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Towards An Integrated Theory Of The Cyber-Urban

Digital Materiality and Networked Media at Multiple Scales
  • Laura Forlano
Published/Copyright: October 1, 2015
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Digital Culture & Society
From the journal Digital Culture & Society Volume 1 Issue 1

Abstract

Over the past decade, scholars have worked to develop a new lexicon of the cyber-urban in order to express, in a more nuanced and careful way, the hybrid nature of everyday life in cities of the 21st century. Yet, for the most part, our current verbal and visual metaphors and imagined futures along with our theoretical and analytical frames, to a large degree, continue to emphasize the separation of the physical and the digital into discrete and hierarchical layers and ‘stacks.’ Given our limited metaphors, it should come as no surprise that we are unable to traverse socio-economic barriers and build more equitable and pluralistic cities. This paper will discuss the need to move beyond hybrid language and towards a truly integrated theory of digital materiality and the cyber-urban using examples from debates about big data, Smart Cities, the ‘internet of things’ and the quantified self.

Published Online: 2015-10-1
Published in Print: 2015-9-1

© 2015 by transcript Verlag

Articles in the same Issue

  1. Titelei
  2. Introduction
  3. I. Software/Code Studies And Digital Material
  4. Unearthing Techno-Ecology
  5. Reciprocal Materiality And The Body Of Code
  6. II. The Material Of The Digital And Emerging Practices
  7. Swipe To Unlock
  8. Towards An Integrated Theory Of The Cyber-Urban
  9. III. Methodological And Conceptual Reflections
  10. Technological Materiality And Assumptions About ‘Active’ Human Agency
  11. Interpreting An Improper Materialism
  12. Towards A Relational Materialism
  13. IV. Entering The Field
  14. Signs O’ The Times
  15. From Her (2013) To Viv The Global Brain
  16. Material Agency In User-Centred Design Practices
  17. V. In Conversation With
  18. A Geology Of Media And A New Materialism
  19. Information Politics
  20. Biographical Notes
https://doi.org/10.14361/dcs-2015-0106

Articles in the same Issue

  1. Titelei
  2. Introduction
  3. I. Software/Code Studies And Digital Material
  4. Unearthing Techno-Ecology
  5. Reciprocal Materiality And The Body Of Code
  6. II. The Material Of The Digital And Emerging Practices
  7. Swipe To Unlock
  8. Towards An Integrated Theory Of The Cyber-Urban
  9. III. Methodological And Conceptual Reflections
  10. Technological Materiality And Assumptions About ‘Active’ Human Agency
  11. Interpreting An Improper Materialism
  12. Towards A Relational Materialism
  13. IV. Entering The Field
  14. Signs O’ The Times
  15. From Her (2013) To Viv The Global Brain
  16. Material Agency In User-Centred Design Practices
  17. V. In Conversation With
  18. A Geology Of Media And A New Materialism
  19. Information Politics
  20. Biographical Notes
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