“GIS: Unifying Theory/Methodology for Journalism and the Social Sciences?”

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““GIS: Unifying GIS: Unifying Theory/Methodology Theory/Methodology

for for Journalism and the Social Journalism and the Social

Sciences?”Sciences?”

This presentation at: http://iaj-ucb-gisppt.notlong.com/

J. T. JohnsonProf. of JournalismSan Francisco State University

tom@jtjohnson.com Institute for Analytic Journalism

GIS Center Krouzian Room

Bancroft Library17 April 2003

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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

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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

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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

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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.

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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

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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

“This increase of the bills stood thus: the usual number of burials in a week, in the parishes of St Giles-in-the-Fields and St Andrew's, Holborn, were from twelve to seventeen or nineteen each, few more or less; but from the time that the plague first began in St Giles's parish, it was observed that the ordinary burials increased in number considerably. For example: -

From December 27 to January 3 St Giles's 16 St Andrew's 17

" January 3 " " 10 St Giles's 12 St Andrew's 25

" January 10 " " 17 St Giles's 18 St Andrew's 28

" January 17 " " 24 St Giles's 23St Andrew's 16

" January 24 " " 31 St Giles's 24St Andrew's 15

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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."

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Proto-GIS: Napoleon's march to Moscow

Drawn by Charles Joseph Minard in 1861; reputed to be the best statistical graphic ever drawn.

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Proto-GIS: “Snow’s pump” cholera map

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

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Proto-GIS: Booth’s London 1898

Charles Booth’s Map of London (c. 1886-1903)

http://booth.lse.ac.uk/

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Proto-GIS: Robert Park

Robert Park (former journalist) and Chicago School of Urban Sociology (c. 1920s)

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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.

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Proto-GIS: Allan R. Pred (1973)

Notice of Jackson’s State of the Union address: 1830

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Proto-GIS: Johnson & Naugle 1972

Johnson & Naugle.

“MAKING THE CITY VISIBLE: A PROBABILITY MODEL FOR URBAN HISTORY” 

PROBABILITY DISTRIBUTION MAP FOR TOPEKA, KANSAS, 1880

Characteristic: Occupation

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Journalism and GIS: Steve Doig [Miami Herald] 1992

Weather - Hurricane Andrew

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Editorial

Advertising

GIS in Journalism

Circulation

Production

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GIS in all departments: Advertising

ADVERTISING Sales? - No. of potential advertisers - # of non-advertisers - Income of town - Age of population

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GIS in all departments: Circulation

Circulation? - # of copies per district - # of dealers per route - Penetration - Time of delivery

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GIS in all departments: Production

Production? - Prod. employees homes - Toxic waste sites - Copies of varied editions

or products - Facilities management

- Press status?

Repair reports

Equipment maintenance schedule

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GIS in all departments: BackOffice

Back office? - Employee homes - Accounts due - Travel time to work - Health-care facilitiesDesigning work space

- Allocating office space

- Tracking office equipment

Building Maintenance

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GIS in Editorial

-Demographics- Crime - Housing- Businesses- Voting patterns/places- Education- Campaign Contributions

- Public Health - Taxation- Church membership- Environment- Traffic- Urban sprawl- Political negotiations (e.g. India and Pakistan, Ecuador and Peru, Guatemala and Belize, Russia and Japan, Britain and Argentina)

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How Online Editors Use GIS

Fresno Bee Methamphetamine lab story http://www.valleymeth.com/graphics/superlabs.html

Philadelphia Inquirer’s daily commuter patternshttp://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

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USAToday

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USAToday

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USA Today

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USA Today

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Orange County, California Bus Study

Orange County, California

Bus Study

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Mapping war and war coverage

Iraq War Resources (From GIS Development online magazine) http://www.gisdevelopment.net/iraq.htm

CNN Mapshttp://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

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Trends: Animated mapping

Maps and images that can be controlled, on the WWW, by the user.

Emphasis is on controlled layeringe.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

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3DTaxiCrimeMapView2Rotated 3D view of Taxi Crime

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3DTaxiCrimeMapView13D view of Taxi Crime

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GIS 3-D Gallery

http://www.manifold.net/products/3dvs/3dvs_home.html

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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 sitehttp://mappa.mundi.net/maps/maps_022/

Show me the Power Players in a society?http://theyrule.orgo.org/

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Trends: Web site content map

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Trends: Fry’s Web site mapBen Fry's anemone

visualization of website usage

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Trends: PowerPlayers1http://theyrule.orgo.org/

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Trends: PowerPlayers2

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Trends: PowerPlayers3

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Trends: Mapping cyberspace

VR visualisation of Web traffic

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Trends: Dynamic Event Mapping

Code-Red (CRv2) worm virus (19 July 2001)http://www.caida.org/analysis/security/code-red/newframes-small-log.mov

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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

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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

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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

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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.

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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?

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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/

Ichathttp://www.ivillage.com/ivillage/chat/singlechat/

0,,573317,00.html

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““GIS: Unifying GIS: Unifying Theory/Methodology Theory/Methodology

for for Journalism and the Social Journalism and the Social

Sciences?”Sciences?”

This presentation at: http://iaj-ucb-gisppt.notlong.com/

J. T. Johnson tom@jtjohnson.com SFSU Dept. of Journalism Institute of Analytic Journalism

GIS Center Krouzian Room

Bancroft Library17 April 2003

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Implications?

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

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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 Centerhttp://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

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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.

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How Production can use GIS

Press status? Repair reports Equipment maintenance schedule

Facilities management Clickable Campus #1

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Interesting sites

Payphone project (crying need here for GIS apps)http://www.payphone-project.com/

Graffiti mapperhttp://www.blogmapper.com/