[csaa-forum] Media at Sydney: Urban locative media - Raz Schwartz (Cornell Tech NY) and Kurt Iveson (University of Sydney), August 1

[Cesar Albarran Torres]

Media at Sydney presents

Urban locative media: talks by Raz Schwartz (Cornell Tech, NYC) and Kurt Iveson (University of Sydney)


The Social Media Pulse of the City (Raz Schwartz)
Pulse, rhythm and beat are just a few of the common words that are thrown into the mix when researchers describe works studying real time social media data and cities. Considering the urban habitat as a living organism is not a new idea. Previous works in urban psychology, geography and architecture have investigated the ways in which we can trace and better understand the ever-changing social settings that the city creates. What happens however when researchers have live access to real time, geo-tagged social media interactions from specific public spaces? What do the patterns, and visualisations, of people’s social media activity tell us about what’s happening at these venues? This paper explores these questions by telling the story behind the creation of CityBeat (thecitybeat.org<http://thecitybeat.org>). Based on our experiences in the development of this project, I examine the type of insights this data can provide researchers as well as the biases, shortfalls and information that is missing.
Reconfigurations of citizenship in the 'smart city' (Kurt Iveson)
"These days, it seems, just carrying your phone around might be an act of good citizenship," writes Evgeny Morozov in his recent book To Save Everything Click Here. Indeed, the image of a citizen with a smart phone is at the heart of visions of the so-called 'smart city', where everyday urban life and governance are transformed through the development and deployment of digital informatics systems. So, exactly what are these citizens meant to be doing with their phones in order to make their cities 'smarter'? This talk will unpack a range of ways in which the good citizen of the smart city is configured, by identifying the values that underpin various applications of mobile media technologies in urban governance. It will conclude with some reflections on how these visions of the smart citizen are influencing wider political contests over the nature of cities and the ways in which their populations are governed.

Date: Friday 1st August, 2014
Time: 14:30-17:00
Location: S226 Seminar Room, Department of Media and Communications, University of Sydney, John Woolley Building (A20)<http://db.auth.usyd.edu.au/directories/map/building.stm?ref=d08h15> level 2, entry off Manning Road.
Register at http://www.eventbrite.com.au/e/urban-locative-media-talks-by-raz-schwartz-and-kurt-iveson-tickets-12039326951


Raz Schwartz is a postdoctoral researcher at Cornell Tech, New York City and a Magic Grant fellow at the Brown Institute for Media Innovation at Columbia Journalism School. Raz studies social media usage in urban settings and focuses on examining local social interactions by applying computational social science methods. Prior to joining Cornell Tech, Raz was a postdoctoral researcher at the Social Media Information Lab at Rutgers University and a visiting scholar in the Human Computer Interaction Institute at Carnegie Mellon University. His research on location-based social networks was presented in various academic settings and was featured in media outlets such as the Wall Street Journal, Wired, Rhizome, and The Atlantic.

Kurt Iveson is Associate Professor of Urban Geography in the School of Geosciences at the University of Sydney, and Co-Chair of the Urban Geography Study Group of the Institute of Australian Geographers. Kurt is author of Publics and the City (2007), co-author of Planning and Diversity in the City (2008), as well as numerous articles on the politics of urban public space. He's currently conducting ARC-funded research into the ways in which mobile media technologies are enmeshed in the contested politics of urban governance. He blogs at Cities and Citizenship<https://webmail.sydney.edu.au/owa/UrlBlockedError.aspx> and The Politics of Location<https://webmail.sydney.edu.au/owa/UrlBlockedError.aspx>.



Media at Sydney is presented by the
Department of Media and Communications<http://sydney.edu.au/arts/media_communications/>, University of Sydney



For more information contact
Dr Fiona Martin
T: 0428391122 or 02 90365098
E: fiona.martin at sydney.edu.au<UrlBlockedError.aspx>
M: 0428 391 122


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