322 / 2019-02-21 12:42:12

Visual Communication and the Mediatized City: From Street Billboards to Offices of Urban Planning in Cairo

cairo,planning practice,city,visual communication,billboard

全体主题 > Spatial data collection, Analysis, and Visualization

Visual Communication and the Mediatized City:
From Street Billboards to Offices of Urban Planning in Cairo
Today, by simply walking in the streets of Cairo or opening one of the national TV channels, one get captured by hundreds of real estate ads that share certain characteristics that can be summarized in two points; promoting moving out of Cairo and buying a new apartment or villa in a new city or a nearby compound, and the use of almost the same visual symbols (i.e. 3d models of the apartments overlooking a big green area, swimming pools, shopping centers....etc,) that resembles how the future city looks like. This is connected to Andreas Hepp concept of "mediatized worlds".
The above introduction exposes the significant role visualizations play in planning and designating cities, however, to what extent these dominant narratives and visuals impact/construct the professional planning practice, is still under-researched. This is interrogated in this paper through adapting an assemblage ontology and using Actor-Network-Theory (ANT) starting from the street urban-visual experience and going backward to one of the micro publics that creates it (planners and planning offices. This paper adapts a reverse/backward process trying to unravel the layers behind the construction of street billboard. Using ANT, urban visualizations and media are perceived as both the method for research and the method for understanding planning practice and planners' role accordingly.
It is argued that there are different media assemblages that are used/employed by different actors/ actor groups - and that through the specific assemblages of media one could reflect on (1) planning practice; how is planning done (2) the kind of city, planners see/ plan and (3) the kind of public sphere they co-produce/ are part of. Accordingly, the research questions that guide this study are: Which planning knowledge is communicated to the general public (in Cairo's streets) and how this knowledge is constructed (in planning offices)? and what are the constructed media assemblages in these processes?

Media as an important tool in communicating planning and the city to the general public, urban planners become one of the influenced micro public who does not only create it also but also get affected by it. In a mediatized city like Cairo, planning is media