IAMCR is pleased to announce that the 2026 Urban Communication Awards will be given to two papers that develop and explore innovative approaches to urban communication.
The award recognises outstanding academic work that develops and explores innovative approaches to urban communication.
The award-winning papers are:
- "Playable City or Privatized Paradise? Connectivity and Privatized Urbanism in Sunway City" by Ziran Zhao, Taesik Kim and Kun Sang.
- "Place Ballet and the Mediatized Sense of Place: Phenomenological Reflections on Rural Market Culture in Urban China" by Zihao Zhao and Sheng Lyu
The awards will be formally presented at a special session during the IAMCR 2025 conference in Singapore.
Playable City or Privatized Paradise? Connectivity and Privatized Urbanism in Sunway City
by Ziran Zhao, Taesik Kim and Kun Sang.
Submitted to Emerging Scholars Network Section (ESN)
Abstract
This ethnographic study examines the multi-layered connectivity infrastructure of Sunway City, Malaysia, focusing on how elevated walk canopies, transportations, and spatial hierarchies shape everyday experiences. While these infrastructures promise seamless mobility, they simultaneously exclude marginalised spaces and users, reinforcing a branded, consumer-driven urban landscape. Drawing on the Playable City framework, we argue that Sunway’s connectivity infrastructures prioritise purposive, commercial play over spontaneous social interaction. Our analysis of unwalkable zones and privatised urban logics underscores how these engineered environments transform urban connectivity from inclusive possibility to exclusionary spectacle.
The Award Selection Committee stated:
Ziran Zhao, Tae-sik Kim, and Kun Sang’s study of privatized urbanism is theoretically well-developed, and includes interesting methods, and insightful discussions.
Ziran Zhao is a PhD candidate at Monash University. His research focuses on digital culture in urban areas. He has published in journals such as IJOC, MIA, and EC, and he has received awards including the ICA Top Student Paper. He is also a music composer.
Tae-Sik Kim is a Senior Lecturer at Monash University. His research examines urban landscapes as discourse-driven spaces, exploring how human and cultural mobilities transform these environments.
Kun Sang holds a PhD in geography. His research mainly focuses on heritage communication. He has published two academic books, more than 40 journal papers, and led four research projects.
Place Ballet and the Mediatized Sense of Place: Phenomenological Reflections on Rural Market Culture in Urban China
by Zihao Zhao and Sheng Lyu
Submitted to the Rural Communication Working Group (RUC)
Abstract
This paper investigates a deceptive yet consequential phenomenon in contemporary China: the resurgence of traditional rural markets within the modernized interstices of urban landscapes. Utilizing long-term phenomenological fieldwork (2024–2026) conducted at multiple periodic markets in L City, Shandong province, the study examines how these spaces function not merely as sites of economic transaction but as “fields of appearance” where bodies, objects, and digital atmospheres co-constitute meaning. The central theoretical contribution is the concept of the “mediatized place ballet”, an expansion of David Seamon’s humanistic geography into the domain of media phenomenology.
By treating digital practices, for example, short-video livestreaming, QR payment, algorithmic recommendation as elemental components of the market’s choreography rather than external supplements, the paper demonstrates how rural markets serve as communicative interfaces where rurality is performed, negotiated, and mediated. Three intertwined phenomena constitute this mediatized ballet: rhythmic co-presence and embodied familiarity; mediatized extensions of locality; and phenomenological negotiation of modernity. The paper concludes that the rural market represents an “insurgent rural space” within the urban grid, which is a dynamic site of cultural resilience that resists the homogenizing pressures of both state-led modernization and platform capitalism, while simultaneously drawing on their affordances to sustain vernacular belonging.
The Award Selection Commitee stated:
Zihao Zhao and Sheng Lyu have explored rural market culture in China, providing compelling descriptions, relevant examples, and perceptive insights into the notion of a mediatized sense of place.
Zihao Zhao, a doctoral graduate in Communication Studies from Macau University of Science and Technology, supervised by Assistant Professor Weizi Huang, will commence his postdoctoral research at Jinan University this year. His research interests encompass culture, media, and society, focus on semi/marginalized groups and in-betweenness communities in China.
Sheng Lyu, a PhD candidate in Global Communication at Shanghai International Studies University, supervised by Professor Junfang Zhang. Her research interests in cultural studies and migration studies, with a focus on transnational platforms and migrant communities. She has presented her work at conferences such as ICA and IAMCR
Urban Communication Award 2026 Selection Committee
- Janet WaJanet Wasko, University of Oregon (USA), Chair
- Nico Carpentier, Charles University (Czech Republic)
- Yong-Chan Kim, Yonsei University (Seoul, Korea)
- Yiannis Christidis, Cyprus University of Technology (Cyprus)
- Cees Hamelink, University of Amsterdam (Netherlands)
- Deborah Philips, University of Brighton (UK)