Towards an ‘information technocracy’: discourses of London’s post-referendum real estate markets

This chapter is a study of the ways in which property development elites use particular techniques and technologies of representation to create development real estate markets in the United Kingdom. It compares the construction of post-Brexit vote narratives of investment landscapes and opportunities in London and the North-East. London's real estate market is considered the leading destination for global capital flows into commercial real estate in the United Kingdom, and therefore it becomes the centrepiece of an evolving socio-technical system. The chapter specifically looks at the media narratives disseminated by real estate market agents in the aftermath of the Brexit referendum in London. It does so in order to question the role of media exposure and private consultancy firms and reflects on the way specialist expert knowledge is publicly disseminated to directly shape public opinion and, indirectly, real estate decision-making.