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Second city syndrome : media reportage of urban rankings

Verhoeven, Deb and Morris, Brian 2012, Second city syndrome : media reportage of urban rankings, in Proceedings of the 2012 Evaluation in the Media conference, Centre national de la recherche scientifique (CNRS), Institut de la communication du CNRS (ISCC), Paris, France.

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Title Second city syndrome : media reportage of urban rankings
Author(s) Verhoeven, Deb
Morris, Brian
Conference name Evaluation in the Media. Conference (2012 : Paris, France)
Conference location Paris, France
Conference dates 15-16 Mar. 2012
Title of proceedings Proceedings of the 2012 Evaluation in the Media conference
Editor(s) Bouchard, Julie
Publication date 2012
Conference series Evaluation in the Media Conference
Publisher Centre national de la recherche scientifique (CNRS), Institut de la communication du CNRS (ISCC)
Place of publication Paris, France
Summary This paper investigates the popularly reported phenomenon of city rankings and, in particular, the category of the ‘second city’ that regularly features as part of this prolific evaluative discourse. Our paper proposes that the category ‘second city’ has a specific analytical value that has to date been underestimated in academic accounts (particularly in the confusing, interchangeable use of ‘second-tier’, ‘secondary’ and ‘second cities’ in the dominant urban studies literature). Instead, we are interested in how second city identifications permeate popular forms of urban comparison in some places.

The example of Melbourne (Australia) is used to investigate how second city identities are historically sustained through evaluative media representations. In particular we examine how, through their reportage of various world city rankings, metropolitan newspapers reveal and articulate a ‘second city consciousness’. How do media institutions, and more specifically, media reports, frame these urban rankings in such a way to confirm Melbourne’s similarity to other globalised places (i.e. proposing its status as a ‘world city’), yet also as a city also marked by a particular historical specificity? And how do they draw on already existing popular and political traditions of urban comparison? This article will identify and analyse the role of newspapers in perpetuating both formal and informal urban comparisons.
Language eng
Field of Research 200209 Multicultural, Intercultural and Cross-cultural Studies
Socio Economic Objective 970120 Expanding Knowledge in Language, Communication and Culture
HERDC Research category E1 Full written paper - refereed
Persistent URL http://hdl.handle.net/10536/DRO/DU:30044940

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Created: Tue, 01 May 2012, 12:59:01 EST by Deb Verhoeven