Culture, technology and the city

The 21st century has been described as the “century of cities”. By 2030, 70 per cent of the world’s population will live in cities, with the most rapid urbanization occurring in the developing world. This paper will draw up geographer Ed Soja’s concept of the “spatial turn” in social theory to consider how the culture of cities can act as a catalyst to innovation and the development of new technologies. In doing so, the paper will develop a three-layered approach to culture as: the arts; the way of life of people and communities; and the embedded structure underpinning socio-economic relations. It will also consider technology at a three-layered element, including devices, practices and ‘logics’ of technology, or what the Greeks termed techne. The paper will consider recent approaches to urban cultural policy, including cluster development and creative cities, and suggest some alternatives, noting that a problem with current approaches is that they focus excessively upon production (clusters) or consumption (creative cities). It will also consider the development of digital creative industries such as games, and the strategies of different cities to develop an innovation culture

Content Growth and Attention Contagion in Information Networks: Addressing Information Poverty on Wikipedia

Open collaboration platforms have fundamentally changed the way that knowledge is produced, disseminated, and consumed. In these systems, contributions arise organically with little to no central governance. Although such decentralization provides many benefits, a lack of broad oversight and coordination can leave questions of information poverty and skewness to the mercy of the system’s natural dynamics. Unfortunately, we still lack a basic understanding of the dynamics at play in these systems and specifically, how contribution and attention interact and propagate through information networks. We leverage a large-scale natural experiment to study how exogenous content contributions to Wikipedia articles affect the attention that they attract and how that attention spills over to other articles in the network. Results reveal that exogenously added content leads to significant, substantial, and long-term increases in both content consumption and subsequent contributions. Furthermore, we find significant attention spillover to downstream hyperlinked articles. Through both analytical estimation and empirically informed simulation, we evaluate policies to harness this attention contagion to address the problem of information poverty and skewness. We find that harnessing attention contagion can lead to as much as a twofold increase in the total attention flow to clusters of disadvantaged articles. Our findings have important policy implications for open collaboration platforms and information networks

Stigma in payday borrowing: a service ecosystems approach

PurposeThis study aims to explore stigma in payday borrowing by investigating how the stigma associated with using such a service may spill over and affect other people, entities and relationships beyond the user within a service ecosystem.Design/methodology/approachIn-depth interviews exploring consumers’ lived experiences and stigma were combined with publicly available reports from key stakeholders within the payday loan (PDL) industry to create a qualitative, text-based data set. The transcripts and reports were then analysed following thematic protocols.FindingsAnalysis reveals that the stigma associated with using a stigmatised service spills over, affecting not only the borrower but other actors within the service ecosystem. The analysis uncovers three important interactions that spilled over between the actors within the stigmatised service ecosystem (SSE), which can be damaging, enabling or concealed.Research limitations/implicationsThis study introduces and explores the concept of “SSEs” and investigates the impact of stigma beyond the dyadic relationships between service providers and users to consider the actors within the wider ecosystem. The findings reframe existing understandings about stigma, as this study finds that stigmatised services can play both a positive (enabling) and a negative (damaging) role within an ecosystem, and this study uncovers the role of stigma concealments and how they can affect relationships and value co-creation among different actors.Practical implicationsThis study provides evidence for more robust policies for addressing stigma in different SSEs by mapping the effects of stigma spillover and its effects on the borrower and other actors.Originality/valueThis study contributes to reframing marketing priorities by extending existing work on consumer stigma by showing how the stigma of a PDL may spill over and affect other actors within a service ecosystem. Significantly, the interactions between the actors may have positive as well as negative outcomes

Scenario Adaptation for Creative and Transformative Innovation

In these times of crisis, it has been proposed that we need to consider wider more radical and even transformative innovation potentials to meet future challenges. Considering this, also futures scenarios should include more diverse interpretations within its work to aid in this endeavour. In this thesis, this challenge is explored by combining two innovation-rich arenas of the Creative and the Transformative that are represented by the Creative Economy and Green Growth, in order to widen the innovation potential. These constantly developing policy and rich discourse areas, are seen as a drivers and engines of growth. Combined these offer broader tools and perspectives in which to widen an understanding of future structural transformation. This type of transformed regime is explored through a proposed method scenario adaptation, that intertextually reads futures workshop and scenario results as text. that are read through innovation styles from creative economy and green growth literature (via a method of style matrix). Specifically, combined it is proposed that these flesh-out an alternative scene of a future sustainable system. This produces an adapted scenario in the form of a vignette. The results of the workshop, focused on one set scenario that was based on a future peer to peer energy setting. Beyond the successful renewable energy implications already expertly analysed in a wider Neo-Carbon Energy research project. One specific chosen scenario in its own right gives a glimpse into a future preferable sustainable regime. The research results highlighted themes of crisis and recovery, and important role of knowledge spillovers. The traits and characteristics of transformative agency reveal changes in values required to achieve an advanced future system, but also the challenges and their essential support systems. The desire of this study is to propose and demonstrate the method of scenario adaptation, that can envisage alternative future transformations

Film in the city: a report on the film & video sub-Sector in London

The movie business, and the distribution of films through the associated cinema and home video sectors is a truly global phenomenon. In terms of both production and distribution, Hollywood has traditionally dominated international markets, however, with radical innovations in information and digital technologies and the spread of the Internet, it has become increasingly easier to make and distribute films around the world . Coupled with this is the ‘runaway production’ concept, whereby Hollywood productions are no longer tied to site-specific studios and can choose to shoot and edit their (usually high-budget) movies in locations around the globe. This has created an international market where cities, such as Vancouver, Sydney, Brisbane, Prague, Cape Town, London and many more, compete for big movie business. London has a thriving film and video sub-sector and a highly competitive infrastructure, nurtured by a host of supporting institutions, which together create a powerful creative network of players capable of competing at a global scale. The physical geography of the city also matters to the film industry, not only in terms of shooting locations, but also in determining where to locate, pitch or exhibit the final creative product. Consequently, the location and interconnected value chain of producers, post-production, financiers, sales agents and distributors, cinemas and theatres, as well as the myriad of specialised and highly skilled workforce is key to the industry’s success. The co-location and clustering tendencies of individuals and institutions located at close proximity in London and highlighted in this report are evidence of the intense social networking that characterises the industry

The countryside in urbanized Flanders: towards a flexible definition for a dynamic policy

The countryside, the rural area, the open space, … many definitions are used for rural Flanders. Everyone makes its own interpretation of the countryside, considering it as a place for living, working or recreating. The countryside is more than just a geographical area: it is an aggregate of physical, social, economic and cultural functions, strongly interrelated with each other. According to international and European definitions of rural areas there would be almost no rural area in Flanders. These international definitions are all developed to be used for analysis and policy within their specific context. They are not really applicable to Flanders because of the historical specificity of its spatial structure. Flanders is characterized by a giant urbanization pressure on its countryside while internationally rural depopulation is a point of interest. To date, for every single rural policy initiative – like the implementation of the European Rural Development Policy – Flanders used a specifically adapted definition, based on existing data or previously made delineations. To overcome this oversupply of definitions and delineations, the Flemish government funded a research project to obtain a clear and flexible definition of the Flemish countryside and a dynamic method to support Flemish rural policy aims. First, an analysis of the currently used definitions of the countryside in Flanders was made. It is clear that, depending on the perspective or the policy context, another definition of the countryside comes into view. The comparative study showed that, according to the used criteria, the area percentage of Flanders that is rural, varies between 9 and 93 per cent. Second, dynamic sets of criteria were developed, facilitating a flexible definition of the countryside, according to the policy aims concerned. This research part was focused on 6 policy themes, like ‘construction, maintenance and management of local (transport) infrastructures’ and ‘provision of (minimum) services (education, culture, health care, …)’. For each theme a dynamic set of criteria or indicators was constructed. These indicators make it possible to show where a policy theme manifests itself and/or where policy interventions are possible or needed. In this way every set of criteria makes up a new definition of rural Flanders. This method is dynamic; new data or insights can easily be incorporated and new criteria sets can be developed if other policy aims come into view. The developed method can contribute to a more region-oriented and theme-specific rural policy and funding mechanism

Spatial effect of digital financial inclusion on the urban–rural income gap in China—analysis based on path dependence

Digital financial inclusion (DFI) helps to narrow the income gap between urban and rural areas, but path dependence may lead to spatial agglomeration in the development of DFI, causing the spatial effect on the urban–rural income gap. This study mainly examines the mechanism and effect of DFI on the urban–rural income gap in China, including its spatial effect issues. Results show that China’s DFI has different impacts on the urban–rural income gap in the east, central, and western regions, showing evident spatial heterogeneity. In addition, the development of DFI has spatial agglomeration, and its impact on China’s urban–rural income gap also has a spatial spillover effect. Moreover, the spatial effect of DFI is mainly because of the path dependence on the development of traditional finance and digital technology. The spatial correlation between them is transmitted to DFI, and the impact of digital technology development is greater. Finally, corresponding policy recommendations are proposed based on the conclusions

Culture and Urban Revitalization: A Harvest Document

Advocates have long argued that the economic benefits of the arts and culture provide a firm rationale for public support. Recent scholarship on the "creative class" and "creative economy" is simply the latest effort to link cultural expression to community prosperity. In contrast, the social benefits of cultural engagement have received relatively little attention, even though -- as we shall see -- they provide a stronger case.We need to avoid a simplistic either-or choice between the economic and social impacts of the arts. People who live in our cities, suburbs, and countryside are simultaneously consumers, workers, residents, citizens, and participants. Culture's role in promoting community capacity and civic engagement is central to its potential for generating vital cultural districts. To separate the economic and the social impacts of the arts makes each more difficult to understand.This document provides an overview of the state-of-the-art literature on culture and urban revitalization. In Part 2, we place the creative sector in contemporary context with a discussion of three social dynamics. The "new urban reality" has restructured our cities by increasing social diversity -- fueled by new residential patterns, the emergence of young adult districts, and immigration; expanding economic inequality; and changing urban form. Shifts in the economic and political environment have changed the structure of the creative sector. Finally, the changing balance of government, nonprofit, and for-profit institutions in social policy development -- the shift to transactional policymaking -- has profound implications for cultural policy and the creative sector broadly defined. These three forces -- the new urban reality, the changing structure of the creative sector, and the emergence of transactional policy-making -- define the context within which culture-based revitalization takes place