Re-encoding the Spectacle: Urban Fatefulness and Mediated Stigmatisation in the 'City of Tomorrow'

Abstract

This article presents an empirical study of the public re-encoding processes occurring after the spectacular BoOl Housing Fair, the City of Tomorrow, hosted in Malmo, Sweden, in 2001. The fair initiated the reconstruction of a former shipyard and harbour area, creating a new post-industrial district. Due to economic and political scandals, however, the image of the new neighbourhood was seriously wounded. The fair was turned into a symbol of the 'new economy', which led to a media-driven stigmatisation of both the district and its early settlers. Taking Erving Goffman's concept of fatefulness as point of departure, the analysis stresses the symbolic and social vulnerability involved in the transformation of urban landscapes. It is argued that this vulnerability increases as an effect of informationalisation.

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