Mediated spatial cultures: place-making in London neighbourhoods with the aid of public interactive screens

This paper takes a mediated spatial cultures approach to examine how interactive urban screens are understood and utilised in two super-diverse neighbourhoods in London. Qualitative data was collected over a year of ethnographic fieldwork and six workshops. The study focuses on how residents construct a sense of belonging through both material culture and mainstream digital media (place-making efforts). Participants were grouped into three age groups according to their distinctive patterns of socialisation, digital media and material culture use. We show that individuals relate to public interactive screens with the frames of reference they already employ to approach other place-making efforts, which underpin the social life of their neighbourhoods. We demonstrate that the lens of mediated spatial culture helps elucidate how a sense of place is formed and patterned through different temporalities, materialities, media, imaginations, and behaviours, which are highly biographical.