"The Routledge companion to urban media and communication traces central debates within the burgeoning interdisciplinary research on mediated cities and urban communication. The volume brings together key interdisciplinary perspectives and global case studies to map key areas of research within media, cultural and urban studies, where a joint focus on communications and cities has made important innovations in how we understand urban space, technology, identity, and community. Exploring the emergence and growing complexity of urban media and communication as the next key theme for both urban and media studies, the book gathers and reviews fast developing knowledge on specific emergent phenomena such as: reading the city as symbol and text; understanding urban infrastructures as media (and vice-versa); the rise of global cities; urban and suburban media cultures: newspapers, cinema, radio, television and the mobile phone; changing spaces and practices of urban consumption; the mediation of the neighbourhood, community and diaspora; the centrality of culture to urban regeneration; communicative responses to urban crises such as racism, poverty and pollution; the role of street art in the negotiation of 'the right to the city'; city competition and urban branding; outdoor advertising; moving image architecture; 'smart'/cyber urbanism; the emergence of media city production spaces and clusters." (Publisher description)