Space, Mobility and Communication

This paper investigates the construction of city space and the ensuing communication problems. An ethnographic approach was employed in this study. Data was analysed using thematic analysis framework. The findings indicate that sterile space, mobile space and virtually-linked community led to the phenomenon of transcultural communication. Transcultural communication in this study involves hybridisation, which also leads to métissage—the mixture of different cultures in the spirit of finding a consensus in understanding each other. It can be seen as triggering both positive and negative consequences for the city’s development. The paper concludes with the argument that community building demands socialised space with an identity, in addition to the availability of modernised facilities.

so-called Asian Silicon Valley. In light of the grim challenges of the European and American economic crises, Malaysia as a country located in the Pacific Rim, is seen to have the potential to spearhead the economic growth of the region through ICT-based industries. With the help of China, Japan and India who have been investing in the country and locating their ICT-based companies at Cyberjaya city, the dream is not regarded as far-fetched. The idea of the intelligent city in various places connotes the diverse nature of the space experiences among its citizens (Jussawalla, Heng and Low, 1992;Arun and Yap, 2000;Komninos, 2008).
Top intelligent cities have been given awards in appreciation of the efforts made by the government, private bodies and non-governmental bodies in creating such cities (Komninos, 2008). Given the top-down planning of the city with the idea of multicultural professional workers who are expected to come from all around the world, the question that remains is how does intercultural communication phenomenon play a role in this planned community?

Intercultural Communication and the City
The intercultural communication field has progressed well with various researchers contributing to the understanding of this topic (Kim, 2007). Nonetheless, each culture has its own interpretation (Hall, 1959(Hall, , 1966(Hall, , 1983. This city represents the created imagination of the planners to fuse traditional organic community values with modern instrumental societal values. The planners dreamt of combining the traditional values with the modern values. This city represents a social experiment of intercultural communication as although it is not organically developed, it hopes to be an organic city. In their book, Intercultural City, Wood and Landry (2008) argued that intercultural communication engagement provides a positive development of the community. Cities in the United Kingdom, United States, Canada, Australia and New Zealand which have embraced cultural diversity are poised to be competitive economically and in providing lively living spaces.
In a similar vein, Anderson and Kaur-Stubb (2010) argued that the future agenda of Europe is harmonising multiplicity of cultures in order to establish a strong economic block which is socially stable in the long run. Smart cities in Europe, for example, are embracing diversified community as an important part of the city life (Deakin and Al Waer, 2011). Nonetheless, Caragliu, Del Bo and Nijkamp (2011) contested the idea that smart cities in Europe are prospering due to the diverse characters of the cities' communities. Thus while whether the diversity is an antecedent or a result of smart cities is still uncertain, the fact that remains is that the most successful cities tend to be multicultural in nature. In addition, smart cities in Asia are banking on residing professionals who are evolving or will evolve into communities as the central entity of city life (Jessop and Sum, 2000). Nonetheless, previous studies did not look at the life of people living there from the perspective of intercultural communication. Thus, in this study, the researcher analysed Cyberjaya using spatial analysis to interpret its city life.

Space and City
Space mobility here refers to the physical mobility in a community setting (Miranda and Silva, 2012;Miciukiewicz and Vigar, 2012;Sennett, 1998Sennett, , 2005. The spatial experiences of the Cyberjaya city revealed the role of mobility in defining the life experiences of its inhabitants/citizens and visitors (Yusof, 2010). Drawing on the concept of automation and speed, Virilo (1997) argued that human interaction is getting more limited due to the invention of private automation as a result of life's demanding needs. In this study, space mobility reflects the idea of the intelligent city as argued by Komninos (2008), and as pointed out in Méndez and Sánchez Moral's study (2011), mobility defines the flow of space, and life is framed within the flow.
The notion of space mobility, as conceptualised in this study, can be traced back to the ideas of Lefebvre (1974Lefebvre ( , 1991 in his three triangle spaces: Representational Space, Representations of Space, and Spatial Practices. These three concepts need to be seen in harmony as they are inseparable. Representations of Space refer to the spaces as imagined by the architecture, planner and authority of the city (conceived space). Representational Space can be defined as the spaces which are used in realising lived experiences of the city citizens (lived space). The third space is Spatial Space (perceived space). In the case of the Cyberjaya city, both the concepts of Representations of Space (conceived space) and Representational Space (lived space) have to be seen as one. Only by understanding both concepts as one entity, can the idea of space mobility could be clearly justified in this study. Henceforth, drawing from the idea of Representational Space and Representations of Space, the city space is developed as a futuristic modern living landscape for the elite, i.e. the professionals and administrators in ICT-based industries, which in turn will enhance the economic development of the country. The way the city is designed with segmented living, working, recreational and business spaces is seen as an attempt to offer holistic living experiences for the city residents. It is a grand plan aimed to provide the best for the so-called elites, i.e. ICT professionals and administrators who will be the city's future residents.
Separation principles introduced into the city reflect the idea of elites not participating in social activities with non-elites, i.e. support and non-professional staff. It is understood that this idea does not exist in isolation; its history is rooted in the United States and in other developed countries, but what is unique here is the way the whole city is designed to separate interaction in terms of physical segregation. The vision of the elite community living in the city is clearly etched in the physical development and mapping of the city (Yusof, 2010).
Although Virilo (1997) pointed out that speed was the key to success, because people nowadays are impatient, the reality is that speed also translates into money for certain stakeholders. Mobility in this sense can no longer be seen as an entity separated from everyday life. In fact, it is part and parcel of how the sequences of organised activities are defined. In various space studies which attempted to understand travelling experiences from the perspectives of geography, tourism and anthropology, scholars such as Virilo (1997), Castells (1996) and Burawoy et al. (2000) showed that the ideas of mobility spaces are linked to capitalism. Space mobility, though, is regaining an important role in defining how individuals interpret their daily social life and work experiences. The context can be related to lived spaces as defined by Lefebvre (1974Lefebvre ( , 1991. The third space is Spatial Space (perceived space), as argued by Lefebvre and extended by Soja (1996), and it offers us a multitude of interpretation of space from an understanding of one's logic and imagination. The interpretation of space comes from the individual's background, in terms of upbringing, education, working experiences, reading, religion, culture, peers, and so forth. Space mobility in this context can be seen from various aspects.
Spatial Space can be interpreted as a space which reproduces itself in different meanings. For example, road travelling is one of the famous examples of a spatial space experience which can produce diverse interpretations (Williamson, 2003;Sheller, 2004;Young, 2001). For aborigines, travelling in a car is considered as self-identity (Young, 2001), whereas studies on Malaysian highways are all about states and how roads link certain states that are sidelined (Williamson, 2003).
This study provides a sketch of the spatial experiences of the city dwellers through the concepts of space sterility, self-sufficient offices and commuting space.

METHODOLOGY
From 2004 till 2010, interviews were conducted with city dwellers who work and live in the city. City dwellers here refer to individuals who either work or live in the city. Using an ethnographic approach, the city dwellers who were interviewed included a broad spectrum of people, from office workers to housewives, as long as they are residents in the city. Permission was obtained from the federal government to conduct the interviews in this setting with the intention of using the data for academic purposes only. The interviews took place in offices, restaurants, shops, houses, car parks and around the city's lakes. The city spaces was divided into three main categories namely office space, residential space and social space. The central space is where offices are located. The social space is made up of restaurants, banks and shops which can be labelled as commercial centres. Finally, there are residential places where apartments, bungalows and semi-detached houses are located. At the periphery of the city are recreational lakes and parks.
Sixty respondents were interviewed (refer to Table 1 for sample details). The majority were office workers, while some were students and housewives. They came from diverse backgrounds: international and local citizens. Indian citizens from India made up the majority of the international office workers. The locals were mainly Malays, Chinese and Indians. The interviews normally took about 1 to 2 hours and were conducted mostly in English or in the native language, Bahasa Melayu. The questions focused on the lived experiences of the respondents and how these were related to the space consumption of the city dwellers. A sample of the questions include: "How do you spend your free time in this place?", or "Please tell me about your routine at your workplace.", or "What do you like about living or working in this city?". These questions served as stimuli to pave the way for more meaningful questions related to comprehending the space usage of the citizens. All respondents were asked the same questions. Although some were cautious in sharing their experiences during the initial stage, they started opening up more as the interview session progressed. After each interview, the researcher would either meet and discuss or email the respondents the summary of the interviews so that they were aware of the data gained from the exercise.

Data Analysis
The study was conducted based on a thematic analysis framework. This involved qualitatively analysing themes using constant comparison technique (Glaser and Strauss, 1967) whereby the data were analysed for common themes using three stages of coding, namely: (i) open coding, (ii) axial coding and (iii) selective coding (Antony, 2012;Hallberg, 2006;Strauss and Corbin, 1998). Firstly, the data were analysed for potential themes. Next, the themes were clustered according to their similarities/ compatibilities. Finally, the themes were classified according to their relationship at horizontal levels for main categories and vertical levels for sub-categories of each main category. As a result, each theme was interrelated, and there were main categories which could explain the research questions. The analysis focused on how spaces were conceptualised and interpreted from the respondents' perspectives. There were three main themes that emerged, namely sterile space, mobile space and virtually-linked community. These findings are presented in the following section, with direct quotations included where necessary to support a particular theme.

The Sterile Space
Sterile space refers to the hygienic space in the context of the present study. Cyberjaya city was conceived and built within a Malay and Islamic cultural framework (Bunnell, 2004;Salleh and Meng, 1999;Setia Haruman, 2002). The foundation for cleanliness here was to develop a hygienic space for the citizens and visitors to use and to appreciate. In Islam, cleanliness can be defined from two perspectives, namely physical and soul cleanliness. The Quranic verses that support such a view are as follows: "Indeed, Allah loves those who are constantly repentant and loves those who purify themselves". (Chapter 2: Verse 222) "O you who believe! When you rise up for prayer, wash your faces, and your hands up to the elbows, and wipe your heads (with wet hands), and (wash) your feet up to the ankles. And if you are in a state of major ritual impurity (janaba), purify yourselves (by taking a bath). And if you are sick or on a journey or one of you come from answering the call of nature, or you have had contact with women, and you find no water, then go to clean earth and wipe your faces and hands with some of it. Allah does not want to place you in difficulty, but He wants to purify you and to perfect His grace upon you that you may give thanks". (Chapter 5: Verse 6) Drawing from the explanation of sterility from an Islamic perspective, the idea of hygienic life space is also practiced in cities such as Tokyo and Singapore. On the other hand, urban scholars argued that city spaces were normally chaotic, restless and nonsterile (Low and Lawrence-Zúñiga, 2003;Bridge and Watson, 2004).
Interestingly, there has been new development in urban planning in predominantly Muslim cities such as Dubai and Cairo. In the case of Dubai, the city was constructed in less than 15 years to achieve the status of modern city with hygienic environment as one of the criteria (Bagaeen, 2007). In Cairo, though, the plan was to build a gated community for the young educated family which offers cleanliness as one of its marketing attractions (Almatarneh, 2013). Arguably, while most cities in Asia are struggling with hygiene issues, there has been consistent efforts to sanitise the cities through various endeavours such as redistributing city settlements, as seen in Jakarta (Vickers, 2013), Xi'an (Ma and Wu, 2013) and Shanghai (Ma and Wu, 2013).
This argument brings us to the contrasting life experiences found in a city like Cyberjaya compared to cities like London or Los Angeles. Although it seems unjustified to compare a new city with an old one, the character of the city is normally influenced by the ideas which had determined or shaped its initial inception; as in the case of Cyberjaya city whereby creating and maintaining a clean space from the very beginning has always been a central concern. Any visitor to Cyberjaya city would definitely witness the green, orange and blue army of city cleaners deployed to uphold its image of "cleanliness". The green team is the caretakers of the streets and gardens. The orange team is responsible for the street flowers. Lastly, the blue team is responsible for the cleanliness in the commercial centres. They work six days a week to ensure that the clean reputation of the city is well maintained. These workers cannot afford to play truant during working hours as their supervisors always keep them on their toes by diligently supervising the clean-up operations. Most of the respondents agreed that this city is clean as advertised in the many city banners proudly displayed in most public spaces (refer to Table 2). Interestingly, the notion of cleanliness has been normally associated with offices, hospitals and hotels. On the other hand, urban sociologists have argued that a natural city is normally full of contradictions, such as cleanliness and dirt, silence and noise, and rich and poor (Bridge and Watson, 2004).
Sterile space from the perspective of culture is another topic for debate. As the Malay culture follows Islamic principles closely, spatial practices in the Malay culture are reflected to the extent found in the Islamic culture. Culture in the Malay society is known as "adat" and it refers to the cultural practices of the Malay community. The Mosque, as a religious institution founded on Islamic principles, is also an example of a clean space in the context of the Malay culture. Its sacred status demands that the place be cleared from any dirt or misconduct which is against the Islamic principles, such as backbiting. Interestingly, a clean space in this city is often used as a marketing tool by the city developer to attract investors to start their businesses (Setia Haruman, 2006). Thus, cleanliness becomes a part of the attractive packages to lure investors to the city. Cleanliness has become a commodified advertising material in this context. It is part of the social capital transacted from the elite to the city planner. As Lefebvre argued in his "Production of Space", for representations of space as desired by the elites, the idea of cleanliness was thought to be an appropriate concept to attract visitors, potential investors and citizens to the city. The idea of elite space representation is also reflected in Habermas' idea of the bourgeoisie, where the supremacy idea supersedes the convenience of the masses. The concept of clean space presents a dilemma for the developer in communicating the planned vibrant image of the city. As one of the officers shared, "Yes, we want people to feel at ease with the city, but we also understand the practiced clean concept of the city may hinder people from using the city spaces". Miss Haja, an officer from an Information Communication Technology company, further argued, "Perhaps, what we need is to make people feel as a part of the city. The city management should unwind certain rules so that people from various backgrounds could feel at ease with the place. That will be the best advertisement for the city itself ".
Clean or hygienic space here reflects the notion of representations (conceived) and representational (lived) spaces, as argued by Lefebvre (1974Lefebvre ( , 1991. Thus, the intercultural communication process in this city faces a number of challenges to flourish due to the lack of interaction among different cultures in the public spaces of this city. This phenomenon is partly due to the sterile characteristic of the city.
Nonetheless, there are some pocketed places where the intercultural communication process takes place such as in the offices.

4.
Mr. Adam, a male officer "Look around us; this city is clean and sterile. at a company It can be part of the promotion of the city to outsiders."

5.
Mr. Chan, a businessman "It is easy to notice the outsiders in this city. This place is always being taken care of in terms of cleanliness and security. So, once you enter the space, you will be identified as a stranger or a city citizen."

6.
Mr. Raju, a male officer at "Interestingly, when a place is clean, it is a company supposed to offer a comfortable environment for people to use. But perhaps here is different; people are busy in the office and fewer people are using the public city space. Thus, this clean space presents a rather different interpretation to visitors and citizens. Do they feel welcome?" 7. Miss Hana, a female officer "It is not easy to be seen loitering in this city as at a company most people don't. Here we can easily identify whether you are a stranger or locals just by seeing the way you use the space. Why? It is because it is clean, and you are actually under the watch by the others."

The Mobile Space
Studies on intelligent cities normally highlight the vibrant social life in these places and often use mobility as part of the engineering tool in defining and manoeuvring the city. It must be borne in mind that such places have been planned in such a way to integrate both social and working life.
The planned city with the idea of wide spaces with connected roads establishes the idea of the practicality of mobility. The construction of roads, the Central Business District, public spaces and residential areas reflected ideas that were also found in Brasilia (Howard, 2003). In a planned city with wide roads, spatial experiences in this city are defined by road travelling experiences. On the other hand, spatial experiences in other studies focused on community experiences along the roads and the drivers' experiences of travelling (Williamson, 2003;O'Connor and Kelly, 2006). In the context of this study, driving experiences are the only means to see city life. This city is a car city. Thus to know the city, one has to be mobile, i.e. travelling, and the car is the most convenient vehicle to move around in this city (refer to Table 3).
Automobile commodification defines the social experiences of car consumers. Historically, researchers from diverse fields interpreted automobile experiences from the perspectives of marketing, sociology, history and geography (Kal, 2008;Mahendra, 2008;Phillips, 2007;Rieger, 2010). Each field takes a unique view of the commodification of car experiences. Arguably, the bulk of space mobility/movement literature has focused on road rage, capitalism, modernism, community and territoriality (Kal, 2008;Mahendra, 2008;Phillips, 2007;Rieger, 2010). Interestingly, the space of movement in Cyberjaya is tied up with town planning, clean place and working community. Stories about roads in this city are part and parcel of the everyday conversation. A Malaysian Chinese businessman shared, "We always hear of road accidents in this city. There was a tragic accident near the entrance of the city whereby a car crashed into the drain at midnight. She was in her early 20s and was driving very fast, and it was raining heavily at that time". The roads were constructed in such a way that one feels a sense of tranquillity. The wide road design, structured roundabouts at different parts of the city, and roads decorated with rows of flowering trees all create this tranquil feeling.
The urban, sprawling character of this city is not only defined by its town planning, but also by the dwellers. The movement of cars in this city is defined by the working culture of the organisations/companies in the city. Office rush hours are the most common times when we could detect city life. This is the time when we could see people in the city rushing to their work places or returning to their homes. Other than that, signs of life could be seen through cars, vans and buses parked at the companies' premises. These pocketed lives are part of the movement space experiences in this city. Other than these pocketed lives, the city is rather silent and void of people. Thus in this context, the intercultural communication process emerges more in pocketed settings where the interaction happens mostly in offices and universities. The offices and universities are important places where individuals are engaged in direct interaction with visitors, colleagues, clients and friends. Mrs. Sal, a female "Actually, you can see how huge is the parking shop owner space here and how many cars are parked in every office parking area. Those who work here normally commute and that's why they need cars. And when you see the distance from one place to the other, you will understand the importance of having a vehicle in this city."

Virtually-Linked Community
City inhabitants define social life experiences as virtually active versus quiet social life. Community life here is rather quiet due to the nature of city life in terms of its residents, users and visitors. Most of the interviewed respondents said that they commuted from the capital city to Cyberjaya every day. It takes about 45 minutes to travel by car from the capital city. Big companies normally provide transportation using private buses or vans to ferry their office workers to work. It has been observed that there are five main pick-up points for such private transportation, which are mainly at restaurants, big companies, grocery stores, stationery shops and banks. Nonetheless, from the observations and interviews, the city public spaces appear to be void of users. A significant number of respondents claimed that they were actually more socially connected with their virtual friends, relatives and colleagues (refer to  Table 4). According to a female manager in her 40s, "Life here is a bit different, it is a quiet life, people are connected but not in physical face-to-face interaction; they interact more actively in the virtual world". Mr. Rashid, male officer "It is interesting to describe life here. People are at a company more connected virtually than physically. In fact, sometimes you don't really know your neighbor." 2 Miss. Chun, a female "Life here is a bit different. It is a quiet life, people manager at a company are connected but not in physical face-to-face interaction. They interact more actively in the virtual world." 3 Miss Han, a female "What I love most in this city is the internet facility. female university student university student It is so efficient and that's why we spend so much time online. But of course, a student's life also involves face-to-face interaction. As students, we normally connect to each other virtually and physically."

4.
Mr. Rizal, a male "Why do you think people are not around? manager at a company Actually, they are either in the office or at their home. In both contexts, they are busy connecting with others. For example in my company, officers spend long hours in the office due to job demands. Thus, they are pretty close to each other."

5.
Mrs. Sally, a housewife "Life is pretty lonely here, especially if you are not working or studying. As for me, my circles of network are more towards online rather than faceto-face contact. And the internet facility is good to stay connected with my friends and relatives most of the time." 6. Miss Rafar, a female "It is a unique city. You can observe how people university student behave here and how they use the public space.
People are busy with their work, I guess. For example, our neighbor is a manager in a company. But we seldom see her. Most of the time, we do our own stuff and once in a blue moon we see her." Interestingly, the city has shown development in constructing new public spaces like cafes, restaurants, grocery stores and laundry shops at the periphery of the city. Nevertheless, one thing that the developer had failed to implement and optimise is to create pocketed living communities in the city. The city with all its facilities would only be considered successful only when there are large crowds using the facilities every day as part of the city life experiences. During the weekends, the city public spaces are usually empty and there are only the blue collar migrant workers working at the construction sites in the city.
The lack of visible public life in this city is not helpful in marketing the city to investors. City dwellers, as pointed out earlier, are more connected virtually rather than physically meeting friends at public places. White collar workers and mostly non-Malaysian citizens either take short holidays at interesting places around Malaysia or have weekend trips to Kuala Lumpur, the capital city. As for Malaysian white collar workers, they stay at places outside of Cyberjaya. Thus, they would spend their weekends at their homes outside Cyberjaya. As there are not many cheap housing areas in the city, most of the blue collar workers comprising shop assistants, cleaners and waiters would commute almost every day to the city and thus, the city would become alive mostly during office hours.
Most of the city residents who stay in the city would be either those who are highlypaid office workers (engineers, programmers, and managers) or mostly foreigners, pensioned government servants, housewives of highly-paid office workers and also university students. Given the phenomenon of the silent public space in the city, the researcher was interested in finding out more about activities of the city residents during weekends. It is not surprising thus to find that these residents are well-connected socially in the virtual world. They can get in touch with their friends and families globally as the internet serves as a social getaway to the larger realities of socialising life, even if they could not meet physically in the city. This reminds us of what Sennet (1977) referred to as the phenomenon of the lonely housewives and what Castells (2000) referred to as the idea of space of flow. The internet is used as a means to connect with one another and thus, to make sense of life for city citizens comprising of lonely housewives, busy executives and university students. The availability of social media, e.g. Facebook, serves as a lifeline network for socialising in the context of an enclosed neighbourhood such as this city. Interestingly, this phenomenon is no longer uncommon in other natural cities in Malaysia or outside of Malaysia. However, what makes this phenomenon unique is that the usual gathering places in natural cities are no longer public spaces which will be packed with people. People in this city are wellconnected, but the connection is actually in terms of virtual social networks and not in the physical sense. Thus, intercultural communication interactions happen mostly in specific locations such as mentioned before, which is in offices and universities.

CONCLUSION
Three major conclusions can be drawn from the presented findings. The city is searching for a concrete identity. Presently, the city is struggling with various identities, and is facing a dilemma in presenting itself as a living city. The second conclusion is related to town planning and community development. The findings suggest that city developers and the community need to work together to create a vibrant social life aimed at enriching life experiences of the city. The third major observation that emerged is that the future cultural connection of the living community will depend on the economic development of the city. Most of the city inhabitants are working in international companies and thus, their residence in Malaysia will depend on the survival of those companies.

IMPLICATIONS
The findings which revealed the way Cyberjaya's citizens used and experienced the spaces in the city provided the researchers with significant insights on how the city operates. Consequently, the interpretations of findings reflected the standpoints of city dwellers on their understanding of ideal or convenient life experience. The codes, symbols and signs shared by space users reduce the uncertainty for them. People normally love belong to a group and not be singled out as "an outsider" who does not abide by the norms of the community. The idea of experiencing a new place is always an interesting prospect for active travellers around the globe. Auge (1995) proposed the concept of a "Non-Place" where people travelled and used it as a transit place and felt familiar with it, but yet, had not attached themselves to the place. This transit place is a good example of how the space mobility concept can be understood. The way people use airports, bus stations, train stations, hotels and many other transit places either for leisure, work or emergency reflects the importance of the place, and yet it loses the sense of belonging. Perhaps when Lefebvre argued that there was really no empty space, he meant that there was always meaning associated with the space, even though it was rather a quiet place in terms of its social identity. To be lost, like individuals who are lost in transition, may mean that there are no familiar codes and symbols to understand the lived experiences of the space itself. Space mobility in this sense offers an explanation or interpretation of the different codes and symbols used by the so-called locals in perceiving their space.
The transfer of knowledge and practices from various historical experiences has always been about space mobility. Scholars, merchants, travellers and militaries travelled from one place to another in their search for new knowledge, wealth, practices and colonies. In fact, the idea of intercultural communication, as popularised by Edward T Hall, was actually part of the space mobility experiences of travellers to foreign countries (Hall, 1992). Visitors need to understand the culture of the locals, and this has inspired studies on intercultural communication to date. This is because knowledge itself is power and empowered people will come to inherit advantages in constructing the future of others, as has been amply shown in history and in the present-day world.
Spatial experiences are part of historical and philosophical perspectives on interpreting the social and personal experiences of the city life. Many studies have been conducted in the fields of anthropology, history, geography, communication and education to define the spatial experiences of actors. They construct meanings through their everyday dispositions (Massey, 2005;Postill, 2006;Low and Lawrence-Zúñiga, 2003). However, the outcome remains uncertain. The critics of modern society such as Levine (2006) and Mumford (1961) argued on the enslavement of people through time and life priorities. Studies indicate that Asian countries which have achieved developed status tend to resemble their Western counterparts in terms of cultural expectations but with a diversion in traditional values (Chen, 2006;Zhang, Lin, Nonaka and Beom, 2005). It is common to view modern Asia as following the steps of "established" Western values especially in matters of time and order. In the case of Cyberjaya, the context of intercultural communication is rather different as there is a dynamic interaction among the various cultures that exist in the city.
The existence of a community in this city has made it richer with extended networks of virtual communities. With the advancement of information technology and the composition of this community who are mostly professionals, students and educated housewives, virtuality (Feenberg and Bakardjieva, 2004) is inevitable. This phenomenon has implications for the social shaping of the community and the way they communicate with their own "networked community". In the context of the study discussed in this paper, the researcher viewed this process as transcultural communication, a phenomenon which involves hybridisation (Pieterse, 2004) and leads to métissage (Wieviorka, 2000); a mixture of different cultures in the spirit of finding consensus in understanding each other.
Although there is an alternative argument that transcultural communication leads to conflicts in communication (Baraldi, 2006) and perhaps with the host culture (Eswari, 2014), this study adopts a different stand. In Cyberjaya, the prevalence of transcultural communication implies that a mainstream culture does not exist. This means that it is rather difficult to find a mainstream culture which normally dominates the idea of intercultural communication (Baraldi, 2006), or represents the dominant community in the vicinity (Hofstede, 2007). Lefebvre (1974Lefebvre ( , 1991 and Mumford (1961) argue that city experiences offer to a certain extent a dialogue between city citizens and city authority, which leads to a specific culture that is always negotiated and favoured by those who have more legitimate power in the city. The city planner struggles to balance between the modern principles of the city and the traditional values of what is supposed to be a Malaysian city. Perhaps the ideas of top-down imposed planned city spaces and traditional values do not merge nicely with the expectations of the city citizens. Having said that, this constructed city is still searching for its identity, and its citizens are involved in co-constructing a new culture rather than trying to foreground their respective individual cultures. The process of co-constructing meanings in everyday life may involve conflict, but what transpires in the city is just the opposite. This may also be due to the fact that this is a transit city where people live and work, but not on a permanent basis. They are mobile professionals who transit from one organisation to another as their careers are dynamic.Due to their work priorities, the concerns of an interactive culture are more prevalent in the working environment rather than in social activities. What is interesting is that pocketed intercultural communication experiences which take place in the city community happens in offices and universities. Indeed, we may need to rethink the idea of a real community in a transit space populated with global characters, transient individuals who practice transcultural communication and have no intention to settle down for good. This further raises questions such as: What will happen to those who decide to stay in the city and prolong their working contract? What will be the future intercultural communication identity of this segmented community?