Monica Stephens

Follow thy neighbor: Connecting the social and the spatial networks on Twitter

This paper compares the social properties of Twitter users’ networks with the spatial proximity of the networks. Using a comprehensive analysis of network density and network transitivity we found that the density of networks and the spatial clustering depends on the size of the network; smaller networks are more socially clustered and extend a smaller physical distance and larger networks are physically more dispersed with less social clustering. Additionally, Twitter networks are more effective at transmitting information at the local level. For example, local triadic connections are more than twice as likely to be transitive than those extending more than 500 km. This implies that not only is distance important to the communities developed in online social networks, but scale is extremely pertinent to the nature of these networks. Even as technologies such as Twitter enable a larger volume of interaction between spaces, these interactions do not invent completely new social and spatial patterns, but instead replicate existing arrangements.

The Cost(s) of Geospatial Open Data

The provision of open data by governments at all levels has rapidly increased over recent years. Given that one of the dominant motivations for the provision of open data is to generate ‘value’, both economic and civic, there are valid concerns over the costs incurred in this pursuit. Typically, costs of open data are framed as internal to the data providing government. Building on the strong history of GIScience research on data provision via spatial data infrastructures, this article considers both the direct and indirect costs of open data provision, framing four main areas of indirect costs: citizen participation challenges, uneven provision across geography and user types, subsidy of private sector activities, and the creation of inroads for corporate influence on government. These areas of indirect cost lead to the development of critical questions, including constituency, purpose, enablement, protection, and priorities. These questions are posed as a guide to governments that provide open data in addressing the indirect costs of open data.

GIS as Media

In early 2012, Google announced Project Glass, a device worn as glasses that augments the user’s vision through communication with the user’s mobile device. The glasses display images for the user’s eyes and listens for audible commands. In a promotional video released by Google to announce the device (2012), the user navigates urban spaces augmented by the device, including city streets, the public transportation network, and even the internal, private spaces of a bookstore. While moving around the city, the user takes phone calls and responds to instant messages, taking photos of what he sees and enters into a video chat. The device functions through minimal gestures and human interaction, responding through voice commands and the framing of the user’s gaze. Project Glass anticipates a future where the seemingly immaterial online spaces created through the internet are made material through embodied manifestations of the mobile user. In this present future, media are both social and spatial, and understanding the phenomenality of life requires hybrid approaches and new conceptual footings.