【正文】 ages arising in metropolitan contexts, many of which are geographically distant. Finally, in the shape of travel destinations, cities are turned into the objects of direct consumption. The dominant image of the city, in terms of historical narrative, personalities, buildings, panies, etc., is normally consumed in a manner influenced by mercial actors, reinforced by mediated signs. Professional imagemakers are continuously working on the symbolic refueling of the cityasmodity . However, the creation of the city image is not only a matter of cultural policy. What the city actually bees, and how different groups experience it, depend upon the activities of social actors as well as systemic forces. For example, even though there are strong hegemonic forces, founded upon alliances between political, cultural and economic actors, supporting a dominant image of the city, alternative and oppositional groupings are always challenging such points of view (see Figure 1). Currently, the clearest examples are definitely the international ‘reclaim the streets’ and ‘reclaim the city’ movements (see Klein, 2020). And during the past few years, toplevel political meetings such as the ones in Seattle, Prague, Goteborg and Genoa have led to worldwide media exposure of the intensified struggle over urban space in general and certain city images in particular. Most of the research for the present study took place in the city of Goteborg, Sweden. However, as far as the aim of this article is concerned, the specific city is not important as such. The aim rather is to illustrate how any city image may be encoded, decoded and reencoded through various forms of lifestyle practices. In particular, the article will focus upon three different modes of consumption, corresponding to Hall’s notion of dominant, oppositional and negotiated readings. This is not to say that cities necessarily contain any clearcut ‘preferred meaning’. As has just been argued, the city image is 浙江農(nóng)林大學(xué)本科畢業(yè)設(shè)計(jì)（論文） 2 a plex and dynamic structure, whose encoders are found throughout society. All readings are somehow negotiated. Nevertheless, from a Marxist point of view one may argue that different ways of encoding and reencoding the city hold different positions relative to the socioeconomic structures of society. Developing this approach, it is interesting to see what happens to this structure in the postmodern era. The City of Goteborg In spite of the general approach, a few introductory words should be said about the particular environment and image of Goteborg. The city has about 500 000 inhabitants and is located on the Swedish west coast. Historically, the image of Goteborg is marked by its ports, its shipyards and its mechanical industries. Being the nation’s face towards the North Sea and the Atlantic, this is the city from which the trans Atlantic steamers once departed. It is also the home of panies like SKF and Volvo. However, like many other industrial cities, Goteborg has during the past three decades gone through a kind of identity crisis. Most of the shipyards have closed down。 and Volvo Cars is now a luxury brand within the Ford Motor Company. This identity crisis is also expressed through several postindustrial tendencies. Industrial areas, notably the former shipyards, have been transformed into office space, apartments and hotels (like Docklandsin London) and workingclass neighbourhoods have been restored and gentrified. There is also a very dominant cultural policy taking form. The new image of Goteborg is that of the event city— a city that will attract major cultural events, sport