practices in urban areas in the rapidly urbanising Global South and adds to the discussion of different types of urban citizenship and unequal rights to the urban space.


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