[Air-L] Mediacities at LSE Today at 12.30 Community Through Digital Connectivity? & Urban Politics of London Youth Analyzed

[Leurs, K.H.A. (Koen)]

Dear all,

Apologies for the late message, but for those interested, there will be a session at 12.30 today at the LSE on MediaCities, with presentations on Community Through Digital Connectivity?  & Urban Politics of London Youth Analyzed Digitally.

With kind regards,

Koen Leurs.   

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From: Deeley,JA 
Sent: 17 June 2015 09:35
To: Media-Communications-Department-Meeting; Media-Communications-PhD-Researchers; Media-Communications-Visitors; Media-Communications-Researchers
Subject: TOMORROW: Research Dialogue with Koen Leurs & Wallis Motta

Dear All,

You are warmly invited to tomorrow’s Research Dialogue, featuring our two post-doc researchers Koen Leurs and Wallis Motta! The title of the session is Mediacities at LSE and Myria Georgiou will act as chair and discussant. It will start at 12:30 in 32L. LG.02 as usual.

Please see below for more details.

Best,
Bingchun

Community Through Digital Connectivity? Communication Infrastructure in Multicultural London
 Dr. Wallis Motta
Visiting Fellow, LSE
I will present some of the research findings from this pilot project that has as principal investigator Dr. Myria Georgiou, as a co-investigator Prof. Sonia Livingstone, and for which I worked as Research Officer.
The study examines the use of communication infrastructure for bridging, bonding and separating three different ethnic groups occupying the same multicultural neighbourhood in London: Harringay. We ask: How does London’s rich communication infrastructure enable Londoners to communicate with each other? Does this in turn contribute to social capital and building of multi-cultural communities? Or are people segregated across socio-cultural lines in spite of it?
The project juxtaposes the theory of communication infrastructure from Ball-Rokeach and the Metamorphosis project at USC with Bourdieu’s conception of social capital. We developed a mixed-methods approach to understand the uses of communication infrastructure. First, a small-scale survey allowed us to measure social-capital, local media and national media use preferences, as well as neighbourhood discussion topics. In addition, we conducted 5 asset-mapping workshops and focus group conversations, in order to have detailed discussion on how people mobilise communication assets or resources to advance their interests. Finally we conducted ethnographic participant observation in key local events. 
http://www.lse.ac.uk/media@lse/research/Community-Through-Digital-Connectivity.aspx
M.C.Motta-Guarneros at lse.ac.uk 
Urban Politics of London Youth Analyzed Digitally 
Koen Leurs, 
Marie Curie Postdoctoral Fellow, London School of Economics and Political Science
This presentation introduces U.P.L.O.A.D – Urban Politics of London Youth Analyzed Digitally, the EU funded Mare Curie project investigating the lived experience of cultural difference among young Londoners. I take social media as an entry point to study how young people negotiate living in co-presence and close proximity to cultural differences. My focus will be two-fold: I will discuss the methodological approach and I will conceptualize initial empirical findings. 
>From fall 2013 to winter 2014, I carried out 84 in-depth interviews with young people living across three different London neighborhoods, Haringey, Hammersmith-Fulham and Chelsea-Kensington – each corresponding to a predominantly working class, middle class and upper (middle) class demographic composition respectively. During these interviews I gathered additional data through hand-drawn concept-maps and Facebook friendship network visualizations. Currently I am in the process of doing follow-up research with a selection of 10 informants using virtual ethnography. 
The young participants can be characterized by significant diversity, in terms of classed and gendered experiences and of mobility within and beyond urban spaces. However, all young people participating in the study own smartphones and extensively use a variety of social media platforms. At the intersection of urban experience, mobility and digital connectivity, the informants differently imagine their position and belonging in the urban world. Young Londoners’ imaginings of their city constitute powerful processes that contribute to making a cosmopolitan, as well as an exclusive and segregated, city. In particular I will focus on two diverting cosmopolitan urban imaginaries – vernacular and elite – as reflected respectively in the narratives of  informants from working class and upper (middle) class families. 
www.koenleurs.net 

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Dr Bingchun Meng
Associate Professor
Department of Media and Communications
London School of Economics and Political Science
Tel. +44 2071075020
Email: b.meng at lse.ac.uk




Koen Leurs, PhD
| Marie Curie Postdoctoral Researcher,
  London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) |
| Affiliated researcher Graduate Gender Studies
Institute for Cultural Enquiry (ICON)
Utrecht University  |

www.koenleurs.net