Social Media and the City: Rethinking Urban Socio-Spatial Inequality Using User-Generated Geographic Information

Landscape and Urban Planning, Forthcoming

23 Pages Posted: 2 Mar 2015 Last revised: 29 Apr 2015

See all articles by Taylor Shelton

Taylor Shelton

Mississippi State University

Ate Poorthuis

Singapore University of Technology and Design (SUTD)

Matthew Zook

University of Kentucky

Date Written: 2015

Abstract

Big data is increasingly seen as a way of providing a more 'scientific' approach to the understanding and management of cities. But most geographic analyses of geotagged social media data have failed to mobilize a sufficiently complex understanding of socio-spatial relations. By combining the conceptual approach of relational socio-spatial theory with the methods of critical GIScience, this paper explores the spatial imaginaries and processes of segregation and mobility at play in the notion of the '9th Street Divide' in Louisville, Kentucky. Through a more context-sensitive analysis of this data, this paper argues against this popular spatial imaginary and the notion that the Louisville's West End is somehow separate and apart from the rest of the city. By analyzing the everyday activity spaces of different groups of Louisvillians through geotagged Twitter data, we instead argue for an understanding of these neighborhoods as fluid, porous and actively produced, rather than as rigid, static or fixed. Ultimately, this paper is meant to provide a conceptual and methodological framework for the analysis of social media data that is more attentive to the multiplicity of socio-spatial relations embodied in such data.

Keywords: big data, critical GIS, mixed methods, socio-spatial theory, urban planning

Suggested Citation

Shelton, Taylor and Poorthuis, Ate and Zook, Matthew, Social Media and the City: Rethinking Urban Socio-Spatial Inequality Using User-Generated Geographic Information (2015). Landscape and Urban Planning, Forthcoming, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2571757 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2571757

Taylor Shelton (Contact Author)

Mississippi State University

Mississippi State, MS 39762
United States

Ate Poorthuis

Singapore University of Technology and Design (SUTD) ( email )

8 Somapah Road
Singapore, 487372
Singapore

Matthew Zook

University of Kentucky ( email )

Lexington, KY 40506
United States

Do you have negative results from your research you’d like to share?

Paper statistics

Downloads
1,098
Abstract Views
5,730
Rank
36,793
PlumX Metrics