Communicative Cities in the 21st Century

Matthew D. Matsaganis (PhD, University of Southern California) is Assistant Professor in the Communication Department at the State University of New York at Albany. He is co-author of Understanding Ethnic Media: Producers, Consumers & Societies (2011). His research has been published in numerous journals. Victoria J. Gallagher (PhD, Northwestern University) is Professor of Communication and Associate Dean of Academic Affairs in the College of Humanities and Social Sciences at North Carolina State University. Gallagher has published articles in many journals as well as in edited book collections. Susan J. Drucker (JD, St. John’s University School of Law) is Professor in the Department of Journalism/Media Studies, School of Communication, Hofstra University. She is an attorney, and treasurer of the Urban Communication Foundation. She is the author and editor of 10 books, over 100 articles and book chapters, and co-editor of two previous volumes of the Urban Communication Reader.

«This text examines the myriad ways in which ‘the city is constituted through communication.’ In doing so, it provides a significant and well-crafted contribution to extant work on the diverse ways in which cities, considered in part (parks, buildings, casinos), or in whole (communication audit) function communicatively. While the topics are varied, the essays reflect a common concern with specific themes (inside/outside) and offer a highly coherent set of analyses.» (Raymie McKerrow, Ohio University)«A first-rate addition not only to the growing field of urban communication. Demonstrating the maturation of the scholarship, the book takes as its central theme the ‘communicative city.’ The richness of this phrase is well demonstrated in the excellent essays that range from critical engagements with urban spaces, to interpretation of spatial representations, to the ways interpersonal, communal, and mediated communication make and remake the city.» (Greg Dickinson, Colorado State University)

• Contents: D. Matsaganis/Victoria J. Gallagher: Introduction: The Making of Communicative Cities in the 21st Century – Margaret R. LaWare: Defining a «Livable City»: Parks, Suburbanization, and the Shaping of Community Identity and Ecological Responsibility – Victoria J. Gallagher/Kenneth Zagacki/Kelly Norris Martin: Communicative Spaces and Rhetorical Enactments: How and Why Urban Parks Enhance (or Fail to Enhance) Civic Life – Casey Man Kong Lum: Understanding Urban Foodways and Communicative Cities: A Taste of Hong Kong’s Yumcha Culture as Urban Communication – Mary Ann Allison: Unconventional Urban Communication Success: Envisioning and Engendering a Revitalized New Cassel – Leo W. Jeffres/Kimberly Neuendorf/Guowei Jian/Kimberly S. Cooper: Auditing Communication Systems to Help Urban Policy Makers – John Monberg: Containing RFID: Questioning Communication, Technology, and Culture – Tim Simpson: Chinese Tourists, Themed Casinos, and Consumer Pedagogy in Macao – Janis L. Edwards: Locating Nihonmachi: Urban Erasure, Memory, and Visibility in Japantown, USA – Gary Gumpert/Susan J. Drucker: Skins, Tattoos, and Architectural Façades: Or What You See Is What You Get - For the Moment – Andrew F. Wood: Origami Urbanism amid the Flat City: An Omnitopian Analysis of Commercials Depicting Mutability in Urban Life – Gene Burd: Afterword: Cross-Currents Inside and Outside the Communicative City.