Matthew Zook

Volunteered geographic information and crowdsourcing disaster relief: a case study of the Haitian earthquake.

This paper outlines the ways in which information technologies (ITs) were used in the Haiti relief effort, especially with respect to web-based mapping services. Although there were numerous ways in which this took place, this paper focuses on four in particular: CrisisCamp Haiti, OpenStreetMap, Ushahidi, and GeoCommons. This analysis demonstrates that ITs were a key means through which individuals could make a tangible difference in the work of relief and aid agencies without actually being physically present in Haiti. While not without problems, this effort nevertheless represents a remarkable example of the power and crowdsourced online mapping and the potential for new avenues of interaction between physically distant places that vary tremendously.

The Web of Production: The Economic Geography of Commercial Internet Content Production in the United States

This paper provides a description and analysis of the clustering behavior of the commercial Internet content industry in specific geographical locations within the United States. Using a data set of Internet domain name developed in the summer of 1998, I show that three regions—San Francisco, New York, and Los Angeles—are the leading centers for Internet content in the United States in terms both of absolute size and of degree of specialization. In order to understand better how the industrial structure of a region impacts the formation of the Internet content business, I provide an analysis of how the commercialization of the Internet has changed from 1993 to 1998 and explore the relationship between existing industrial sectors and the specialization in commercial domain names. Over time there appears to be a stronger connection between Internet content and information-intensive industries than between Internet content and the industries providing the computer and telecommunications technology necessary for the Internet to operate. Although it is not possible to assign a definitive causal explanation to the relationships outlined here, this paper provides a first step in theorizing about the overall commercialization process of the Internet.

Mapping DigiPlace: Geocoded Internet Data and the Representation of Place

The recent development of web-based services that combine spatial coordinates and indexes of online material allows any web user to conduct geographically referenced Internet searches. In this paper we characterize the resulting hybrid space as DigiPlace—that is, the use of information ranked and mapped in cyberspace to navigate and understand physical places. We review relevant theories of hybrid combinations of physical and virtual space, how software (code) automatically produces space, and how the politics of code (particularly map generating code) shape the representation of places. The paper concludes with a case study of the DigiPlace created by GoogleMaps that utilizes the same code which powers Googles index of cyberspace. A central argument advanced by the case study concerns how the interactions between culture, code, information, and place construct DigiPlace and shade perceptions of the places that are mapped.

Social Media and the City: Rethinking Urban Socio-Spatial Inequality Using User-Generated Geographic Information

Big data is increasingly seen as a way of providing a more ‘scientific’ approach to the understanding and management of cities. But most geographic analyses of geotagged social media data have failed to mobilize a sufficiently complex understanding of socio-spatial relations. By combining the conceptual approach of relational socio-spatial theory with the methods of critical GIScience, this paper explores the spatial imaginaries and processes of segregation and mobility at play in the notion of the ‘9th Street Divide’ in Louisville, Kentucky. Through a more context-sensitive analysis of this data, this paper argues against this popular spatial imaginary and the notion that the Louisville’s West End is somehow separate and apart rban planning from the rest of the city. By analyzing the everyday activity spaces of different groups of Louisvillians through geotagged Twitter data, we instead argue for an understanding of these neighborhoods as fluid, porous and actively produced, rather than as rigid, static or fixed. Ultimately, this paper is meant to provide a conceptual and methodological framework for the analysis of social media data that is more attentive to the multiplicity of socio-spatial relations embodied in such data.

From Podes to Antipodes: Positionalities and Global Airline Geographies

Abstract Questions of cost and time distance have long been of interest to geographers and have become a more central concern as globalization advances. We analyze the global air travel system by examining the differences in the costs, distances, and times of one aspect of globalization. We review the extant literature on airline transportation by geographers and others, noting especially the near-century-long interest in unraveling cost, time, and distance issues and designing innovative ways to map these interrelated variables. We expand on this base to bring recent scholarship on power and positionality of cities to our understanding of air travel. Our analysis expands on previous work on airline transport geographies in four distinct ways. First, we developed an international database for a large number of cities worldwide that includes measures of distance, cost, frequency and flight duration of airline connections. Second, this database is examined statistically through ordinary least squares (OLS) regressions to measure variations in airline volume with selected socioeconomic variables. Third, these global airline data are mapped using conventional mapping techniques, and finally, we prepare a set of “position-grams” or intersecting spheres of regional variation that measure and map regional patterns and variations in airline connectedness.

NEW DIGITAL GEOGRAPHIES: INFORMATION, COMMUNICATION, AND PLACE

This chapter provides an overview of contemporary trends relevant to the development of geographies based on new digital technologies such as the Internet and mobile phones. Visions of utopian and ubiquitous information superhighways and placeless commerce are clearly passe, yet privileged individuals and places are ever more embedded in these new digital geographies while private and state entities are increasingly embedding these digital geographies in all of us. First is a discussion of the centrality of geographical metaphors to the way in which we imagine and visualize the new digital geographies. Then the example of the commercial Internet (e-commerce) is used to demonstrate the continued central role of place in new digital geography both in terms of where activities cluster and how they vary over space. The transformation of digital connections from fixed (i.e., wired) to untethered (i.e., wireless) connections is explored as to its significance in the way we interact with information and the built environment. Finally is an examination of the troubling issue of the long data shadows cast by all individuals as they negotiate their own digital geographies vis-a-vis larger state and private entities.

Augmented Realities and Uneven Geographies: Exploring the Geolinguistic Contours of the Web:

This paper analyzes the digital dimensions of places as represented by online, geocoded references to the economic, social, and political experiences of the city. These digital layers are invisible to the naked eye, but form a central component of the augmentations and mediations of place enabled by hundreds of millions of mobile computing devices and other digital technologies. The analysis highlights how these augmentations of place differ across space and language and highlights both the differences and some of the causal factors behind them. This is performed through a global study of all online content indexed within Google Maps, and more specific analyses of the linguistically and topically segregated layers of information over four selected places. The uneven linguistic geographies that this study reveals undoubtedly influence the many ways in which place is enacted and brought into being. The larger aim of this project is to use these initial mappings of the linguistic contours of the geoweb to push forward a broader debate about how augmented inclusions and exclusions, visibilities and invisibilities will shape the way that places become defined, imagined, and experienced. Keywords: augmented reality, neogeography, volunteered geographic information, place, Internet

Visualizing Global Cyberscapes: Mapping User-Generated Placemarks

This article focuses on the representation of physical places on the Internet or what we term cyberscape. While there is a wide range of online place-related information available, this project uses the metric of the number of user-generated Google Maps placemarks containing specific keywords in locations worldwide. After setting out the methods behind this research, this article provides a cartographic analysis of these cyberscapes and examines how they inform us about the material world. Visibility and invisibility in material space are increasingly being defined by prominence, ranking, and presence on the Internet, and Google has positioned itself as a highly authoritative source of online spatial information. As such, any distinct spatial patterns within uploaded information have the potential to become real and reinforced as Google is relied upon as a mirror of the offline world.

Internet metrics: using host and domain counts to map the internet

This article discusses the strengths and weaknesses of the use of Internet host and domain counts as indicators of the diffusion of the Internet. Based on the authors bi-annual survey of domain names and host counts provided by the Internet Software Consortium, this article provides data on the number and composition of domains by country, per capita measures of domain names, and changes in the composition of Internet hosts and domain names over time.

Underground Globalization: Mapping the Space of Flows of the Internet Adult Industry

This paper develops a case study of the Internet adult industry in order to study the ways in which electronic commerce interacts with geography. Digital products, low barriers to entry, cost differentials, and sensitivity to regulation have created a pervasive and complex geography of models, webmasters, and consumers around the globe. With a series of specially developed datasets on the location of content production, websites, and hosting it is shown that the online adult industry offers people and places outside major metropolitan areas opportunities to become active purveyors of this type of electronic commerce. The roles of these actors, however, are not simply determined by a spaceless logic of cyber-interaction but by histories and economies of the physical places they inhabit. In short, the ‘space of flows’ cannot be understood without reference to the ‘space of places’ to which it connects. This geography also provides a valuable counterpoint to mainstream electronic commerce and highlights the ability of socially marginal and underground interests to use the Internet to form and connect in global networks.