This document discusses how the Los Angeles Metropolitan Transportation Authority blog The Source used data from the Census Bureau's LED OnTheMap tool to engage the public in debates around two transportation projects through Web 2.0 platforms. For the Wilshire Bus Rapid Transit project, the blog used LED data visualizations to illustrate high job and population density along the corridor. For the Westside Subway Extension, the blog compared job densities around two proposed Century City stations to help the public understand the issues. By making Census data accessible on blogs and maps, the Authority was able to fuel online discussion and encourage participatory planning.
The Rise of Platforms: findings, questions, challenges, and opportunities for...Rasmus Kleis Nielsen
We know that platforms are increasingly integral to at least a small part of almost everything almost everybody does almost everywhere, including many parts of political communication processes, from the production of content, over its distribution, to its consumption, to the actions that follows next. Simply put, if we don’t study platforms, we are studying the past, not the present and future of political communication. Our field brings much to this with its emphasis on both short-term individual-level attitudinal and behavioral effects and the study of longer-term institutional implications. To pursue these research opportunities we have to (1) handle challenges of methods and access to data, (2) the fact that political communication is a small part of very, very large platforms, and (3) get beyond our comfort zone and read more scholarship from outside political communication.
The Power of Platforms - Inaugural lecture by Rasmus Kleis Nielsen, U of OxfordRasmus Kleis Nielsen
Platform companies like Facebook, Google, Twitter and others like them are amongst the driving forces in a profound transformation of our societies. This lecture focuses on the distinct forms of “platform power” that they exercise. It identifies five key aspects of platform power (standards, connections, automated action at scale, secrecy, and fungibility) and show how platform power is profoundly enabling, transformative, and productive, animated by how platforms empower other actors while also making them more dependent. Platform power is deeply relational and not a sovereign power that platform companies possess and can use at their pleasure—but it is a form of power nonetheless, tied to the institutional and strategic interests of platform companies themselves, and driving a structural transformation in our media environment and political life.
The Rise of Platforms: findings, questions, challenges, and opportunities for...Rasmus Kleis Nielsen
We know that platforms are increasingly integral to at least a small part of almost everything almost everybody does almost everywhere, including many parts of political communication processes, from the production of content, over its distribution, to its consumption, to the actions that follows next. Simply put, if we don’t study platforms, we are studying the past, not the present and future of political communication. Our field brings much to this with its emphasis on both short-term individual-level attitudinal and behavioral effects and the study of longer-term institutional implications. To pursue these research opportunities we have to (1) handle challenges of methods and access to data, (2) the fact that political communication is a small part of very, very large platforms, and (3) get beyond our comfort zone and read more scholarship from outside political communication.
The Power of Platforms - Inaugural lecture by Rasmus Kleis Nielsen, U of OxfordRasmus Kleis Nielsen
Platform companies like Facebook, Google, Twitter and others like them are amongst the driving forces in a profound transformation of our societies. This lecture focuses on the distinct forms of “platform power” that they exercise. It identifies five key aspects of platform power (standards, connections, automated action at scale, secrecy, and fungibility) and show how platform power is profoundly enabling, transformative, and productive, animated by how platforms empower other actors while also making them more dependent. Platform power is deeply relational and not a sovereign power that platform companies possess and can use at their pleasure—but it is a form of power nonetheless, tied to the institutional and strategic interests of platform companies themselves, and driving a structural transformation in our media environment and political life.
Online Petitioning Through Data Exploration and What We Found There: A Datase...Pablo Aragón
Dataset paper presented at ICWSM-18:
The Internet has become a fundamental resource for activism as it facilitates political mobilization at a global scale. Petition platforms are a clear example of how thousands of people around the world can contribute to social change. Avaaz.org, with a presence in over 200 countries, is one of the most popular of this type. However, little research has focused on this platform, probably due to a lack of available data.
In this work we retrieved more than 350K petitions, standardized their field values, and added new information using language detection and named-entity recognition. To motivate future research with this unique repository of global protest, we present a first exploration of the dataset. In particular, we examine how social media campaigning is related to the success of petitions, as well as some geographic and linguistic findings about the worldwide community of Avaaz.org. We conclude with example research questions that could be addressed with our dataset.
Social media has emerged as a powerful communication channel to promote actions and raise social awareness. Initiatives through social media are being driven by NGOs to increase the scope and effectiveness of their campaigns. In this paper, we describe the DaTactic2 campaign, which is both an offline and online initiative supported by Oxfam Intermón devised to gather activists and NGOs practitioners and create awareness on the importance of the 2014 European Parliament election. We provide details regarding the background of the campaign, as well as the objectives, the strategies that have been implemented and an empirical evaluation of its performance through an analysis of the impact on Twitter. Our findings show the effectiveness of bringing together relevant actors in an offline event and the high value of creating multimedia content in order to increase the scope and virality of the campaign.
Crowd-Sourced Mapping for Open GovernmentMicah Altman
The Program on Information Science is pleased to continue a series of brown bag lunch talks addressing topics from preservation storage technology, to University Library hiring practices, to "3D Printing," with speakers from MIT and beyond.
Title: Crowd Source Mapping for Open Government
Discussant: Dr. Micah Altman, Director of Research, MIT Libraries
This talk reflects on lessons learned about open data, public participation, technology, and data management from conducting crowd-sourced election mapping efforts.
Three key points for news and media in 2018
1) Distributed discovery increasingly important, and social and search expose people to more sources of news, but brand recognition is low
2) Confidence in both social media and news media is low and people’s sense of what constitutes “fake news” is not what you think it is
3) The role of platforms is evolving as social media remains critical fr news but we see a shift to more ‘private’ messaging apps (is voice next?)
Gender differences in OpenStreetMap contributor activitiy, editing and taggin...Zoe Gardner
This paper presents some preliminary results from an online survey of globally distributed OpenStreetMap users. The survey enabled access to 293 user’s statistics collated on the ‘how did you contribute to OSM’ wiki page which were then analysed by gender. The results show that men are more active and contribute significantly more data in each category of editing and tagging than their female counterparts. Men are also more likely to modify existing edits and contribute to a wider range of tagging categories, with women demonstrating a preference to add new data concentrated in fewer categories.
What Actor-Network Theory (ANT) and digital methods can do for data journalis...Liliana Bounegru
Slides from a talk I gave at the University of Ghent on 21 October 2014 about how Actor-Network Theory (ANT) and digital methods can be used to study and inform data journalism.
Characterizing Online Participation in Civic Technologies - PhDPablo Aragón
This thesis constitutes one of the first investigations focused on characterizing online participation in civic technologies, a type of platform increasingly popular on the Internet that allows citizens new forms, on a larger scale, of political participation. Given the opportunities of civic technologies in democratic governance, it should be noted that their design, like that of any online platform, is not neutral. The ways in which information is presented or interaction between users is allowed can greatly alter the results of participation. For this reason, we analyze the impact of different interventions in civic technologies in relation to online conversation views, ordering criteria for ranking petitions, and deliberative interfaces. Since these interventions were carried out by the corresponding development teams, the analyses have required to develop novel computational and statistical methods, while also extending generative models of discussion threads to better characterise the dynamics of online conversations. Results of the different case studies highlight the social and political impact of these interventions, suggesting new directions for future research and the need to develop a paradigm of citizen experimentation for democracy.
Draft of presentation given by representatives from UCLA Transportation and Zimride, a Silicon Valley-based technology company focused on sustainable transportation
Online Petitioning Through Data Exploration and What We Found There: A Datase...Pablo Aragón
Dataset paper presented at ICWSM-18:
The Internet has become a fundamental resource for activism as it facilitates political mobilization at a global scale. Petition platforms are a clear example of how thousands of people around the world can contribute to social change. Avaaz.org, with a presence in over 200 countries, is one of the most popular of this type. However, little research has focused on this platform, probably due to a lack of available data.
In this work we retrieved more than 350K petitions, standardized their field values, and added new information using language detection and named-entity recognition. To motivate future research with this unique repository of global protest, we present a first exploration of the dataset. In particular, we examine how social media campaigning is related to the success of petitions, as well as some geographic and linguistic findings about the worldwide community of Avaaz.org. We conclude with example research questions that could be addressed with our dataset.
Social media has emerged as a powerful communication channel to promote actions and raise social awareness. Initiatives through social media are being driven by NGOs to increase the scope and effectiveness of their campaigns. In this paper, we describe the DaTactic2 campaign, which is both an offline and online initiative supported by Oxfam Intermón devised to gather activists and NGOs practitioners and create awareness on the importance of the 2014 European Parliament election. We provide details regarding the background of the campaign, as well as the objectives, the strategies that have been implemented and an empirical evaluation of its performance through an analysis of the impact on Twitter. Our findings show the effectiveness of bringing together relevant actors in an offline event and the high value of creating multimedia content in order to increase the scope and virality of the campaign.
Crowd-Sourced Mapping for Open GovernmentMicah Altman
The Program on Information Science is pleased to continue a series of brown bag lunch talks addressing topics from preservation storage technology, to University Library hiring practices, to "3D Printing," with speakers from MIT and beyond.
Title: Crowd Source Mapping for Open Government
Discussant: Dr. Micah Altman, Director of Research, MIT Libraries
This talk reflects on lessons learned about open data, public participation, technology, and data management from conducting crowd-sourced election mapping efforts.
Three key points for news and media in 2018
1) Distributed discovery increasingly important, and social and search expose people to more sources of news, but brand recognition is low
2) Confidence in both social media and news media is low and people’s sense of what constitutes “fake news” is not what you think it is
3) The role of platforms is evolving as social media remains critical fr news but we see a shift to more ‘private’ messaging apps (is voice next?)
Gender differences in OpenStreetMap contributor activitiy, editing and taggin...Zoe Gardner
This paper presents some preliminary results from an online survey of globally distributed OpenStreetMap users. The survey enabled access to 293 user’s statistics collated on the ‘how did you contribute to OSM’ wiki page which were then analysed by gender. The results show that men are more active and contribute significantly more data in each category of editing and tagging than their female counterparts. Men are also more likely to modify existing edits and contribute to a wider range of tagging categories, with women demonstrating a preference to add new data concentrated in fewer categories.
What Actor-Network Theory (ANT) and digital methods can do for data journalis...Liliana Bounegru
Slides from a talk I gave at the University of Ghent on 21 October 2014 about how Actor-Network Theory (ANT) and digital methods can be used to study and inform data journalism.
Characterizing Online Participation in Civic Technologies - PhDPablo Aragón
This thesis constitutes one of the first investigations focused on characterizing online participation in civic technologies, a type of platform increasingly popular on the Internet that allows citizens new forms, on a larger scale, of political participation. Given the opportunities of civic technologies in democratic governance, it should be noted that their design, like that of any online platform, is not neutral. The ways in which information is presented or interaction between users is allowed can greatly alter the results of participation. For this reason, we analyze the impact of different interventions in civic technologies in relation to online conversation views, ordering criteria for ranking petitions, and deliberative interfaces. Since these interventions were carried out by the corresponding development teams, the analyses have required to develop novel computational and statistical methods, while also extending generative models of discussion threads to better characterise the dynamics of online conversations. Results of the different case studies highlight the social and political impact of these interventions, suggesting new directions for future research and the need to develop a paradigm of citizen experimentation for democracy.
Draft of presentation given by representatives from UCLA Transportation and Zimride, a Silicon Valley-based technology company focused on sustainable transportation
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Artificial intelligence (AI) is everywhere, promising self-driving cars, medical breakthroughs, and new ways of working. But how do you separate hype from reality? How can your company apply AI to solve real business problems?
Here’s what AI learnings your business should keep in mind for 2017.
2013 Talk on Informatics tools for public transport re cities and healthPatrick Sunter
A presentation at the 2013 meeting of the UniMelb-based "Transport, Health & Chronic Diseases Research Network", on 13 Nov, 2013 (See http://cwhgs.unimelb.edu.au/knowledge/knowledge
). Talk title:- 'Some Remarks on Issues around Data and Tools for Understanding Public Transport Networks from My PhD Work'.
Social media in Local Government a few examples - and ways aheadIngrid Koehler
This is an incomplete presentation - there are more examples that we know about, but just haven't put in yet. Feel free to drop some in the comments though.
Summary of social media techniques and applications that can be used to improve the public involvement process in urban and transport planning. Including reporting applications, serious games, collaboration tools, educational applications and supporting tools.
For more information, see http://reliefline.ca
Do not include any personal information as all posted material on this site is considered to be part of a public record as defined by section 27 of the Municipal Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act.
We reserve the right to remove inappropriate comments. Please see Terms of Use for City of Toronto Social Media Sites at http://www.toronto.ca/e-updates/termsofuse.htm.
For my final year project I used data analysis techniques to investigate user behavior pattern recognition in respect of similar interests and culture versus offline geographical location. This was an out-of-the-box topic, which I selected due to my love on Data Analysis, in respect of the Social Network Analysis in the Internet era.
Creative Uses of Census LED Data in a Web 2.0 World
1. Creative Uses of LED Data to Engage the Public in a Web 2.0 World Sirinya Tritipeskul | Blogger, The Source | Los Angeles Metropolitan Transportation Authority March 8, 2011| LED Partnership Workshop 2011
2. Background: About The Source Official blog of the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority Publishes hard news, lifestyle, and research-based features Seeks to Influence and democratize public discourse on planning and operation issues by providing facts & analysis Be an active participant on the social web to shape message in 24-7 media environment Serve as a news information source to the public, other media outlets URL: www.thesource.metro.net
3. Today’s Presentation Share & discuss creative uses of LED data Case Study #1: Wilshire Bus Rapid Transit project Case Study #2: Westside Subway Extension Connecting the Dots The nexus between LED, Web 2.0 and participatory planning Recommendations Acknowledgments
4. 8.6 mile-long bus only lane along busiest corridor west of Mississippi Case Study #1Wilshire Bus Rapid Transit Project
5. Case Study #1: Issues Condo owners along one mile stretch of corridor sought project exemption Wilshire Corridor is jobs and population dense, but the extent was unclear Lots of debate in online media Source: http://www.uglyangel.net/2010/06/up-in-air.html
6. Case Study #1: Solution Produce blog entry using LED database and LED OnTheMaptool to study and produce high quality data visualizations of job and population density along corridor Go beyond table or graph
7. Case Study #1: Solution (cont.) Produced blog entry with line bar chart illustrating jobs within half mile radius of stop Source: Center for Transit Oriented Development
8. Case Study #1: Solution (cont) Screenshots of 3-D visualizations of jobs within mile of Wilshire Boulevard -Downloaded data in Keyhole Markup Language (KML) -Opened in Google Earth
9. Case Study #1: Solution (cont) 3D Tour of jobs density along Wilshire Corridor
10. Case Study #1: Solution (cont) Created Google Maps Mashup Combined LED data and information about jobs, population at Rapid bus stops along corridor onto interactive Google Map
11. 9.6 mile extension of Purple Line, primarily along Wilshire to Westside Case Study #2: Westside Subway Extension
12. Case Study #2: Issues Controversy over station placement in Century City, LA’s second downtown: Santa Monica and Avenue of the Stars: May be an active fault along Santa Monica Boulevard Constellation and Avenue of the Stars Constructing stop at Constellation necessitates tunneling beneath high school, which is opposed by area residents
13. Case Study #2: Solution Quantify differential in jobs within quarter-, half-, and one-mile radius of two proposed stations in a blog entry Illustrate which job centers are served by fixed rail transit
14. Case Study #2: Solution Jobs density in Los Angeles County Fixed route rail added as an overlay
15. Case Study #2: Solution 3D view of jobs density in Century City Circle delineates jobs within ¼ mile radius of Constellation and Avenue of the Stars station
16. Case Study #2: Methodology Used OnTheMap tool to extract job data across Los Angeles County and at the two proposed station locations Downloaded in KML and Excel Opened in KML Google Earth to take screenshot Opened in Excel to obtain numerical data
22. The nexus between the LED, Web 2.0 and participatory planning Connecting the Dots
23. The partial answer Web 2.0 tools such as American FactFinder and OnTheMap democratize planning, public engagement Census tools help journalists contribute constructive information to public dialogue about issues
24. What does it mean to be in a Web 2.0 world? Web as a participatory platform Information sharing is abundant Interactivity: Rise of Social Media Facebook Twitter Blogs E-mail listservs Flickr YouTube
25. What does it mean to be in a Web 2.0 world? (cont.) Heightened expectations of transparency and customer service, including in our government
26. Broadened scope of public engagement Hyper local and subject specific blogs allow comments, multi-way dialogue on issues of the day
28. Acknowledgments LED OnTheMap team Colleen Flannery Census Bureau American FactFinder team The Source Editor Steve Hymon
29. Links Wilshire BRT story: http://thesource.metro.net/2010/11/17/a-closer-look-at-jobs-and-population-along-wilshire-boulevard/ Century City story http://thesource.metro.net/2010/12/10/a-closer-look-at-job-centers-in-los-angeles-county-including-century-city/ My contact information http://sirinya.tritipeskul.com
Editor's Notes
Note: Wilshire Corridor is pictured on your right
By understanding social media, leverage high quality data visualizations to make an impactA lot of sm is viewsSome of it is newsBut not a lot of researched and based in high quality dataSo LED and your research is a major opportunity
Garcetti 311 – iPhone app for reporting gov service delivery issues, such as potholesHow is Toronto Doing? Performance measurement reporting from Canada.