Urban Mobilities: Locating consumption of ubiquitous content

Technological developments seem to be making 'place' less important. Many visions about future technology suggest that information will be 'anytime', any place' and will make location irrelevant. However the use of mobile devices in specific urban spaces and the heavy use of cybercafes by those who might log on elsewhere suggests that the experience of location is central.

The research is a qualitative study of cultures of new media technology consumption and production in London. It includes an examination of the kinds of spatial and temporal regimes that accompany specific technology deployments. Interest also centers on the relationship between technology and literary cultures. Among the urban sites considered are public transport routes, but also local authorities or boroughs and the city as a conceptual whole. The Research Fellow (in association with the Project Director) conduct ethnographic observation and interviews with various individuals and groups in these spaces. As well as ethnography, the data includes socio-demographic information about these London spaces (e.g. the communities around particular bus or train stops) and indicators of technological infrastructure (e.g. the number of local public access points to the internet).

Weblogging
An ongoing research project exists with various groups within the UK weblogging community. Web logs or 'blogs' are sites that allow individuals or groups to list and continually update their favourite links. They have also developed into personal journals or diaries. One of the attractions of the technology is that it allows bloggers to receive almost immediate feedback from their online audience. Sometimes described as a form of 'personal publishing', blogging has taken off in the last couple of years. From its original centre around a group of London-based new media experts, the activity has grown in popularity as the technology has become more user-friendly. At the moment research is being conducted with two groups of London bloggers. Journal bloggers provide personal accounts of life in the city. This includes creative expressions of everyday life, reviews of local theatres, restaurants, pubs, museums etc, and accounts of commuting woes. Pundit bloggers provide a form of online commentary on journalism and current affairs. This can include reportage and political activism.

These research projects tie in with the wider concerns of the INCITE team and the Urban mobilities unit in particular. The form and activity of blogging in the capital provide a good example of how place and community matter in the uses people make of new media devices and technologies.

Witness Appeal boards
This research centres on an examination of the public response to police calls for witness information about criminal incidents in London. In particular it focuses on one of the most successful means of attracting information from the London public: the Witness Appeal Board (bright yellow wooden boards with black printed text that are placed at or near the location of the incident). The Witness Appeal Board is well known to Londoners and has become something of a city icon (often represented as an index of residents feelings of [in] security). The boards are examined not only as a famous piece of London street furniture but also as a text that is designed to capture public attention and stimulate Londoners to respond.

Alongside the traditional Witness Appeal Board, the Metropolitan Police Force has begun to utilise digital forms of text communication. One of the aims of this project is to investigate the ways in which printed and digital text combine in the call for information made by the police and in the forms of response made by the public. The Witness Appeal Board and its digital offshoots fit well with the wider concerns of the INCITE team and the Urban Mobilities project in particular; they present an intriguing object of study for those interested in distinct cultures of reading and writing and in the ways in which old and new media technologies connect with senses of place (the boards are unique to London) and community.