Un/Wrapping Shibuya: Place, Media, and Punctualization

Abstract

This article discusses cultural studies approaches to the role of media and communication technologies in the constitution of place. The discussion emerges out of the author’s ongoing study of the Shibuya district of Tokyo. Known for its trendsetting youth cultures and as a site of conspicuous consumption, Shibuya is also marked by an unusually intense proliferation of screen technologies, from the large scale (such as television screens embedded in building structures) to the miniature (individual mobile telephone screens). An examination of the articulation of these ubiquitous media technologies with a range of human and institutional actors in Shibuya provides broader insights into contemporary spatial practices and formations. It is argued that a combination of Law’s notion of “punctualization,” drawn from actor-network theory, and Hendy’s social anthropological concept of “un/wrapping” provides a generative framework for conceptualizing and describing the processual production and experience of Shibuya’s mediated place identity.

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