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GIS: Unifying Theory

2. Journalism is?. ?The central purpose of journalism is to provide citizens with accurate and reliable information they need to function in a free society.'? ?Bill Kovach Committee of Concerned Journalists . 3. Today's Objectives?.. GIS is a fundamental tool for making new k

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GIS: Unifying Theory

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    1. 1 “GIS: Unifying Theory/Methodology for Journalism and the Social Sciences?” J. T. Johnson Prof. of Journalism San Francisco State University tom@jtjohnson.com Institute for Analytic Journalism

    2. 2 Journalism is… “The central purpose of journalism is to provide citizens with accurate and reliable information they need to function in a free society.'‘ —Bill Kovach Committee of Concerned Journalists Information = That which reduces uncertainty.Information = That which reduces uncertainty.

    3. 3 Today’s Objectives…. GIS is a fundamental tool for making new knowledge in, potentially, ALL disciplines. GIS = a tool for all aspects of publishing and broadcasting News/editorial -- circulation -- advertising -- marketing – production Ergo, journalists must know something about GIS to be considered professionals Allen Pred: “I am totally unconcerned [ital mine] with the disciplinary limits of geography, but fully concerned with geography as an ontological condition, as an inescapable existential reality. Everybody has a body, nobody can escape from their body, and consequently all human activity-- every form of individual and collective practice-- is a situated practice and thereby geographical. “ I would add that who we are is constantly being measured in terms of the here – who and where I am in THIS body – relative to the unspecified “OTHER” – everything going on in some conscious or unconsciously perceived spatial relationship.Allen Pred: “I am totally unconcerned [ital mine] with the disciplinary limits of geography, but fully concerned with geography as an ontological condition, as an inescapable existential reality. Everybody has a body, nobody can escape from their body, and consequently all human activity-- every form of individual and collective practice-- is a situated practice and thereby geographical. “ I would add that who we are is constantly being measured in terms of the here – who and where I am in THIS body – relative to the unspecified “OTHER” – everything going on in some conscious or unconsciously perceived spatial relationship.

    4. 4 Today’s Objectives/Assumptions Journalists: Take in Data ?Analyze Data ? Communicate Findings GIS is a tool for Analyzing data pertaining to most any phenomena Communicating the results of that analysis

    5. 5 Today’s Objectives/Assumptions Digital Revolution triggers major power shift from authorities/institutions to citizens Shift means journalists and social scientists have to be better at using the data and tools to… Make sense out of various phenomena Tell the stories reflecting our analysis and interpretation in a manner better than citizens can do on their own. Otherwise our work is irrelevant, devoid of meaning and utility for citizens. When that happens not only are we out of work, but a different kind of democracy may be afoot. Hyper-individuation and quasi-anarchy may be a possible result. Otherwise our work is irrelevant, devoid of meaning and utility for citizens. When that happens not only are we out of work, but a different kind of democracy may be afoot. Hyper-individuation and quasi-anarchy may be a possible result.

    6. 6 Key points GIS is a rich, challenging tool that must be employed throughout the media organization and in a cooperative way. - Demands/promotes shared learning and insights. A terrific “I didn’t know that!” device for managers, journos and readers

    7. 7 Proto-GIS: traditional way of knowing Defoe and A Journal of the Plague Year (1664-65) Pub. 1722 Describes burials in parishes; time-series data http://www.authorsdirectory.com/b/jplag10.htm http://www.authorsdirectory.com/b/jplag10.htm

    8. 8 Proto-GIS: William Playfair (1759-1823) William Playfair and graphic presentation of data Commerical and Political Atlas (1786) contained 44 charts, all but one of which are time-series plots. Lone exception, a bar chart, Playfair considered "much inferior in utility."

    9. 9 Proto-GIS: Napoleon's march to Moscow Minard Source: http://www.napoleonic-literature.com/1812/1812-t.htm Napoleonic Literature Losses Suffered by the Grande Armée during the Russian Campaign Following is a reproduction of a map drawn by Charles Joseph Minard in 1861, and is reputed to be the best statistical graphic ever drawn — by anyone. Crossing the Niemen on 24 June 1812 with an army of 442,000 men, Napoleon entered Moscow on 14 September with a mere 100,000.  On the way, 72,000 men were diverted to other locations. Of these 30,000 managed to rejoin the main column shortly before the crossing of the Berezina River during the retreat, and another 6,000 shortly before it reached the comparative safety of the Niemen River.  This means that the main army; that is, the portion that continued on to Moscow numbered approximately 370,000.  Casualties were extremely high for a campaign in which almost no combat took place — 270,000!   This is a staggering 73% casualties, and that's only on the way to the objective.  Napoleon's problems started immediately after crossing the Niemen.  The weather was uncooperative; the summer started two weeks late, which affected the ripening of the crops, and this in turn robbed Napoleon of the grain he had planned on for feeding his horses.  The cold, heavy rain made quagmires of the roads and fields.  The result of all this was that, from the very outset,  thousands of men and horses died daily.  But that was just the beginning.  The harsh Russian summer now struck with a vengeance.  Coupled with this was the lack of food and water, sickness, privations of every description, and losses to the enemy through capture of stragglers, foraging parties and other unlucky souls, as well as combat.  Although there was relatively little combat, it was brutal and resulted in tremendous casualties on both sides.  Finally, on 14 December 1812, the last of the Grande Armée limped across the Niemen.  Marshal Ney was the last to cross the Niemen and was himself the army's rear guard.  Barely 10,000 members of the Grande Armée survived.  In all, the Grande Armée suffered a staggering 97.7% casualties! The map plots six variables:  the size of the army, its location on a 2-dimensional surface, direction of the army's movement, and temperature on various dates during the retreat from Moscow. Temperatures are given in degrees Réaumur (R), which the Russians used until just prior to World War I. You can obtain a rough idea of the temperatures in centigrade (C) and fahrenheit (F) by the following comparison:  80oR = 100oC = 212oF. The conversions from degrees Réaumur to degrees Celcius were provided to me by Pedro Barquin on 3 May 2000. I then converted the Celcius temperatures to Fahrenheit using the JavaScript Temperature Converter. This will assist you to realize the extremely cold temperatures that the French and Russian armies had to endure during the retreat. The temperatures Minard shows on his map, in degrees Réaumur and their Centigrade (Celcius) and Fahrenheit equivalents are as follows. The temperatures are listed in the sequence in which they were encountered from the beginning to the end of the retreat; that is, from right to left on the map:   DatePlaceRéaumurCelciusFahrenheit18 Oct Malojaroslavetz 0 0 32   9 Nov Dorogobongr -9 -11.25 11.75 14 Nov Smolensk -21 -26.25 -15.25 20 Nov Botr -11 -13.75 7.25 23 Nov Berezina River -20 -25 -13   1 Dec Minsk -24 -30 -22   6 Dec Molodeczno -30 -37.5 -35.5   7 Dec Vilna -26 -32.5 -25.6 Minard Source: http://www.napoleonic-literature.com/1812/1812-t.htm Napoleonic Literature Losses Suffered by the Grande Armée during the Russian Campaign

    10. 10 Proto-GIS: “Snow’s pump” cholera map “Dr. John Snow’s pump” cholera map (c. 1843+) http://www.ph.ucla.edu/epi/snow.html

    11. 11 Proto-GIS: Booth’s London 1898 Charles Booth’s Map of London (c. 1886-1903) http://booth.lse.ac.uk/ Charles Booth's Inquiry into the Life and Labour of the People in London, undertaken between 1886 and 1903 was one of several surveys of working class life carried out in the 19th century. It is the only survey for which the original notes and data have survived and therefore provides a unique insight into the development of the philosophy and methodology of social investigation in the United Kingdom. Robert Park: From 1887 to 1898 Park worked for daily newspapers in Minnesota, Detroit, Denver, New York, and Chicago. He was soon given special assignments to cover the urban scene, often in depth through a series of articles. He wrote on city machines and the corruption they brought in their wake. He described the squalid conditions of the city's immigrant areas and the criminal world that was ensconced there. http://www.bolender.com/Dr.%20Ron/SOC4044%20Sociological%20Theory/Class%20Sessions/Sociological%20Theory/Park,%20Robert%20Ezra/park,_robert_ezra.htm Charles Booth's Inquiry into the Life and Labour of the People in London, undertaken between 1886 and 1903 was one of several surveys of working class life carried out in the 19th century. It is the only survey for which the original notes and data have survived and therefore provides a unique insight into the development of the philosophy and methodology of social investigation in the United Kingdom. Robert Park: From 1887 to 1898 Park worked for daily newspapers in Minnesota, Detroit, Denver, New York, and Chicago. He was soon given special assignments to cover the urban scene, often in depth through a series of articles. He wrote on city machines and the corruption they brought in their wake. He described the squalid conditions of the city's immigrant areas and the criminal world that was ensconced there.http://www.bolender.com/Dr.%20Ron/SOC4044%20Sociological%20Theory/Class%20Sessions/Sociological%20Theory/Park,%20Robert%20Ezra/park,_robert_ezra.htm

    12. 12 Proto-GIS: Robert Park

    13. 13 Proto GIS: GBF/DIME History (c. 1967) GBF ="Geographic Base File" using DIME ="Dual Independent Map Encoding" DIME system developed at the Bureau of the Census 1967, for automation of geocoding of the 1970 census. GBF/DIME stands for "Geographic Base File" using "Dual Independent Map Encoding". The DIME system was developed at the US Bureau of the Census in 1967, in preparation for the automation of geocoding of the 1970 census. DIME was a key tecnical development in the history of GIS, but the project also is very closely connected to the birth of many key organizations in the geodemographics industry. Thus it makes an excellent high-priority case study for the history of GIS. The GIS History Project has conducted some work on this case study, a a brief progress report on the DIME Case study has been written. http://www.geog.buffalo.edu/ncgia/gishist/DIME.html GBF/DIME stands for "Geographic Base File" using "Dual Independent Map Encoding". The DIME system was developed at the US Bureau of the Census in 1967, in preparation for the automation of geocoding of the 1970 census. DIME was a key tecnical development in the history of GIS, but the project also is very closely connected to the birth of many key organizations in the geodemographics industry. Thus it makes an excellent high-priority case study for the history of GIS. The GIS History Project has conducted some work on this case study, a a brief progress report on the DIME Case study has been written. http://www.geog.buffalo.edu/ncgia/gishist/DIME.html

    14. 14 Proto-GIS: Allan R. Pred (1973) Notice of Jackson’s State of the Union address: 1830 Pred, Allan R. Urban Growth and the Circulation of Information: The United States System of Cities, 1790-1840. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1973 From Pred’s website 4/03 -- http://geography.berkeley.edu/PeopleHistory/faculty/A_Pred.html “I am totally unconcerned with the disciplinary limits of geography, but fully concerned with geography as an ontological condition, as an inescapable existential reality. Everybody has a body, nobody can escape from their body, and consequently all human activity-- every form of individual and collective practice-- is a situated practice and thereby geographical. I regard the invisible geographies of power relations and meaning/discourse as every bit as "real" as the visible geographies of the built landscape and actual human activity. Whether exploring the historical geography of past and present urban modernities, or the production of gendered and "racial" difference, I am always preoccupied with the complex and multi-scaled processes through which visible and invisible geographies emerge out of one another. Although my work of recent years may be characterized as "cultural," I insist there is no way in which the cultural may be entirely divorced either from the social and the political, or from the situated practices of everyday life and the workings of capitalism.” Pred, Allan R. Urban Growth and the Circulation of Information: The United States System of Cities, 1790-1840. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1973 From Pred’s website 4/03 -- http://geography.berkeley.edu/PeopleHistory/faculty/A_Pred.html “I am totally unconcerned with the disciplinary limits of geography, but fully concerned with geography as an ontological condition, as an inescapable existential reality. Everybody has a body, nobody can escape from their body, and consequently all human activity-- every form of individual and collective practice-- is a situated practice and thereby geographical. I regard the invisible geographies of power relations and meaning/discourse as every bit as "real" as the visible geographies of the built landscape and actual human activity. Whether exploring the historical geography of past and present urban modernities, or the production of gendered and "racial" difference, I am always preoccupied with the complex and multi-scaled processes through which visible and invisible geographies emerge out of one another.

    15. 15 Proto-GIS: Johnson & Naugle 1972 Johnson & Naugle. “MAKING THE CITY VISIBLE: A PROBABILITY MODEL FOR URBAN HISTORY”  Historical Papers: Selected Proceedings of the Sixth Northern Great Plains History Conference. Moorhead State College, Moorhead, Minnesota, November 4-6, 1971, Edited by Lysle E. Meyer   MAKING THE CITY VISIBLE: A PROBABILITY MODEL FOR URBAN HISTORY  JOHN T. JOHNSON, UNIVERSITY OF KANSAS AND RONALD C. NAUGLE, NEBRASKA WESLEYAN UNIVERSITY  Historical Papers: Selected Proceedings of the Sixth Northern Great Plains History Conference. Moorhead State College, Moorhead, Minnesota, November 4-6, 1971, Edited by Lysle E. Meyer   MAKING THE CITY VISIBLE: A PROBABILITY MODEL FOR URBAN HISTORY  JOHN T. JOHNSON, UNIVERSITY OF KANSAS AND RONALD C. NAUGLE, NEBRASKA WESLEYAN UNIVERSITY 

    16. 16 Journalism and GIS: Steve Doig [Miami Herald] 1992 Doig, S. K., 1992: Storm: A wobble away from greater disaster. The Miami Herald, 6 September 1992. Doig, S. K., 1992: Storm: A wobble away from greater disaster. The Miami Herald, 6 September 1992.

    17. 17 GIS in Journalism The hammer and chisel is not the cabinet. (e.g. “The tool is not the product.”) That means, focus on the information/understanding that GIS can assist with, not just using GIS because it’s fun or pretty or even because it makes newspaper artists’ work easier. Skillful use of the tool can be applied to many different products with same data but different objectives. Just as that hammer and chisel can be used to cut out a mortise for a door hinge, the exact same tools can be used to carve a graceful statue. It’s just a matter of having a clear vision of what you want to do and having the skills to do so. But just as one can learn in a few minutes how to lay out and chisel out a mortise for a door and then spend years learning how to make a carving with the same tools, so too with GIS. Johnson’s Law: the potential power of the tool is directly correlated with the ability to make mistakes of incomprehensible magnitude. And GIS is a very, very powerful tool. If not used correctly….. Skillful use of the tool can be applied to many different products with same data and the same objectives. Ergo… Making a map of where employees live is exactly the same process as making a map of where the legislatures live. It’s in the interest of all in organization to cooperate in building a GIS infrastructure/skill set in the organization. Great synergy for the enterprise. Focus on the infinitive to transact, not the noun of product How do we, as a journalistic organization, become the place of intellectual transactions for our communities – economic, social, political, intellectual, cultural? The hammer and chisel is not the cabinet. (e.g. “The tool is not the product.”) That means, focus on the information/understanding that GIS can assist with, not just using GIS because it’s fun or pretty or even because it makes newspaper artists’ work easier. Skillful use of the tool can be applied to many different products with same data but different objectives. Just as that hammer and chisel can be used to cut out a mortise for a door hinge, the exact same tools can be used to carve a graceful statue. It’s just a matter of having a clear vision of what you want to do and having the skills to do so. But just as one can learn in a few minutes how to lay out and chisel out a mortise for a door and then spend years learning how to make a carving with the same tools, so too with GIS. Johnson’s Law: the potential power of the tool is directly correlated with the ability to make mistakes of incomprehensible magnitude. And GIS is a very, very powerful tool. If not used correctly….. Skillful use of the tool can be applied to many different products with same data and the same objectives. Ergo… Making a map of where employees live is exactly the same process as making a map of where the legislatures live. It’s in the interest of all in organization to cooperate in building a GIS infrastructure/skill set in the organization. Great synergy for the enterprise. Focus on the infinitive to transact, not the noun of product How do we, as a journalistic organization, become the place of intellectual transactions for our communities – economic, social, political, intellectual, cultural?

    18. 18 GIS in all departments: Advertising

    19. 19 GIS in all departments: Circulation

    20. 20 GIS in all departments: Production Production? - Prod. employees homes - Toxic waste sites - Copies of varied editions or products Do newspaper printing plants have to print only newspapers?Production? - Prod. employees homes - Toxic waste sites - Copies of varied editions or products Do newspaper printing plants have to print only newspapers?

    21. 21 GIS in all departments: BackOffice

    22. 22 GIS in Editorial Editorial? - Demographics - Crime - Housing - Businesses - Voting patterns/places - Education Editorial? - Demographics - Crime - Housing - Businesses - Voting patterns/places - Education

    23. 23 How Online Editors Use GIS Fresno Bee Methamphetamine lab story http://www.valleymeth.com/graphics/superlabs.html Philadelphia Inquirer’s daily commuter patterns http://www.smartraveler.com/scripts/phlmap.asp?city=phl&cityname=Philadelphia Using Marketing Data (Jennifer LaFleur and Michelle Quinn) http://cronkite.pp.asu.edu/census/knight/lafleur.html Frenso Bee story: http://www.valleymeth.com/graphics/superlabs.html Philadelphia Inquirer’s daily commuter patterns San Jose Mercury News projected mud slides, building permitsFrenso Bee story: http://www.valleymeth.com/graphics/superlabs.html Philadelphia Inquirer’s daily commuter patterns San Jose Mercury News projected mud slides, building permits

    24. 24 USAToday

    25. 25 USAToday

    26. 26 USA Today

    27. 27 USA Today

    28. 28 Orange County, California Bus Study

    29. 29 Mapping war and war coverage Iraq War Resources (From GIS Development online magazine) http://www.gisdevelopment.net/iraq.htm CNN Maps http://www.cnn.com/SPECIALS/1998/iraq/iraq.maps/ Early form (c. 1998) Marginally helpful: no scale, no date, no sources Today improved: http://www.cnn.com/SPECIALS/2003/iraq/maps/ BBC - http://www.esgeo.com/baghdad/baghdad.html

    30. 30 Trends: Animated mapping Maps and images that can be controlled, on the WWW, by the user. Emphasis is on controlled layering e.g. EPA Interactive Web Mapping Note, the graphics are tied, in a fundamental way, to the database. Any map is only as good as the database used to create it. (Problems with “sex offender” dB) Manhattan Timeformations: http://www.skyscraper.org/timeformations/animation.html Manhattan Timeformations: a computer model which simultaneously presents a layered, cartographic history of the lower half of Manhattan Island, and an exploded time line chronicling the real estate development of high-rise office buildings, which constitute the skylines of Midtown and Downtown Manhattan. Be sure to click “Next” to see all the forms. Manhattan Timeformations: a computer model which simultaneously presents a layered, cartographic history of the lower half of Manhattan Island, and an exploded time line chronicling the real estate development of high-rise office buildings, which constitute the skylines of Midtown and Downtown Manhattan. Be sure to click “Next” to see all the forms.

    31. 31 3DTaxiCrimeMapView2 Same data base but now the map has been rotated 180-degrees, just as though a helicopter were flying over the city and its passengers were trying out various spatical hunches. Human brain can often see connections that the computers might not be programmed to recognize. But vice-versa is also true.Same data base but now the map has been rotated 180-degrees, just as though a helicopter were flying over the city and its passengers were trying out various spatical hunches. Human brain can often see connections that the computers might not be programmed to recognize. But vice-versa is also true.

    32. 32 3DTaxiCrimeMapView1 3D display of crimes against taxi drivers Note: Layers Vertical “pins” used to display specific incidents in all variable layers Pin connected to multi-variable – and often non-geographic -- database3D display of crimes against taxi drivers Note: Layers Vertical “pins” used to display specific incidents in all variable layers Pin connected to multi-variable – and often non-geographic -- database

    33. 33 GIS 3-D Gallery http://www.manifold.net/products/3dvs/3dvs_home.html

    34. 34 Trends: Concept Mapping Intellectual – or conceptual space -- geography How are ideas related? How are people or places with or tied to ideas/concepts related? Where is cyberspace? How to map it? Atlas of Cyberspace Web Mapping http://www.cybergeography.org/atlas/web_sites.html Mapping how people use a web site http://mappa.mundi.net/maps/maps_022/ Show me the Power Players in a society? http://theyrule.orgo.org/

    35. 35 Trends: Web site content map

    36. 36 Trends: Fry’s Web site map Techniques and tools to visualize dynamic processes like Web usage are poorly developed. In this issue of Map of the Month we look at the work of one of the leading researchers trying to overcome this weakness, through the use of the concept of organic information design. His name is Ben Fry and he works in the MIT Media Lab, where he is busy creating innovative adaptive visualizations of how people use websites. http://mappa.mundi.net/maps/maps_022/ Techniques and tools to visualize dynamic processes like Web usage are poorly developed. In this issue of Map of the Month we look at the work of one of the leading researchers trying to overcome this weakness, through the use of the concept of organic information design. His name is Ben Fry and he works in the MIT Media Lab, where he is busy creating innovative adaptive visualizations of how people use websites. http://mappa.mundi.net/maps/maps_022/

    37. 37 Trends: PowerPlayers1

    38. 38 Trends: PowerPlayers2

    39. 39 Trends: PowerPlayers3

    40. 40 Trends: Mapping cyberspace This page spread shows VR visualisation of Web traffic as virtual skyscrapers. It was created by Stephen E. Lamm, Daniel A. Reed and Will H. Scullin.] SOURCE: http://www.cybergeography.org/atlasofcyberspace_content1_3.html This page spread shows VR visualisation of Web traffic as virtual skyscrapers. It was created by Stephen E. Lamm, Daniel A. Reed and Will H. Scullin.] SOURCE: http://www.cybergeography.org/atlasofcyberspace_content1_3.html

    41. 41 Trends: Dynamic Event Mapping Code-Red (CRv2) worm virus (19 July 2001) http://www.caida.org/analysis/security/code-red/newframes-small-log.mov On July 19, 2001 more than 359,000 computers were infected with the Code-Red (CRv2) worm in less than 14 hours. At the peak of the infection frenzy, more than 2,000 new hosts were infected each minute. 43% of all infected hosts were in the United States, while 11% originated in Korea followed by 5% in China and 4% in Taiwan. The .NET Top Level Domain (TLD) accounted for 19% of all compromised machines, followed by .COM with 14% and .EDU with 2%. We also observed 136 (0.04%) .MIL and 213 (0.05%) .GOV hosts infected by the worm. On July 19, 2001 more than 359,000 computers were infected with the Code-Red (CRv2) worm in less than 14 hours. At the peak of the infection frenzy, more than 2,000 new hosts were infected each minute. 43% of all infected hosts were in the United States, while 11% originated in Korea followed by 5% in China and 4% in Taiwan. The .NET Top Level Domain (TLD) accounted for 19% of all compromised machines, followed by .COM with 14% and .EDU with 2%. We also observed 136 (0.04%) .MIL and 213 (0.05%) .GOV hosts infected by the worm.

    42. 42 Mapping concepts Visualizing Social Interaction http://www.infovis.net/E-zine/2003/num_113.htm They Rule: http://www.theyrule.net/ Valdis: http://www.orgnet.com/leftright.html TouchGraph: http://www.blogstreet.com/visualneighborhood.html Historical Maps: http://www.cybergeography.org/atlas/historical.html AlphaWorld: http://www.activeworlds.com/ AlphaWorld Map: http://www.cybergeography.org/atlas/muds_vw.html AlphaWorld B&W http://mapper.activeworlds.com/aw/densmap-anim.html AlphaWorld Animation http://fargo.itp.tsoa.nyu.edu/~cs97/tan2002/map.html The digital magazine of InfoVis.net. [Number 113] Visualising Social Interaction by Juan C. Dürsteler Social interaction provides us with visual patterns that help us to situate ourselves in our environment. In Internet, however, this doesn’t happen so easily. Some visualisations are appearing to remedy the problem. See the illustrated version of this issue at http://www.infovis.net/E-zine/2003/num_113.htm Social interaction produces many visual patterns we are so used to that we don’t notice them. But they provide us with indispensable information in order for us to navigate our social environment. Some of these patterns deal with the flux of human activity, like the colourful scene of the bathers in a swimming pool or the appearance of the mushroom-shaped silhouettes of the umbrellas in a rainy afternoon. They allow us to situate and to coordinate our behaviour with that of the environment. Haven’t you ever felt strange dressed in a dinner jacket on a nudist beach, or wearing a swimming suit at a Christmas party? Other visual patterns are related to affiliation, like the one made up of the business suits getting off a commuter train early in the morning. We create these and many other patterns just by standing where we stand and being what we are. This is what some call “social weather” http://www.kottke.org/02/09/020930social_weath.html, something that you can feel immediately in a soccer match where it can sometimes be really stormy depending on the results of the local team... But in cyberspace the social interaction is becoming more and more important and we don’t have the indicators that the visualisation of our immediate environment provides. For example, when we are at the office a simple look around at our environment allows us to know who is present and who isn’t, the ones that are interacting and the ones that are buried in solitary work. Not so in Internet where it’s not easy to know what the social network we are interacting with is like, who is doing what and where the social magma we are incorporated in goes. Some initiatives are working on this in order to remedy the situation. We already spoke about chat visualisation in issue 46 (http://www.infovis.net/E-zine/num_46.htm) or about digital cities in issue 102 (http://www.infovis.net/E-zine/2002/num_102.htm), But there’s still more: A good starting point is Judith Donat’s PhD thesis , http://smg.media.mit.edu/people/Judith/Thesis/. Donath works for MIT Media Lab and is one of the most active researchers in this field. For her, one of cyberspace’s most important problems is the absence of a body that in the social reality provides us with the possibility of * Expression: Verbal but mainly non verbal. How we move, how we dress. * Presence. Where we are, with whom, in which social circle we are moving. * Control. Social control of individuals has been centred on the body but it is lacking in cyberspace... * Recognition. Typically associated to the face, it allows us to assert the others identity. So that many of the visualisations are centred on the representation of * presence, how many there are * identity, who they are * interaction in abstract, who relates to whom * conversation as exchange of messages The most evident schemes draw the social networks as graphs, i.e. nodes representing the actors and lines or arrows that represent the link between them. One of the most well known is the typical organization chart of a company. A more advanced example http://www.mpi-fg-koeln.mpg.de/%7Elk/netvis/SocMorph.html shows the so called Hxaro practice of exchanging gifts among the members of the ˇKung culture in Botswana and Namibia. Chat Circles http://chatcircles.media.mit.edu/ by Fernanda Viegas, is a chat where your presence is revealed by a coloured circle, you have a history of the conversation in the form of a line with transversal bars proportional in length to the duration of every message. Your presence leaves a trace that vanishes slowly taking about 10 hours in the process. We have also seen in issues 65, 66 and 67 the visualisation of the visits to a web site, but Nelson Minar offers us a different perspective in http://xenia.media.mit.edu/~nelson/research/crowdvis/. Every visitor is a coloured point close to the web page he/she is visiting. Visual Who, http://persona.www.media.mit.edu/Judith/VisualWho/, from Judith Donath, places the people in a space related to certain mailing lists. The colour of the names and their situation in space reveal the affinity with each of the lists. As new participants add new themes the morphology of the representation changes. IBM’s “Social Computing” group is also specially active. Babble http://www.research.ibm.com/SocialComputing/SCGpapers.htm is a chat visualiser that represent every conversation as a circle where you find smaller inscribed circles that represent the individuals. The more in the periphery the less active in the conversation, the closer they are, the more involved in mutual conversation. As we can see there are multiple ongoing initiatives. Nevertheless and despite the activity deployed by Donath’s group, IBM and other groups and the richness of some representations, I’ve got the impression that we still have a long road ahead before we can interact on the Net with a visual support so rich and versatile so as to allow the deployment of the abundant resources of social interaction we are used to in the real world. ------ This article has seen the light thanks to a conversation with Ben Hyde http://hydesign.blogspot.com who was also kind enough to provide a handful of links, some of which you can find attached. Sociable Media Group MIT http://smg.media.mit.edu/ Contact map http://hci.stanford.edu/cs377/nardi-schiano/netWORK%26ContactMap.pdf Bonnie Nardi http://www.darrouzet-nardi.net/bonnie/ Virtual Playground: Architectures for a Shared Virtual World http://www.hitl.washington.edu/publications/r-98-12/ Orgnet's - Inflow software see: http://radio.weblogs.com/0114726/2003/01/02.html#a176 Jonathan Schull's Macroscope Manifesto http://radio.weblogs.com/0104369/stories/2002/04/09/macroscope022702.htm IdeasBazaar http://www.ideasbazaar.co.uk/Linkship.pps http://www.ideasbazaar.co.uk/blog/archives/cat_networks.html#000048 Spring http://www.usercreations.com/spring/ visual p-wiki's http://c2.com/cgi/tour http://phpwiki.sourceforge.net/phpwiki/VisualWiki The digital magazine of InfoVis.net. [Number 113] Visualising Social Interaction by Juan C. Dürsteler Social interaction provides us with visual patterns that help us to situate ourselves in our environment. In Internet, however, this doesn’t happen so easily. Some visualisations are appearing to remedy the problem. See the illustrated version of this issue at http://www.infovis.net/E-zine/2003/num_113.htm Social interaction produces many visual patterns we are so used to that we don’t notice them. But they provide us with indispensable information in order for us to navigate our social environment. Some of these patterns deal with the flux of human activity, like the colourful scene of the bathers in a swimming pool or the appearance of the mushroom-shaped silhouettes of the umbrellas in a rainy afternoon. They allow us to situate and to coordinate our behaviour with that of the environment. Haven’t you ever felt strange dressed in a dinner jacket on a nudist beach, or wearing a swimming suit at a Christmas party? Other visual patterns are related to affiliation, like the one made up of the business suits getting off a commuter train early in the morning. We create these and many other patterns just by standing where we stand and being what we are. This is what some call “social weather” http://www.kottke.org/02/09/020930social_weath.html, something that you can feel immediately in a soccer match where it can sometimes be really stormy depending on the results of the local team... But in cyberspace the social interaction is becoming more and more important and we don’t have the indicators that the visualisation of our immediate environment provides. For example, when we are at the office a simple look around at our environment allows us to know who is present and who isn’t, the ones that are interacting and the ones that are buried in solitary work. Not so in Internet where it’s not easy to know what the social network we are interacting with is like, who is doing what and where the social magma we are incorporated in goes. Some initiatives are working on this in order to remedy the situation. We already spoke about chat visualisation in issue 46 (http://www.infovis.net/E-zine/num_46.htm) or about digital cities in issue 102 (http://www.infovis.net/E-zine/2002/num_102.htm), But there’s still more: A good starting point is Judith Donat’s PhD thesis , http://smg.media.mit.edu/people/Judith/Thesis/. Donath works for MIT Media Lab and is one of the most active researchers in this field. For her, one of cyberspace’s most important problems is the absence of a body that in the social reality provides us with the possibility of * Expression: Verbal but mainly non verbal. How we move, how we dress. * Presence. Where we are, with whom, in which social circle we are moving. * Control. Social control of individuals has been centred on the body but it is lacking in cyberspace... * Recognition. Typically associated to the face, it allows us to assert the others identity. So that many of the visualisations are centred on the representation of * presence, how many there are * identity, who they are * interaction in abstract, who relates to whom * conversation as exchange of messages The most evident schemes draw the social networks as graphs, i.e. nodes representing the actors and lines or arrows that represent the link between them. One of the most well known is the typical organization chart of a company. A more advanced example http://www.mpi-fg-koeln.mpg.de/%7Elk/netvis/SocMorph.html shows the so called Hxaro practice of exchanging gifts among the members of the ˇKung culture in Botswana and Namibia. Chat Circles http://chatcircles.media.mit.edu/ by Fernanda Viegas, is a chat where your presence is revealed by a coloured circle, you have a history of the conversation in the form of a line with transversal bars proportional in length to the duration of every message. Your presence leaves a trace that vanishes slowly taking about 10 hours in the process. We have also seen in issues 65, 66 and 67 the visualisation of the visits to a web site, but Nelson Minar offers us a different perspective in http://xenia.media.mit.edu/~nelson/research/crowdvis/. Every visitor is a coloured point close to the web page he/she is visiting. Visual Who, http://persona.www.media.mit.edu/Judith/VisualWho/, from Judith Donath, places the people in a space related to certain mailing lists. The colour of the names and their situation in space reveal the affinity with each of the lists. As new participants add new themes the morphology of the representation changes. IBM’s “Social Computing” group is also specially active. Babble http://www.research.ibm.com/SocialComputing/SCGpapers.htm is a chat visualiser that represent every conversation as a circle where you find smaller inscribed circles that represent the individuals. The more in the periphery the less active in the conversation, the closer they are, the more involved in mutual conversation. As we can see there are multiple ongoing initiatives. Nevertheless and despite the activity deployed by Donath’s group, IBM and other groups and the richness of some representations, I’ve got the impression that we still have a long road ahead before we can interact on the Net with a visual support so rich and versatile so as to allow the deployment of the abundant resources of social interaction we are used to in the real world. ------ This article has seen the light thanks to a conversation with Ben Hyde http://hydesign.blogspot.com who was also kind enough to provide a handful of links, some of which you can find attached. Sociable Media Group MIT http://smg.media.mit.edu/ Contact map http://hci.stanford.edu/cs377/nardi-schiano/netWORK%26ContactMap.pdf Bonnie Nardi http://www.darrouzet-nardi.net/bonnie/ Virtual Playground: Architectures for a Shared Virtual World http://www.hitl.washington.edu/publications/r-98-12/ Orgnet's - Inflow software see: http://radio.weblogs.com/0114726/2003/01/02.html#a176 Jonathan Schull's Macroscope Manifesto http://radio.weblogs.com/0104369/stories/2002/04/09/macroscope022702.htm IdeasBazaar http://www.ideasbazaar.co.uk/Linkship.pps http://www.ideasbazaar.co.uk/blog/archives/cat_networks.html#000048 Spring http://www.usercreations.com/spring/ visual p-wiki's http://c2.com/cgi/tour http://phpwiki.sourceforge.net/phpwiki/VisualWiki

    43. 43 Major trends in JAGIS Transparency Easy access to data of all sorts Data-based decision making Vital to informed government, business, culture Major function of democratic gov’t – at ALL levels – will be to provide data and access to that data. (e.g. the Census to the X power, ((excepting the current administration)) Dynamic mapping Data/information when and where we want it, e.g. PDAs, phones, in-car

    44. 44 Major trends in JAGIS Concept mapping Reflects pervasive interlocking relationships between people, between ideas, linking decisions to data Geo-location Real time, wireless location of people, events, resources Cyber-geography http://www.cybergeography.org/geography_of_cyberspace.html Tracking “idea transfer”—touchgraph.com http://www.touchgraph.com/TGGoogleBrowser.html

    45. 45 Conclusion: Why journos need to know about GIS? Can make us better journalists and improves civic contribution. (Philadelphia data) Makes the invisible visible Literally shows the story to our readers Helps readers connect with us and vice versa It can make all aspects of our business run more efficiently, profitably Government and business are using GIS. Ergo, we need to know enough to ask informed questions. And if government is not using it, then we should find out why.

    46. 46 Implications of GIS? Journalism in U.S. traditionally about local community. Will highly personalized & interactive GIS change the definition of self vs. “other” and self vs. community? If so, what are the implications for journalism? For all social scientists? For politics, government and, ultimately, democracy?

    47. 47 Implications? Transactions in the changing the economy (e.g. buying cars, homes or job hunting) http://apps.edmunds.com/apps/uvl/uvlsearch.do?tid=edmunds.h..used.uvl.1.* Changing political process and power www.meetup.com http://www.minutesnmotion.com/ Ichat http://www.ivillage.com/ivillage/chat/singlechat/0,,573317,00.html

    48. 48 “GIS: Unifying Theory/Methodology for Journalism and the Social Sciences?” J. T. Johnson tom@jtjohnson.com SFSU Dept. of Journalism Institute of Analytic Journalism

    49. 49 Implications? Journalists – all social scientists – need to at least understand power of GIS and who is using it for what?

    50. 50 How reporters use GIS Weather Hurricane Andrew Census analysis/story telling USAToday http://www.usatoday.com/news/census/index.htm Crime mapping Crime Mapping Research Center http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/nij/maps/ Crime mapping tutorial http://www.icpsr.umich.edu/NACJD/cmtutorial.html Story telling, economics, education, urban development, taxation, voting patterns, environment, traffic

    51. 51 Key points GIS is about being better – more insightful – journalists (Journos good at description, not analysis. GIS will make us better at understanding, ultimately supplying readers with a better description of event or phenomena.) GIS is about literally showing our readers stories in ways they can quickly grasp.

    52. 52 How Production can use GIS Press status? Repair reports Equipment maintenance schedule Facilities management Clickable Campus #1 Press status? Repair reports: Can display a geographical pattern of problems that might not be mechanical or explained initiatively. Perhaps a whole team of workers in the same dept. simply were not trained correctly and are all making the same mistake? Or perhaps a particular resource is contaminated? Is the paper web not quite aligned or?????? Equipment maintenance schedule: a good data base and map layers can show different types of equipment that could, perhaps, be taken care of by one visit to machine A, even though the schedule might not yet call for a check of Machine B. If the engineer is there on Tuesday, does he really have to go back again on Friday? Facilities management Press status? Repair reports: Can display a geographical pattern of problems that might not be mechanical or explained initiatively. Perhaps a whole team of workers in the same dept. simply were not trained correctly and are all making the same mistake? Or perhaps a particular resource is contaminated? Is the paper web not quite aligned or?????? Equipment maintenance schedule: a good data base and map layers can show different types of equipment that could, perhaps, be taken care of by one visit to machine A, even though the schedule might not yet call for a check of Machine B. If the engineer is there on Tuesday, does he really have to go back again on Friday? Facilities management

    53. 53 Interesting sites Payphone project (crying need here for GIS apps) http://www.payphone-project.com/ Graffiti mapper http://www.blogmapper.com/

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