The Media City

If only more new media commentators had this level of historical-critical reference, engaging, good stories, and a degree of wonder at what media and windows bring to the city, to life...
John Hutnyk
Academic Director, Centre for Cultural Studies, Goldsmiths University of London

Just when you thought the last word had been said about cities and media, along comes Scott McQuire to breathe new life into the debate. When revisiting existing pathways, his always ingenious eyes produce startling and original insights. When striking out into new territory, he opens up before us inspiring new vistas. I love this book
James Donald
Professor of Film Studies, University of New South Wales

A book that contains sometimes audacious segues, that crams into a single chapter more insights and illustrations than seems feasible, yet which ties all threads together through a consistent, theoretically rich analysis of the interplay of media and city... Writing with effusiveness uncharacteristic of back-cover blurbs on academic tomes, James Donald says "I love this book". But I will end by echoing his praise, and make a promise to readers: you will love The Media City, too
European Journal of Communication

Compared to the urban studies literature of say David Harvey or Ed Soja, McQuire writes with a much greater architectural sensibility. His argument is that we move from a rather centred space of the classical renaissance city to a 'relational space' where past and future are juxtaposed not in simple Newtonian chronology but in complex relation to present. Such a transformed urbanism and media (compared with say Renaissance and Beaux Arts perspective) moves from what might be seen as the panoptic to a serial succession of photographic shots, of film frames, of movements along vistas at speed.

At stake is a city that is continually redefined by the media and understood along the lines of McQuire's quite novel media theory. At stake is a vision of media, which are too ubiquitous in the multiplication of screens, surveillance and other devices/interfaces in private and public space to primarily function any more as representations. Media in this (McQuire's) context are no longer primarily a set of representations, but constitute the very substance and fabric of urban public and private space
Scott Lash
Goldsmiths, University of London

refreshingly clear, getting to grips with some of the key concepts of urban sociology in a way that moves beyond the wistful evocation and splatter of undigested terms that characterises so much academic writing on culture and cities a clear historical and theoretically informed look at the city over the last 200 year...

Scott McQuire completed his PhD in the Politics Department at the University of Melbourne in 1995. He has a strong interest in interdisciplinary research and has lectured in disciplines including politics, sociology, cinema studies, art and architecture, and media and communication. Scott has held a number of research fellowships including a visiting fellowship at the Department of Film, Theatre and Television, UCLA (1998), an ARC Australian Postdoctoral Fellowship (1999-2000), and a visiting fellowship at the Celeste Bartos International Film Study Center, Museum of Modern Art, New York (2000). He returned to the University of Melbourne to help establish the Media and Communication Programme in 2001. He is an active researcher who has been a Chief Investigator on six Australian Research Council funded projects. He has also received funding from the Australia Council for the Arts, and has undertaken research consultancies for the Communications Law Centre, the Australian Film Commission and the Australian Key Centre for Media and Cultural Policy.

Introduction The Uncanny Home PART ONE: THRESHOLDS OF THE MEDIA CITY The Territory of Images The City in Fragments Liquid Cities PART TWO: PUBLIC SPACE: STREETS, LIGHTS AND SCREENS Electropolis Performing Public Space PART THREE: PRIVATE SPACE: FROM GLASS ARCHITECTURE TO BIG BROTHER The Glass House The Digital Home Conclusion