Within contemporary social theory and social science, urban and media studies are seen as zones of speciality, with distinctive theoretical traditions and substantive concerns. This introduction situates the four short essays making up this Debates and Developments section in relation to a...

Despite the turn to relational vocabularies in urban theory, most work on urban politics acknowledging the importance of media has tended to reproduce a centred image of 'the media' and a functionalist account of mediation. This essay suggests, by contrast, that media might be understood more...

In recent decades British local government has been the subject of dramatic financial and political pressures. Explores the apparently inexorable rise of approaches dominated by demands for tight financial control and the discourse of “value for money”, before going on to consider some of...