GIS Graduate Program Webinar
Big Social Data: The Spatial Turn in Big Data
Thursday, May 9, 2013 · 12 - 1 PM
Online
The increased access to spatial data and overall improved application of spatial analytical methods present certain potential to social scientific research. This webinar is designed to focus on substantive social science research perspectives while exposing rewards involved in the application of geographic information systems (GIS), Big Data, and spatial analytics in their own research.
What is witnessed as the hype of Web 2.0 has worn off and the collaborative use of the Internet becomes a societal norm is an unprecedented explosion in the creation and analysis of geospatial data. Just as major governments are reducing their investments in location intelligence, individuals and non-government organizations are fueling a bonfire of innovation in the world of GIS data.
Traditional spatial analyses grew up in an era of sparse data and very weak computational power. Today, both of those circumstances are reversed and many of the old solutions are no longer suitable to answer today’s questions.
"Big Social Data: The Spatial Turn in Big Data" reflects this change and combines two things which, until recently, engaged quite different groups of researchers and practitioners. Together, they require particular techniques and a sophisticated understanding of the special problems associated with spatial social data. Geographic Data Mining, or Geographic Knowledge Discovery, is not new, but is developing and changing rapidly as both more, and different, data becomes available, and people see new applications. The days of ‘Big Data’ require fresh thinking.
The webinar will highlight connections between spatial concepts and data availability. New emerging social media data will be promoted over traditional social science data, which better reflect some of the more recently developments in Big Data - most notably the socially critical exploration of such data.