About the sessions

Session 1: Using technology to run our cities: promises and perils

Our cities are increasingly becoming data-rich environments. The ecology of apps, visualizations and location-based or context-aware media and information systems generated around urban data environments, have the potential to radically transform the way we understand, inhabit and build our cities.

The first European Journalism Centre (EJC) session will bring into the conversation about urban futures leading thinkers from academia and the arts to explore the implications of the instruments we use to make sense of our cities on our experience and understanding of cities, as well as on issues of governance and policy making. What are the promises of the practices and instruments we use today to better understand the processes that govern our cities? What are their perils? What are the politics of these infrastructures? How are they situated within larger social, cultural, environmental and political concerns? What kinds of futures can we imagine? How do we design infrastructures that help support active citizen engagement? What are the appropriate forms of urban planning, design and policy?

Whether you are interested in technology design, media production, policy making centering around issues of urbanization and media technologies, or developing services around data, this session will give you the opportunity to enter into a conversation with various experts about the issues that you care about.

Session 2: From database cities to urban stories: what are the success stories?

This session will examine how technology projects can help to mobilise citizens around issues such as urban development and environmental sustainability - from new forms of data-driven journalism (EveryBlock) to projects that aim to represent things that are usually invisible or intangible such as waste disposal (Trash Track) or urban air quality (In the Air).

In the second European Journalism Centre (EJC) session we take a look at successful examples and the rationale behind said examples. We will ask questions such as: How do we design infrastructures that mobilize citizens around issues and help support active citizen engagement? What role can journalists play in this environment? Can they be instrumental in making sense of the urban information flows? How can they support citizens in shaping the urban environment in new ways?

Whether you are interested in technology design, media production, policy making around issues of urbanization and media technologies, or developing services around data, this session will give you the opportunity to enter into a conversation with various experts about issues that concern your area of interest.