Dr. Daniel Sui
The Geography Colloquium series presents Dr. Daniel Sui on “Crowdsourcing Geographic Knowledge: VGI, Social Media, and Beyond” on Friday, March 21, at 3:05 p.m. in Clippinger 119.
Sui, Professor of Geography and Distinguished Professor of Social & Behavioral Sciences at the Ohio State University, also serves as Chair of Geography and Director of the Geographical Analysis Core, Institute of Population Research (IPR). In 2009 he was named a Guggenheim Fellow. His current research interests include GIScience theory, open/alternative GIS, spatial-temporal synergetics, volunteered geographic information, and crowdsourcing geographic knowledge production.
ABSTRACT: The phenomenon of volunteered geographic information via crowdsourcing is part of a profound transformation in how geographic data, information, and knowledge are produced and circulated during the past decade. By situating volunteered geographic information (VGI) and location-based social media in the context of big-data deluge and the data-intensive inquiry, this talk will present a synoptic overview of the theories and applications of crowdsourcing for geographic knowledge production, followed by a case study of VGI and social media in China. Using a representative sample of micro-blog posts collected from October 2012 to June 2013 on the topic of air pollution, as well as contextual information from a variety of sources for major Chinese cities, this talk will critically examine how the government, companies, NGOs, and individuals approach the Chinese social media landscape. It was found that while micro-blogs are capable of empowering citizens to advance an environmental cause, social media have also been increasingly employed by the government as a tool for social monitoring/control and by companies as a platform for profiting from air pollution.
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