This presentation at:
http://iaj-ucb-gisppt.notlong.com/
“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
GIS Center
Krouzian Room
Bancroft Library
17 April 2003
1
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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
“This increase of the bills stood thus: the usual number of
burials in traditional
a week, in the parishes
St Giles-in-the-Fields and
Proto-GIS:
way ofofknowing
St Andrew's, Holborn, were from twelve to seventeen or
nineteen each, few more or less; but from the time that the
Defoe
and A
plague first began in St Giles's parish, it was observed that the
Journal
of increased in number considerably. For
ordinary burials
theexample:
Plague
Year
(1664From
December 27
65) Pub. 1722
to January 3 St Giles's 16
St Andrew's 17
"
January 3 " " 10
 Describes
burials in
"
January 10 " " 17
parishes;
time-series
data
"
January 17 " " 24
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"
January 24 " " 31
St Giles's 12
St Andrew's 25
St Giles's 18
St Andrew's 28
St Giles's 23
St Andrew's 16
St Giles's 24
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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/s
now.html
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Proto-GIS: Booth’s London 1898
 Charles
Booth’s Map
of London
(c. 1886-1903)
http://booth.ls
e.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:
Weather Hurricane
Andrew
Steve Doig
[Miami Herald]
1992
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GIS in Journalism
Advertising
Circulation
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Production
Editorial
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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 facilities
Designing 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
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- 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 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
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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
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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 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 IAJ
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 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
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3DTaxiCrimeMapView2
Rotated 3D view of Taxi Crime
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3DTaxiCrimeMapView1
3D view of Taxi Crime
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GIS 3-D Gallery
 http://www.manifold.net/products/3
dvs/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 site
http://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 map
Ben Fry's anemone
visualization of website
usage
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Trends: PowerPlayers1
http://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/codered/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/densmapanim.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_o
f_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/uvlsea
rch.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
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This presentation at:
http://iaj-ucb-gisppt.notlong.com/
“GIS: Unifying
Theory/Methodology
for
Journalism and the Social
Sciences?”
J. T. Johnson
tom@jtjohnson.com
SFSU Dept. of Journalism
Institute of Analytic Journalism
GIS Center
Krouzian Room
Bancroft Library
17 April 2003
48
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 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
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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 mapper
http://www.blogmapper.com/
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