Imagined community and networked hyperlocal publics

What is the place of both immediate and mediated information in forming publics and sustaining communities? And what can past communication practices teach us in our digitally hyperconnected age? With reference to the work of philosophers, sociologists and theorists including Hannah Arendt, Jurgen Habermas, Keith Hampton and Barry Wellman, cultural researcher John Bingham-Hall reflects on the nature of place, and highlights the phatic properties of online platforms such as Southeast London's Brockley Central blog that seek to reinforce local identity.