City branding and new media: linguistic perspectives, discursive strategies and multimodality

The book speculates on city branding in the public sector from a privileged linguistic, discursive and semiotic perspective, exploring how local administrations use new media in their communication agendas. Like nations and regions, cities have become aware of the importance of building a convincing reputation to engage their local and global stakeholders – residents, businesses, investors, tourists, students, sports and cultural organisations. Thanks to this wide potential reach, the city brand has expanded from a mere tourism strategy into a multifaceted tool of e-governance in the hands of local administrations and their civic partners by addressing key issues such as active citizenship, social inclusion and promotion of cultural heritage and mega-events like world fairs. This global phenomenon is retraceable to the growing conventionality of representational criteria and the standardisation of digital genres in contemporary urban policy discourses, thus illustrating the constant negotiation of local governments between the civic and the managerial.