SotA Anthology 2019-20 | Page 76

COMM320 Media , Culture and the City
Figure 5 KLCC Sofia ( Hour Philippines TV , 2019 )
limited to the acknowledgement of diversity but without commitment to it ; it is an ethics of respect without recognition ’. In other words , neoliberal cosmopolitanism acknowledges , respects and tolerates the juxtaposition of difference in the city . However , it does not commit to the duties of including different groups into the urban social-economic life or confronting with inequalities in class ethnicity and gender . Rather , it merely commodifies diversity and difference in the representations of neoliberal cosmopolitan cities ( Georgiou , 2013 ; Latham , 2013 , p . 1702 ). Cultural diversity in this
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cosmopolitan city is taken as assets to feed into the symbolic economy of the neoliberal cosmopolis to attract investors and tourists to consume products and services in the city ( Zukin , 2011 ). However , the commodified urban imageries tend to be populated by simulacra , with no direct link to their direct referential cities in the ontological reality ( Georgiou , 2013 ; Vanolo , 2017 ; Baudrillard , 1981 ). In the mediation of a neoliberal cosmopolitan city , corporates and city administrators tend to appropriate , oversimplify the meanings of difference to create pleasing and desirable urban imageries ( Molz , 2016 ; Vanolo ,