Geomedia: Networked Cities and the Future of Public Space

摘要

The book Geomedia - Networked Cities and the Future of Public Space - deals with what Scott McQuire rightly considers to be one of the key features that distinguishes our contemporary urban experience - the extension of networked digital media all through urban space. The author starts by highlighting the changes cities and city life have experienced in the last decades, changes that have impacted in the city life but also in the way it is, or should be, governed and planned. This change or transformation of media into geomedia, a name for the heterogeneous group of technologies that make up the contemporary mediascape, is recreating the city as a media space, contributing also for the gradual shift from conventional urban planning into the new mode of urban e-planning. With the expansion of networked digital media, ubiquity made digital media an important part of city routines. It carries with it an important transformation of social practices, as contents and connections tend now to be available anywhere and anytime. In addition, location-aware devices created new social practices and commercial logics that tend to impact the urban space, which together will continue to challenge conventional models of urban planning and the way we govern cities.