On the Move: On Mobile Agoras, Networked Selves, and the Contemporary City

The everyday life of contemporary urban dwellers is increasingly marked and defined by mobilities. We are ‘on the move’ in cars, public transport systems, and infrastructural landscapes and systems. However, as we move we are connected to new digital media publics through communication technologies such as mobile devices (phones, computers, but also vehicles such as automatized and computerised cars). After the introduction we will shortly introduce the so-called ‘mobilities turn’ as a particular theoretical framing of contemporary city. Then follows a section about the city as a political space, and this paves the way for a section dedicated to thinking about digital technologies, mobilities and the city. The chapter then turns to the two concepts of the ‘mobile agora’ and the ‘networked self’ and engage in exploring how they may enlighten our understanding of contemporary urban media spaces. The chapter terminates with some concluding remarks and reflections about the future of research.