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Article dans une revue Cogent Social Sciences Année : 2023

The 'Smart City' between Urban Narrative and Empty Signifier: Hong Kong in Focus

Résumé

The article consists in an in-depth interpretative study of Smart City in the case of the Special Administrative Region of Hong Kong, China. It proposes a framework of analysis as a heuristic tool to interpret narratives in general and those of Smart City Hong Kong in particular. The capacity of a narrative to confer meaning draws upon three criteria: its originality (degree of endogeneity); its sincerity (internal validity and trustworthiness), and its extension (its ability to provide a convincing account to the outside world for social phenomena). They are also affected by the form of diffusion and communication. Four types of account emerged from our empirical investigation: survey responses; written responses from official agencies; face to face interviews; and collective interviews in focus groups. By reconstituting chains of meaning in relation to the Smart City, the article interrogates the utility of technology, sustainability and e-governance narratives for public administration. Taken as a whole, Smart City appears as a rather hollow narrative, an empty signifier, a general term lacking clear meaning.
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Dates et versions

halshs-04185699, version 1 (23-08-2023)

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Alistair Cole, Dionysios Stivas, Emilie Tran, Calvin Lai. The 'Smart City' between Urban Narrative and Empty Signifier: Hong Kong in Focus. Cogent Social Sciences, 2023, 9 (1), ⟨10.1080/23311886.2023.2231624⟩. ⟨halshs-04185699⟩
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