Media and The Social Production of Urban Space: Towards an Integrated Approach to the Controversial Nature of Urban Space.

The paper puts forward an approach to the study of the role of the convergent media system in the social production of urban space. By focusing on controversies around the definition of “urban space”, processes of strategic use of media become more visible. Therefore a case of urban conflict was selected; specifically, the paper examines the 2007 incident known as “the Milan Chinese riots” which saw migrants clash with the police as ultimately motivated by a conflict around definition of “space”. Through ethnography, interviews and content analysis, the paper reconstructs the practices and representations enacted by all involved social actors in the effort of producing competing representations of the self and of urban space.