Balmer’s and Grey’s model of identity-communication and Karavatzis’s model
of city image communication can be connected to a new hybrid model of city
identity communication. The model shows different elements of generating
the city image and its competitive identity. It encompasses general aspects,
but also those that belong to the sphere of the physical production of symbolic
i.e. identity contents. The urban design and architecture function in this
framework as a materialisation of the relationship between the capital and the
interventions in the urban environment.
The strategy, substance and symbolic actionsIn order to analyse the contemporary identity contents placed within the
domain of the primary communication there is a need to consider the
framework developed by Simon Anholt, titled as the concept of strategy plus
substance plus symbolic actions. Anholt presented it as a classic ‘three-legged
tool’: an approach that cannot stand up unless all three conditions are met.^27
This framework is made because policies and ideas alone, even if effectively
implemented, are not sufficient to persuade foreign publics to part with their
existing prejudices and perceptions, which in the case of city images may prove
exceptionally resilient to change. Therefore, as Anholt highlights, the substance
must be coupled with strategy and frequent symbolic actions if it is to result in
an enhanced image as well to generate the city’s competitive identity.^28
Observed separately, the strategy refers to the findings about what city is and
where it stands today as well as where and how it wants to move to. It also needs
to cover desires of a wide range of different city actors into a more or less single
direction and to find a strategic goal that is both inspiring and feasible. The
substance refers to the effective execution of the strategy in by new economic,
legal, political, social, cultural and educational activities, which will bring about
the desired progress. The symbolic actions are finally a particular species of
substance that happens to have an intrinsic communicative power. They are
important components of the city story and its media.
Bearing in mind the nature of allocated parts, Anholt has identified five possible
bad scenarios, depending on their absence in the city development:
- Strategy + Substance – Symbolic Actions = Anonymity
- Substance – Strategy + Symbolic Actions = Incoherence
- Strategy – Substance – Symbolic Actions = Spin
- Strategy – Substance + Symbolic Actions = Propaganda
- Symbolic Actions – Substance – Strategy = Failure.^29
By following the established methodological framework and having in mind
the character of the current period, five priority urban design and architectural
projects were analysed and interpreted as an indicator of Belgrade’s efforts to
build its competitive identity.
Belgrade: The quest for the desired city image