Journalism for the connected city. Towards interfaces for the city as a platform for civic communication:Extended Abstract

Available upon request: As urban spaces are increasingly pervaded by real-time analytic interfaces, concepts like the smart (Lara et al. 2016) “digital”, “experimental” and connected city anticipate a digital yet sustainable and equitable environment of urban living (Brynskov et al. 2012; Evans et al. 2016). The role of civil society in these concepts remains often contested (Heitlinger et al., 2019). Global IT companies, civic tech initiatives and public agencies increasingly communicate directly with customers, users and citizens, enlisting them as supporters, as data subjects or, in some cases also, as co-creators of digital urban living (Brynskov et al. 2018; Mattern 2020; de Waal 2014). This extended abstract addresses an increasing gap between the sophistication of our technological environment (e.g. social media and smart cities) and the relatively stable yet arcane forms of communicating this space and its struggles in journalistic media.