The Urban Geographies of Tweets in Africa

This is a quick post containing a few visualisations of information densities in a selection of African cities.

Below, you can find maps of all geocoded tweets published in November 2012 in Accra, Cairo, Dar es Salaam, Cape Town, Johannesburg, Lagos, Tunis, Nairobi, Kigali, Mogadishu, and Addis Ababa.

Look for the information presences and absences; groups of people who are and aren't participating in each city. But also look at the significant differences between cities. Cities like Nairobi, Cairo, and Cape Town are swimming in thick clouds of information, whereas in Mogadishu and Addis Ababa we barely find any digital geospatial information at all. 

If you're interested in why these geographies of information might matter, then check out any the articles at the end of this post. Otherwise, enjoy the maps - and please share any insights you have about any of these cities (or let us know if there are other cities that you'd like to see mapped).

Relevant articles:

Graham, M. 2013. Virtual Geographies and Urban Environments: Big data and the ephemeral, augmented city. In Global City Challenges: debating a concept, improving the practice. eds. M. Acuto and W. Steele. London: Palgrave. (in press).

Graham, M and M. Zook. 2013. Augmented Realities and Uneven Geographies: Exploring the Geo-linguistic Contours of the Web. Environment and Planning A 45(1) 77-99.

Graham, M., M. Zook., and A. Boulton. 2012. Augmented Reality in the Urban Environment: contested content and the duplicity of code. Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers. DOI: 10.1111/j.1475-5661.2012.00539.x  

We're hiring an Internet Geographer!

We are hiring a full-time Internet Geographer at the Oxford Internet Institute!

The position is for a researcher to work with Mark Graham on a project to study and map the Geographies of the Internet. This is an exciting role in which the researcher will both gather and analyse a range of Internet-related data and develop innovative and beautiful ways to visualise them.

It is important to understand who produces and reproduces, who has access to, and who  and where are represented by information in our contemporary knowledge economy. Building on existing work conducted at the Oxford Internet Institute, this project proposes a comprehensive mapping of contemporary geographies of the Internet using both primary and secondary data (examples of data that we propose to map include geographies of academic journals, intellectual property imports vs. exports, patents, Wikipedia edits and contributions, networks of Twitter mentions and followers, Facebook users, information takedown requests, contested articles in Wikipedia, content indexed in Google etc.).

This one-year project will be divided into four stages. First, we will bring together and start collecting all necessary data. While some of the data are readily available in existing and open datasets, others require the creation of custom scripts and data collection tools. Second, we will use GIS and statistical packages to comprehensively analyse the data. Third, we will create visually appealing and state-of-the-art graphics and maps that clearly convey the geographies of access, information production, and information representation. Finally, we will broadly disseminate this work in a variety of open and accessible formats including free and interactive ebooks, an interactive website, a printed atlas, and academic journal articles. There may also be opportunities to gain teaching experience in some of the methods classes offered at the OII.

Candidates should have a keen interest in the geographies of the Internet, a passion for visualising and disseminating results, and an exemplary record of creative activity or scholarly research. The successful applicant will demonstrate an ability to collect online data with scripting tools, analyse large datasets with GIS tools, and visualise results in both static and interactive formats. 

We welcome applications from candidates who are additionally keen to design a future research programme in Internet Geographies in order to extend the position. Based at the Oxford Internet Institute, this position is available immediately for 12 months in the first instance, with the possibility of renewal thereafter funding permitting. 

For more details, please check out the application link and related job description and selection criteria:

https://www.recruit.ox.ac.uk/pls/hrisliverecruit/erq_jobspec_version_4.jobspec?p_id=105781

Please also feel free to get in touch with any questions about the position. 

Relevant links:

Internet Geographies OII project page

OII Visualisation site

Our floatingsheep.org blog

Recent academic publications

Recent Guardian contributions