ABSTRACT

Media has a duty to reconnect people, serve development, and promote diversity and peace. The ‘Cities of Love’ global initiative is applying innovative media models to the smart and sustainable development of cities. But it was never meant to pave the way to a unique model that would help cities build their own media ecosystem, independent from traditional media industries, and answer people’s innate if not apparent needs for smart and reconnective content. The goal is to set up media ecosystems under cities. Also, providing tax deductions would optimise competitiveness with communication agencies and allow such ecosystems to tap into corporations’ Corporate Social Responsibility budgets. Building media ecosystems serving urban development opens new paths for bottom-up content strategies. Such ecosystems can support the emergence of more producers eager to create videos, documentaries and feature films that reconnect us positively with our humanity, our planet and our future.