NeoGeography and WikiPlanning 2014

Dear Colleagues,

Following the success of our special issue on “NeoGeography and WikiPlanning” (launched in 2011), we are calling for a new issue. We are confident that the evolution of “Web 2.0” is pushing researchers and scholars from different disciplines to address these topics in new avenues for both theoretical and empirical research.

The advent of Web 2.0 made technologies and services available, such as blogs, social networks and media, Wikis and RSS/XML feeds, have allowed many users to create their own content and to share it through relatively simple and freely available tools. The shift to a user-generated content paradigm on the web also fostered changes in sharing and analyzing geographic information. The term “neogeography” arose to describe people’s activities relating to the use and creation their own maps (e.g., the geo-tagging of pictures, movies, websites, etc.). It could be defined as a new bottom–up approach to geography that is prompted by users; this consequently introduces changes in the roles of ‘traditional’ geographers vis-à-vis the “consumers” of geographical contents.

Wilson and Graham remark how neogeography explicitly highlights spatially referenced social practices and, particularly, the fact that neogeographers, rather than just collecting and presenting geographic information—which is possible as a ‘basic’ function in a standard GIS package—“enacts new relationships in the construction of spatial knowledge.”

During the past decades, cartography and geographical representation faced two main revolutions: GIS and Neogeography. The main issue in GIS implementation has been the availability of reliable and accurate spatial information. Nowadays, the wide diffusion of electronic devices providing geo-referenced information produces extensive spatial information datasets. This trend has led to “GIS wikification”, where mass collaboration plays a key role in the main components of spatial information frameworks. Goodchild (2007) defined “Volunteered Geographic Information” (VGI) as the harnessing of tools to create, assemble, and disseminate geographic information that is voluntarily provided by individuals. These individuals create their own contents by marking the locations of occurred events or by labelling certain existing features. Also, Goodchild (2007) introduced the concept of “citizens as sensors”, with neogeographers producing a small-“g” geography, which is focused on the personal and the individual. This small-“g” geography contrasts with the capital-“G” Geography, which is the science of space and place. Furthermore, Turner (2013, in conversation with Goodchild) extended the idea of small-“g” geography to all cognizant individuals, with neogeography as “the domain of new possibilities that are now approachable by anyone”.

Broadly, the volunteered approach is not a new issue in geographic information creation: explorers and travellers have, in the past, informed the cartographer about features of new territories and land and the latter put them on a map. However, at present, this process has obviously been speeded up by the availability of devices and networks to distribute such information. Three factors have contributed to this process: the spread (at least in industrialized and industrializing countries) of low-cost internet connections, the reduction of the positional error in global positioning and satellite systems (GNSS-GPS), and the amazingly growing diffusion of hand-held devices, which are capable of hosting the two aforementioned elements, including smart phones and tablets.

This special issue also represents an opportunity to examine the current situation of Geographic Information and related products. The issue examines the creation, diffusion, and use, through the web, of geographic information and focuses particularly on the Web 2.0 phenomenon, so as to understand how the interaction between producers and non-expert users can modify the traditional fundamentals of map making, which is one of the most ancient forms of human expression. Other than IT and spatial experts (or spatially aware professionals or academics), the issue’s topic should be attractive for people not directly dealing with such 2.0 spatial issues, but who are active as scholars in spatially related disciplines (i.e., geography, geoscientists, spatial economists, spatial planners, etc.). These scholars can contribute with a vision on the role of the “traditional” mainstream subject and their relationship with such new instruments and tools.

Finally, our special issue represents an opportunity for provocative debate and reflection on the roles of both traditional disciplines (e.g., geography, economics, planning, etc.) and of new ones (e.g., GI sciences, image processing, etc.) in comparison with the bottom-up blossoming of uncontrolled, nearly anarchical geographical expressions.

In the present special issue, we can therefore try to address the question raised by Turner in his conversation with Goodchild: how do we engage multiple groups (e.g., neogeographers, Geographers, spatial analysts, GIS specialists, planners, etc.) together? How can neogeography and other traditional disciplines and analyses interact?

Dr. Beniamino Murgante
Dr. Giuseppe Borruso
Dr. Maurizio Gibin
Dr. Maria Paradiso
Guest Editors

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