GENERATING COLLECTIVE REPRESENTATIONS ABOUT THE CITY IN THE AGE OF DIGITAL CULTURE: A VISUAL ASPECT
DOI: 10.23951/2312-7899-2023-4-37-58
The article focuses on the analysis of generating processes of collective representations about the city in the age of digital culture, which are directly related to the urban imaginary structuring. The academic relevance of research on collective representations about the city is supported both by increased scientific interest in phenomena which symbolically and mentally determine the urban reality and by the consequences of digitalization influence on these processes. At the applied level, this problem is revealed in the context of the existing necessity to study the predicting and projecting of the urban environment development processes, the prospects of constructing urban spaces and the urban imagery taking into account the digital transformation of reality. In this research, the main focus is on the visual aspect of generating collective representations about the city and, accordingly, on practices that produce visual urban imagery in the age of digital culture. A digital city representation opens up new ways of structuring collective city views. Imagining a particular city, a person mentally recreates images that allow him to perceive it as a visible location. Nowadays, the process takes place by means of AR or VR digital technologies through the digital media content via electronic gadgets. In the digital culture age, collective city representations are concentrated in a mosaic of reviews, publications, videos, posts in digital communications, where personal information is transformed into collective through digital media. The city is imagined via a digital code as a symbolic system of storage, representation and translation of meanings in digital environment. This situation causes a fundamentally new logic of generating collective urban representsations, where actors of visual content production and city virtualization in digital communications, which create a unique “digital footprint” of each particular city, play a significant role. The city perception onthology is changing, as well as the processes of its comprehension by citizens, guests, tourists: the hyperreal and virtual reality takes up more and more space. Now, collective representations largely depend on the tendencies and trends that the actors of the urban imaginary follow, in particular, on how popular certain images of the city and its objects (nature, gastronomy, architecture, public spaces, etc.) are with opinion leaders in the digital environment.
Keywords: city, collective representations, urban imaginary, digital culture
References:
Allcott, H., & Gentzkow, M. (2017). Social media and fake news in the 2016 election. Journal of Economic Perspectives, 31(2), 211–236.
Anfimova, E. B., & Novikova, Ya. V. (2021). On the possibilities of digital technologies of architecture and design in the process of transforming an urban environment. Mezhdunarodnyy nauchno-issledovatel’skiy zhurnal, 7(109:1), 118–123. (In Russian).
Basina P. A., & Malar, A. A. (2019). Semantization of Tomsk local spaces: view through Instagram. ΠΡΑΞΗΜΑ (Praxema). Journal of Visual Semiotics, 2(20), 193–201. (In Russian).
Çetinkaya, G. (2020). “Travel Blogs” as Transforming Spaces of Memory: An Attempt to Evaluate The Urban Memory Through “Travel Blogs”. National Folklore, 128, 138–152.
Dudnik, S. I. (2020). Alienation in digital society. Voprosy filosofii, 3, 17–20. (In Russian).
Dunas, D. V., & Vartanov, S. A. (2020). Emerging digital media culture in Russia: modeling the media consumption of generation Z. Journal of Multicultural Discourses, 15(2), 186–203.
Fedotova, N. G. (2018). Urban imaginary as the symbolic capital of the city. Yaroslavskiy pedagogicheskiy vestnik, 2, 228–233. (In Russian).
Fedotova, N. G. (2019). Urban imaginary: visual markers of the urban imaginary. ΠΡΑΞΗΜΑ (Praxema). Journal of Visual Semiotics, 1(23), 42–62. (In Russian).
Leyva, R., & Beckett, C. (2020). Testing and unpacking the effects of digital fake news: on presidential candidate evaluations and voter support. AI & Society, 35(4), 969–980.
Lindner, R. (2017). Die eigenlogik der städte. Neue wege für die stadtforschung (pp. 101–117). NLO. (In Russian).
Lisenkova, A. A. (2020). Transformation of identity in the digital age. Voprosy filosofii, 3, 65–74. (In Russian).
Marshall, D. (2016). The promotion and presentation of the self: celebrity as a marker of presentational media. Transl. into Russian. Logos, 26(6), 137–160.
Muravleva, T. V. (2018). Project “Digital City” as a direction for future development of the digital economy. Ekonomicheskaya bezopasnost’ i kachestvo, 3(32), 8–11. (In Russian).
Musiezdov, A. A. (2013). The city as a cultural form. Sotsiologicheskoe obozrenie, 12(3), 121–136. (In Russian).
Nazarov, M. M. (2018). Modern media landscape: diversity and fragmentation. Sotsiologicheskie issledovaniya, 8, 54–64. (In Russian).
Soja, E. (2000). Postmetropolis: Critical Studies of Cities and Regions. Blackwell Publishing.
Wagner, C. (2022). Visualizations of Urban Space: Digital Age, Aesthetics, and Politics. 1st edition. Series Advances in Urban Sustainability. Routledge.
Zaborova, E. N. (2020). The future of cities in the information and digital age. Vestnik PNIPU. Sotsial’no-ekonomicheskie nauki, 2, 124–134. (In Russian).
( 2.12 MB ) 
( 2.09 MB )
Issue: 4, 2023
Series of issue: Issue 4
Rubric: ARTICLES
Pages: 37 — 58
Downloads: 260