2021 Jane Jacobs Urban Communication Book Award

Nominations are currently being accepted for the 2021 Jane Jacobs Urban Communication Book Award. More information is available at the Urban Communication Foundation website, and you can read the full call below:

The annual Jane Jacobs Urban Communication Book Award recognizes an outstanding book, published in English, which exhibits excellence in addressing issues of urban communication. It is named in honor of the late social activist and author of The Death and Life of Great American Cities. All entries must be published between January 1, 2020 and June 30, 2021. The book award brings with it a $500 prize.

To nominate a book, please send a short letter of nomination or self-nomination (in the form of an email attachment) to Curry Chandler, chair of the Jane Jacobs Book Award review committee, at janejacobsaward2021@gmail.com by July 15, 2021. The letter of nomination should describe the book and explain how it addresses issues central to the field of urban communication. For more information on the field of urban communication, and to determine if your nomination fits the award call, please review the Urban Communication Foundation’s mission statement (at https://urbancomm.org/).

Review process: We will review all nomination letters after the July 15, 2021 deadline and choose a short-list of finalists. Only this short-list of finalists (or their publishers) will be asked to send four copies of the book to the award committee (in August). 

Email nomination letters to: janejacobsaward2021@gmail.com

Questions? Contact: rcc37@pitt.edu

New Book: Urban Communication Reader vol. IV

The Urban Communication Reader vol. IV: Cities as Communicative Change Agents is now available. I am grateful to have been part of bringing this project to fruition, along with my co-editors erin mcclellan and Yongjun Shin. As with previous readers in the series, this volume brings together an international array of scholarship that illustrates the wide range of theoretical and methodological perspectives that have been applied to the field of urban communication. I am very thankful for the support that my colleagues and I have received from the Urban Communication Foundation, series editor Gary Gumpert, and the many editorial and publication liaisons at Peter Lang Publishing who guided us through the final stages of this process.

From the official book description:

Today, the world is facing climate change, wealth inequality, housing crises, food shortages, mass migration, and now a global health pandemic. Cities are at the heart of both these problems and their solutions. Urban communication scholars are well-poised to examine the change initiatives that are both caused and inspired by such complex problems. This volume provides a collection of urban communication research focused on how examining change through the lens of communication provides unique processual understandings of cities as dynamic sites formed through the interplay between concrete cases and conceptual ideas. The first section, Change through Institutional Intervention, addresses how diverse societal institutions—including policy, regulation, planning, and voluntary arts—interplay with changes in our urban communities. The second section, Change in Place and through Space, explores various ways in which spaces and places are able to transform through communicative practice, specifically focusing on how space and place provide unique frames for communicating change and influencing interaction in cities. The third section, Change through Participation and Engagement, collectively draws attention to the ways that public participation and engagement are utilized in cities in ways that enhance the communication both within and about them, focusing specifically on how this happens globally in teaching and learning environments, community planning partnerships, industrial site redevelopment projects, and approaches to food sovereignty in urban agricultural initiatives.

More information is available on the Peter Lang website.