The City as a Product of Digital Communication Design

Abstract

When we think about the meaning of a city, we all somehow have an idea of what it means, but we can’t have a clear image about the city. For that reason, we have to look for some references about those cities that we have seen, in order to be able to build a closer image of reality.

In other words, to be recognised, a city needs to have references that are well known by everyone. For example, how can we talk about Paris without remembering the famous Eiffel Tower? How can we talk about London without linking it to the image of the Big Ben?

Through this article, we aim to describe how cities are recognised nowadays. What icons are associated with them, what monuments or works of art make them highlight and differentiate one from the other, promoting the local linked with the capacity to develop the place.

We know that the use of the internet and the online uploading of images and photos, which have been taken by several persons, are now available on the internet and in platforms such as Instagram. These images are taken by people who somehow want to show a little bit of themselves and of moments which they perceive as being special. For this reason, photos with urban spaces of cities, streets, monuments and works of art are currently one of the great scenarios chosen for the famous selfies or photographs in the form of digital albums, which are saved in the profiles of each person in the social networks.

The cities strongly take advantage of this free publicity to attract more and more visitors and tourists, social networks are now, more than ever, a platform for communication and dissemination of images, of cities and of moments or events, which are based at the city [7].

The urban scenario becomes evident across a large number of personal profiles existing in Instagram and other online platforms. People choose certain places because they know they are easily recognised by everyone, and thus somehow end up being able to tell others that they are in those cities through the photos they post through Instagram.

But in this increasingly global and digital world, there are, besides images, some key words that connect all the people who have common interests or are looking for something in special. These words are here called hashtags. It is these hashtags that organise the search and promote, in a freeway, cities, places or simply some special moments.

Research was carried out to identify which were the cities that are most represented by hashtags containing their names and which are the main monuments that pop up in the search engines linked to those cities.

As a conclusion, we intend to show that the idea we have about a city is directly influenced by its features, monuments, works of art or events, which are “communicated” through the internet and spread all over the world. Cities end up fighting among themselves, through digital platforms, creating events, performances, or specific spots, which they know will attract visitors to shoot those spots and post them on social media.

In this way, cities become a brand and a product, where design and communication are directly associated with marketing that turns them into a desirable product that attracts more and more visitors.

The number of visitors becomes essential, as consumption and the appearance of new ways of doing business appear as an opportunity that is almost always picked up by the most creative people. Social media has radically changed the way how people travel, and how people organize them holidays [10].

The city is thought of as a product of design, where its places and monuments have become products that sell a specific image, associated with good taste, happiness or culture in general. The modern city has been transformed into places with urban atmospheres designed to create emotions among visitors. The colours and shapes of city icons are exploited to their fullest extent and can be found in a variety of souvenirs or in objects with a good design that range from fashion to decoration. That is why those symbols can act as a vehicle for the development of an identity [36].

The digital media, associated with the design of communication, are now the mirror of the cities, since we can visit them physically or through specific platforms. Images posted on the web affect the way people see, experience and remember destinations [35].

Social networks and their hashtags have helped to boost the knowledge that we have about cities, but also to transform them into a product.

We hope that this article will contribute to the understanding of the importance of social media as a way of spreading the name of cities and thus making them better known in order to attract more visitors, which will help to develop the local economy as well.