The city expressed : everyday media production and the urban environment

Our interactions with cities are increasingly mediated through a complex array of technologies, including location-aware mobile devices and a vast number of online platforms. However, we often also use these tools to create content about the places that we live in and travel through. My thesis examines what I define as "place-based media," that is, user-generated content produced about place. This content - photos of street life, overheard quotes, and local reviews, for example - emerges out of daily routines, and has a reciprocal relationship with the urban environment, both contributing to, as well as reflecting the life of the city. In this thesis, I aim to explore the relationship between the technologies and practices involved in the production of place-based media. In my approach, I situate place-based media within relevant historical precedents, such as street photography. In addition, I examine content produced about a single neighborhood, Central Square, Cambridge, in order to better understand the social and affective qualities of content that is created in dialogue with place. Ultimately, this project examines the production of place-based media as an everyday urban practice, with an eye towards the potential implications these media could have for contemporary cities and city neighborhoods.

Department dc:contributor.department

Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Program in Comparative Media Studies/Writing

Grantor dc:publisher

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Year dc:date.issued

2013

Author dc:creator

• Boghani, Amar K. (Amar Kapadia)

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• William Charles Uricchio.

• Comparative Media Studies.

Statement dc:rights

• M.I.T. theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed from this source for any purpose, but reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without written permission. See provided URL for inquiries about permission.

Licence dc:rights.uri

• http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/7582

Language dc:language.iso

eng

Handle dc:identifier.uri

http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/81077

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:dspace.mit.edu:1721.1/81077