Calculative spaces : cities, market relations, and the commercial vitalism of the outdoor advertising industry.

Cronin, Anne M. (2008) Calculative spaces : cities, market relations, and the commercial vitalism of the outdoor advertising industry. Environment and Planning A, 40 (11). pp. 2734-2750. ISSN 1472-3409

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Abstract

Based on ethnographic work, this paper examines the market research practices of the outdoor advertising industry in the UK and their commercial production of space. I focus on the role of calculation in the performance of market relations between a range of actors in the field and the use of marketing research’s classificatory practices as a currency which enacts those relations. In many accounts of urban governance, city space is produced by various statistical and classificatory devices as calculable and hence governable. But with recent developments in commercial enterprises, the performative quality of market relations engenders calculative space, a nexus of people-in-space, commercial imperatives, and a calculative energy or orientation to calculation. This is understood by the industry as a kind of commercial vitalism—an enlivening of market relations and of objects of commercial calculation—which firms aim to exploit by tapping into and channelling the energy they perceive it generates.

Item Type:
Journal Article
Journal or Publication Title:
Environment and Planning A
Uncontrolled Keywords:
/dk/atira/pure/researchoutput/libraryofcongress/hm
Subjects:
?? ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCE (MISCELLANEOUS)GEOGRAPHY, PLANNING AND DEVELOPMENTHM SOCIOLOGY ??
ID Code:
26699
Deposited By:
Deposited On:
30 Jun 2009 08:14
Refereed?:
Yes
Published?:
Published
Last Modified:
14 Sep 2023 23:44