Practicing Urban Media Studies: An Interview With Will Straw

In this interview, Simone Tosoni and Seija Ridell discuss with Will Straw, professor of urban media studies at McGill University, Canada, his views of this subject area. Professorships that would explicitly focus on the intersection of media studies and urban studies are rare internationally, Straw’s position being one of them. The interview sheds light on how urban media studies came about and were institutionalized at McGill University, how Straw practices urban media studies in his own teaching, and how he sees the future of this “interdiscipline.” The second part of the interview addresses two of Straw’s main research topics and their relation to urban media studies: his studies on scenes and the night.