Beyond “Other Spaces”: Media Studies and the Cosmopolitan Vision

Abstract

This article introduces the themed issue on “Communication and Space.” Beginning with Michel Foucault's concept of heterotopia and Ulrich Beck's theory of cosmopolitan society the article discusses the analytical potential of a spatial approach within media and communication studies. Through the spatial approach, which regards communication as a multidimensional process of spatial production, media and communication studies are better equipped to fulfill Beck's cosmopolitan vision of dialogical imagination, reaching beyond commonplace understandings of “other spaces.” The article applies Henri Lefebvre's triadic model of social space as the principal framework for the spatial approach, and shows how the contributions of the special issue not only provide reflexive understandings of mediatized cosmopolitan spaces, but also represent the epistemological attitudes of cosmopolitan media studies.