The Belly of the City

Abstract

In contrast to the informational city, the communicative city model is characterized by a normative stance on a series of social, political, ethical and spatial dimensions. Building on an expanded version of Kunzmann's description of the communicative city, this article emphasizes the importance of alternative media organizations for developing the (concept of the) communicative city, both at the discursive and the practice-based level. In other words, the existence of urban alternative media and their defining features (where the participatory and the translocal are highlighted) contribute to the development of the discourse of the communicative city, which is one of the representational regimes that aim to produce the city, its inhabitants and its communities. The material existence of these urban alternative media simultaneously bears evidence that the communicative city already exists, although some of its key practices remain hidden in the belly of the city, often ignored by the official city cultures. This article aims to revisit alternative media theory in order to show the importance of this belly of the city for the city. The article starts with an overview of four distinct approaches towards alternative media (the community media model, the model of alternativeness, the civil society media model and the rhizomatic media model), which show the importance of the participatory and the translocal for alternative media theory and for the communicative city.