Mapping the Spatial Diffusion of Innovations in Cyberspace and the Distortion Effects via Different Social Media Communication Channels Ming-Hsiang (Ming) Tsou Professor (Geography), San Diego State University, PI of “Mapping Ideas” project. Co-PIs: Dr. Dipak K Gupta (Political Science), Dr. Jean Marc Gawron (Linguistic), Dr. Brian Spitzberg (Communication), Dr. Li An (Geography) San Diego State University, USA Position paper for CyberGIS’12. The University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, IL August 7, 2012 (Research Symposium) (NCSA Auditorium)

Special thank to our wonderful graduate students and undergraduates: Current (2012): Ph.D. Students: Ick Hoi (Rick) Kim, Jiue-An (Jay) Yang, Sarah Wandersee, Ninghua Wang. Master Students: Daniel Lusher, Anna Nagel, Nicole Stotz, Undergraduates: Alejandra Coronado : Kellen Stephens, Ting-Hwan Lee, Amit Nagesh, Vickie Mellos, Jennifer Smith, Luke Kemper, James Banker.

THE INNOVATION DIFFUSION MODEL (E. Rogers, 1962): Diffusion: “a special type of communication concerned with the spread of messages that are perceived as new ideas ” (E. Rogers, p. 35). Torsten Hägerstrand, Torsten Hägerstrand, 1953 – Doctoral Dissertation - Culture Diffusion Innovation Diffusion as a Spatial Process. DIFFUSION OF INNOVATIONS Public (Mass Media, TV, News) vs. Private (Personal Communications)

Source: media-and-wall-street-protests Can we apply this diffusion theory in Cyberspace? Example: Occupy Wall Street ?

Mapping Social Media and “Ideas” on Digital Earth. Can we create a “new method” to understand and analyze social activities, ideas, and human communications on our digital Earth? (revealing the invisible world)? Similar to the “remote sensing satellites” or “social radar” to monitor human activities on our Earth. This new method will help us to detect: Hot spots of ideas, events, or concepts. (social storms?) Dynamic changes of social activities, ideas, events, and social movements. (change of social weather maps) Image created by Ming-Hsiang Tsou (NSF-CDI project) The location of 1000 web pages with keyword “white powers” from Yahoo Search Engine on October 15, Create “ Social Weather Maps ”? (monitoring social “temperature” changes, social “storms”…)

Spatial Web Automatic Reasoning and Mapping System (SWARMS ) prototype

Information Communication Channels in Cyberspace Web Pages ( Semi-Public Information Communication ) Social Media (Twitter: Semi-Private Information Communication) Web Pages: Use Web Search Engines (Google, Yahoo, and Bing) to retrieve up to 1,000 web pages per keyword. Then analyze their contents associated with their ranks and geolocations. Social Media (Tweets): Use Twitter APIs to retrieve tweets based on Keywords or #Hashtag and geolocations (self-defined home-towns or GPS locations).

“Burn Koran” Web Information Landscape “Burn Koran” Web Information Landscape The kernel density of “burn Koran” points (keyword search results) from 1000 associated websites (red dots) Yahoo search engine on January 30, The kernel density of 50,000 web pages from 300 random keywords. (Baseline map) Baseline (average) of Web Information Landscape “burn Koran” of Web Information Landscape Differential of Web Information Landscape

Twitter  An online social networking service  A micro-blogging service  Created in March, 2006  Reached 300 million users as of 2011  Over 300 million tweets per day  Over 1.6 billion search queries per day Twitter Application Programming Interface (API)  For software to communicate with other programs  Search API: query for Twitter content + spatial query function.  Streaming API: real-time data trend mining Social Media (Tweets) –Semi-Private Communication : Use Twitter APIs to retrieve tweets based on Keywords or #Hashtag and geolocations (self-defined home-towns or GPS locations).

Center: , Radius: 180 miles Limitations: 1.Spatial Search can only trace back up to seven days. (Regular search can trace back to 14 days.) 2.Each search results can not exceed 1500 tweets.

Sometimes the one day before tweets% is closer to the actual election results. Ron Paul % has very big “distortion” comparing to the actual results.

All cyberspace maps are “distorted from the real world due to the “projection methods” -- communication methods or media characteristics. Real World Different Projection Methods (Distortion) What kinds of “distortion”? Correct the distortion effects Explanation Space-Time Analysis Prediction? Different Topics

Thank You Award # (four years ) Funded by NSF Cyber-Enabled Discovery and Innovation (CDI) program. Award # (four years ) Epilogue: Big Brother (1984)? What types of ethical and civil-liberty implications (in terms of privacy, security and human rights) will need to be considered in the context of Web surveillance technologies and the analytical tools of web and social media?