Miscellanea
M. ª Dolores Asensio Ferreiro Universidad Complutense de Madrid
3. HIPÓTESIS, OBJETIVOS Y METODOLOGÍA DEL ESTUDIO
Systems (PGIS) for the development of new direct visualization methods and research
We are at an early stage in the adoption of direct visualization of geomedia- based data for research. Yet this area of research practice is likely to expand as researchers engage with the increasing availability of volunteered geographic information (VGI), the cheap or free availability of geographic information systems (GIS) and the continuous development of software and applications (like Photosynth or Google My Maps) that enable the visual correl ation, merging and manipulation of geolocational multimedia information. As the tools expand, so will debate about the possibilities of new location-based, direct visualization-based methods for cultural and social research. This chap-ter therefore does not aim to offer a comprehensive overview of the software applications, nor evolving methods or projects, that use volunteered geographic information and new location-based direct visualization techniques. Rather, in order to reflect on an actual research application of location-based technologies and virtual maps based on Google My Maps, I discuss one recent project that utilizes virtual mapping, ‘The new cartographers: crisis map mashups and the emergence of neogeographic practice’ by Liu and Palen (Liu and Palen, 2010).
First I situate new forms of virtual mapping within the context of the use of mapping as a visual research technique.
A number of tools are already available for the researcher, including appli-cations such as Photosynth (described above) and ‘Google My Maps’ – a personal-mapping application feature of Google Maps that lets users create
08-Pink_AVM-4366-Ch-08.indd 144 07/03/2012 10:53:19 AM
Geomedia-Based Methods and Visual Research 145
and share personalized, annotated maps of their world. This application, which requires basic computer skills, allows users to create a personalized map that visually overlays a standard Google Earth or Google Maps with locations and/
or areas of interest that are tagged and coded. These points or areas of interest can be enriched with metadata that embeds personal texts (Google Docs data-base, pdf or simple texts), images, videos and hyperlinks on the Google Earth map, which already offers a rich browsing experience including 3D terrain and buildings and various content layers. The personalized map can be made ‘pub-lic’ or be ‘unlisted’. Public maps are fully integrated and searchable via Google search tools. Maps are also ‘sharable’ with a designated group of collaborators who have full access to the personalized map created by the initial user. The new personalized map will also download as a KML file onto a computer, which allows a user to view the map, email it, or post it on a website or make it available for anyone to download.
Applications like Google My Maps can be contextualized within the his-torical development and function of ‘participatory mapping’ (Chambers, 2006, 2008) and its late evolution into PGIS (Participatory Geographic Information Systems) and maps mashups (Liu and Palen, 2010). The systematic crea-tion of participatory maps started in the late 1980s, developed by rural appraisal practitioners (Rambaldi et al., 2004, 2006) using participatory methods to ‘elicit indigenous knowledge’ and ‘local community dynamics’ (Rambaldi et al., 2006: 1) while facilitating communications between community mem-bers and researchers. While the practice of drawing maps by local people can be traced back centuries and has been widely popular in modern times, Chambers notices that its systematic utilization as a method for research and knowledge creation has really been developed in the last 20 years within the specialized areas of geography, social anthropology (see also Grasseni, Chapter 6, and Pink, Chapter 7, this volume), participatory action research, visual sociology, and education (Chambers, 2006: 2). This changed dramatically in the late 1990s, with the diffusion of modern spatial information technologies and the development of Geographic Information systems (GIS) that peaked in 2005 and 2007 with the creation and public distribution of projects such as Google Earth, Google Maps and Google My Maps. These and other map-ping projects and tools (Wikimapia, OpenStreetMap, Photosynth, etc.) have deeply influenced GIS-based participatory mapping tools (PGIS, Participatory Geographic Information Systems) across the world. Today PGIS are widely used to create ‘mashup’ maps (a term used primarily to indicate new electronic practices of VGI sharing) that:
combine a range of geo-spatial information management tools and methods such as sketch maps, participatory 3D models (P3DM), aerial photographs, satellite imagery, Global Positioning
08-Pink_AVM-4366-Ch-08.indd 145 07/03/2012 10:53:19 AM
146 Francesco Lapenta
Systems (GPS) and Geographic Information Systems (GIS) to represent people’s spatial knowledge in the forms of virtual or physical, 2 or 3 dimensional maps used as interactive vehicles for spatial learning, discussion, information exchange, analysis, decision making and advocacy. (Rambaldi et al., 2006: 2)
Liu and Palen make a case for the use of participatory mapping, or mashup maps, as a research method to conduct research in the sociology of disaster (and as a tool to respond to disasters) (Dynes, 1970; Neal, 1997; Powell, 1954;
Stoddard, 1968 – all in Liu and Palen, 2010). The sociology of disaster uses
‘spatial and temporal models to describe and anticipate macro social behavior’
(Liu and Palen, 2010: 69). Typically, the real-time codification and classifica-tion of time-and-space models are important heuristic devices in the sociology of disaster: since disasters are generally characterized by different phases and zones. Liu and Palen describe the geography of disaster as based on a series of concentric zones: a centre affected by a very severe impact, surrounded by fringe areas characterized by a diversified level of damage and disruption. Four phases are used, traditionally, to describe the macro-behaviours in the event of a disas-ter: ‘preparedness, response, recovery, and mitigation’ (Powell, 1954, in Liu and Palen, 2010). Kraak (Kraak, 2001, in Liu and Palen, 2010) and Liu and Palen point out that maps are fundamental tools that help prompt decision-making in the actual event of a disaster. They are also key tools that aid us to rethink the dynamics of disasters. The rise of what is known as Geospatial Web has sup-ported the growth of web-based map mashups that result from the increased use of social media and Web 2.0 practices that support participatory forms of
‘neogeography’ (Goodchild, 2009) in which many users share collaboratively – with applications such as Google My Maps – minute-by-minute updated information about the events of a disaster. Liu and Palen (2010) maintain that these practices increase the ‘ability to tease apart actual behavior in dis-asters and pinpoint the multi-dimensionality of the experience and its effects on social life’. They go on to suggest that ‘in particular, map-based “mashups,”
through the use of frequently updated data from multiple sources, allow us to
“see” micro-behavior spatio-temporally’ while providing up-to-date informa-tion that helps the ‘practical work of reporting on, assisting in, and managing emergencies’ (Liu and Palen 2010: 69–70).
Conclusions
This example demonstrates the evolving social functions, and the possible methodological potential, of new direct information visualization techniques that use volunteered geolocational data to study, and contextualize, complex and evolving social occurrences and phenomena. The full potential of direct
08-Pink_AVM-4366-Ch-08.indd 146 07/03/2012 10:53:19 AM
Geomedia-Based Methods and Visual Research 147
visualization-based methods is still emerging, as is its theoretical and meth-odological definition. In this article I have suggested that existing geolocational software and applications (such as Google My Maps and Photosynth) can be interpreted and used as new research tools for direct visualization-based meth-ods and investigations. Very much like the photographs and videos of the visual sociologists of the analogue age (who observed these media through the lens of established sociological theories, methods and aims), new augmented reality (AR) and geomedia can be used by the skilled researcher of the digital age to tap into the vast research potential of volunteered geographic information and participatory geographic information systems.
It is in this context that virtual maps, and the algorithmic software that support them, can become methodological tools that skilled, media literate scholars might use to compare, merge and interpret the increasing amount of geolocationally tagged multimedia data and information (shared by contempo-rary Web 2.0 media users) to explore meanings and/or causes behind the pat-terns that may be observed in geolocationally synthesized visualizations. Such patterns and meanings might indeed not have been visible in the unorganized chaos of forms and contents of the unarranged data. These new technologies thus become meaningful elements to project, organize, make visible and study the social performances, personal identities, mediated interactions and the
‘imagined’ communities of the media users that created them.
Bibliography
Anderson, B.R. (1991) Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism. London: Verso.
boyd, d.m. (2007) ‘The significance of social software’, in T.N. Burg and J. Schmidt (eds), BlogTalks Reloaded: Social Software Research & Cases.
Norderstedt: Books on Demand. pp. 15–30.
boyd, d.m. (2008) ‘None of this is real’, in J. Karaganis (ed.), Structures of Participation in Digital Culture. New York: Social Science Research Council.
pp. 132–57.
boyd, d.m. and Ellison, N.B. (2007) ‘Social network sites: definition, history, and scholarship’, Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, 13 (1): article 11.
Available at http://jcmc.indiana.edu/vol13/issue1/boyd.ellison.html
Brennan-Horley, C., Luckman, S., Gibson, C. and Willoughby-Smith, J.
(2010) ‘GIS, ethnography, and cultural research: putting maps back into ethnographic mapping’, The Information Society: An International Journal, 26 (2): 92–103.
Cairncross, L. (1997) The Death of Distance: How the Communications Revolution Will Change Our Lives. Boston, MA: Harvard Business School Press.
08-Pink_AVM-4366-Ch-08.indd 147 07/03/2012 10:53:19 AM
148 Francesco Lapenta
Card, S.K., Mackinlay, J.D. and Shneiderman, B. (1999) Readings in Information Visualization: Using Vision to Think. San Francisco, CA: Morgan Kaufmann Publishers.
Chambers, R. (2006) ‘Participatory mapping and geographic information sys-tems: Whose map? Who is empowered and who disempowered? Who gains and who loses?’, The Electronic Journal on Information Systems in Developing Countries (EJISDC), 25 (2): 1–11.
Chambers, R. (2008) ‘PRA, PLA and pluralism: practice and theory’, in P. Reason and H. Bradbury (eds), The Sage Handbook of Action Research:
Participative Inquiry and Practice. London: Sage.
Culler, J. (1990) Framing the Sign: Criticism and its Institutions. Norman, OK:
University of Oklahoma Press.
Debord, G. (1983 [1967]) Society of the Spectacle. London: Rebel Press.
Donath, J. and boyd, d.m. (2004) ‘Public displays of connection’, BT Technology Journal, 22 (4): 71–82.
Dueker, K. and Kjerne, D. (1989) Multipurpose Cadastre: Terms and Defi-nitions. Falls Church, VA: American Society for Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing and American Congress on Surveying and Mapping (ASPRS-ACSM).
Fuchs, C. (2008) Internet and Society: Social Theory in the Information Age.
London: Routledge.
Giddens, A. (1990) The Consequences of Modernity. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.
Goodchild, M.F. (2007) ‘Citizens as sensors: the world of volunteered geogra-phy’, GeoJournal, 69 (4): 211–21.
Goodchild, M.F. (2009) ‘Neogeography and the nature of geographic expertise’, Journal of Location Based Services, 3 (2): 82–96.
Goodchild, M.F. and Donald, G.F. (2003) Spatially Integrated Social Science.
New York: Oxford University Press.
Goodchild, M.F., Anselin, L., Appelbaum, R. and Harthorn, B. (2000) ‘Toward spatially integrated social science’, International Regional Science Review, 23 (2): 139–59.
Hine, C. (2000) Virtual Ethnography. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Jameson, F. (1991) Postmodernism, or, the Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism.
London: Verso.
Kerren, A., Stasko, J.T., Fekete, J.D. and North, C. (eds) (2008) Information Visualization – Human-Centered Issues and Perspectives. Volume 4950 of LNCS State-of-the-Art Survey. London: Springer.
Kozinets, R.V. (1997) ‘Want to believe: a netnography of the “X-Philes” subcul-ture of consumption’, in. R.V. Kozinets (ed.), Advances in Consumer Research.
Provo, UT: Association for Consumer Research.
08-Pink_AVM-4366-Ch-08.indd 148 07/03/2012 10:53:19 AM
Geomedia-Based Methods and Visual Research 149
Kozinets, R.V. (1998) ‘On netnography: initial reflections on consumer research investigations of cyberculture’, in J. Alba and W. Hutchinson (eds), Advances in Consumer Research (Volume 25). Provo, UT: Association for Consumer Research. pp. 366–71.
Lapenta, F. (2008) Define Geomedia. Online publication available at www.
francescolapenta.wordpress.com/2008/06/26/define-geomedia-and- web-30.
Lapenta, F. (2011) ‘Geomedia: on location-based media, the changing status of collective image production and the emergence of social navigation sys-tems’, Visual Studies, 26 (1): 14–22.
Levy, P. (1997) Collective Intelligence: Mankind’s Emerging World in Cyberspace.
Cambridge: Perseus.
Liu, S.B. and Palen, L. (2010) ‘The new cartographers: crisis map mashups and the emergence of neogeographic practice’, available from www.thefree-library.com/The new cartographers: crisis map mashups and the emergence of...-a0219655235 (retrieved 25 October 2011).
Manovich, L. (2010) ‘What is visualization?’ Draft available at http://manovich.
net/articles/ (accessed March 2011).
Manovich, L. (2011) ‘What is visualisation?’, Visual Studies, 26 (1): 36–49.
Masten, D. and Plowman, T. (2003) ‘Digital ethnography: the next wave in understanding the consumer experience’, Design Management Journal, 14 (2): 75–81.
Matthews, S.A., Detwiler, J.E. and Burton, L.M. (2005) ‘Geo-ethnography:
coupling geographic information analysis techniques with ethnographic methods in urban research’, Cartographica, 40 (4): 75–90.
Mirzoeff, N. (ed.) (2002) The Visual Culture Reader. London: Routledge.
Mitchell, W.J. (1996) City of Bits, Space Place and the Infobahn. Cambridge, MA:
MIT Press.
Palfrey, J. and Gasser, U. (2008) Born Digital: Understanding the First Generation of Digital Natives. New York: Basic Books.
Pink, S. (2011) ‘Sensory digital photography: re-thinking “moving” and the image’, in Visual Studies, 26 (1): 4–13.
Poster, M. (ed.) (1988) Jean Baudrillard: Selected Writings. Stanford, CA:
Stanford University Press.
Rambaldi, G., Kwaku Kyem, A.P., Mbile, P., McCall, M. and Weiner, D.
(2004) ‘Participatory GIS’ (retrieved 15 January 2011 from: www.iapad.org/
participatory_gis.htm).
Rambaldi, G., Kwaku Kyem, A.P., Mbile, P., McCall, M. and Weiner, D. (2006)
‘Participatory spatial information management and communication in developing countries’, EJISDC, 25 (1): 1–9 (retrieved 30 September 2010 from: ejisdc.org).
08-Pink_AVM-4366-Ch-08.indd 149 07/03/2012 10:53:19 AM
150 Francesco Lapenta
Steinberg, S.J. and Steinberg, S.L. (2005) Geographic Information Systems for the Social Sciences. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Sundén, J. (2003) Material Virtualities, Approaching Online Textual Embodiment.
New York: Peter Lang.
Thomas, J. and Cook, K.A. (eds) (2005) Illuminating the Path: The R&D Agenda for Visual Analytics. National Visualization and Analytics Center: IEEE Press.
Toffler, A. (1984) The Third Wave. New York: Bantam Books.
Uricchio, W. (2011) ‘The algorithmic turn: Photosynth, augmented reality and the changing implications of the image’, Visual Studies, 26 (1): 25–35.
Vincent, J. (2006) ‘Emotional attachment and mobile phones’, Knowledge, Technology, and Policy, 19 (1): 29–44.
West, R. and Turner, L. (2008) Understanding Interpersonal Communication:
Making Choices in Changing Times. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth.
08-Pink_AVM-4366-Ch-08.indd 150 07/03/2012 10:53:19 AM