Crowdmapping humanitarian communication

Crowdmapping, participation and digital inequalitiesHumanitarian Communication's Class (prof. Pierluigi Musarò)

Department of SociologyUniversity of Bologna

October 12th, 2016

Umberto MezzacapoResearcher and Consultant

Communication, NeoGeography, Regeneration@ Ces.Co.Com

Advanced Study Center on Consumption and CommunicationUniversity of Bologna

Maps have always been a representation of the known world

A way to administrate the territory

A vision of the world

A way to conquer the world

A way to show off power

Maps as political propaganda

l Maps depend on available technologiesl Maps are just a representation of realityl Maps have always been made by a bunch of (very skilled people) commissioned by who's got the power

By the way, talking about maps, WHERE'S PEOPLE?

We're witnessing in most of western coutries:l Political disillusionl Scarce political participationl Politcal parties crisis l Societies Neoliberism-focused l Ever less participation in association (cultural, religious,

political, ect.)

On the other hand:l Ever more form of l mediated citizenshipl New public spheresl New expressions of civic engagement

General frame

We're living in a (social) network society

Facebook is leading SNs in 129 out of 137 countries with near 1,6 billion monthly active users.

Geographer Michael Goodchild name it Volunteered Geographic Information (VGI) and talks about Citizens as sensors (Goodchild, 2007)

The convergence of GPS (Global Positioning System) technologies, user-generated content on the Internet is generating a remarkable new form of geographic information

Volounteered Geography Information: what's about

There's also an unvolounteered geography which is about all the geographic informationWe produce whenever we allow, sometimes without even being aware, location-based App to track our movement (provided that your GPS on the phone is swithed on)

l VGI ranges from:l SNS (Social Networks Sites) tags

SNS based on georeferencing (Foursquare)

Tripadvisor reviews

Photo management and sharing application

To Crowdmapping and Google mapping

Crowdmapping: what's aboutCrowdmapping is a collaborative maps made through a Wiki process.Crowdmapping application can classified as shown below:

1. Those ones which use as base-layer Google Maps (recently some of them started using OpenStreetMap as base-layer), through Google API (Application Programming Interface), to visualize and locate object, phenomena, initiatives, activities, etc.(for example Ushaidi projects);

Low geographic skills and transparency, decision making process closed

Virtual Atlas like Wikimapia (base-layer Google Maps and Earth)Average geographic skills and transparency (almost) collaborative decision-making process

Those which count on users knowledge to draw cartographic layers, such as OpenStreetMap.

Higher geographic skills and TransparencyCollaborative decision-making process

My PhD research

Can crowdmapping be an expression and a way to foster civic engagement?

Case studies

l HarrasMapl OSM (HOT and Missing Map Project)l Crowdmapping Mirafiori-sudl Mappi-Nal Hushaidi Burundil Crowdmapping Mirafiori-sudl Fix my Streetl Syria Tracker

Case studies have been analysed by means of:Participant observation + interviews to project founders and crowdmappers

Qualitative approach

Netnography implemented through a: Participant observation (as a lurker)Case studiesInterviews to crowdmapping opinion leader and experts, crowdmapping platform founders, crowdmappers

Netnography: participant observation“We are working to engage all of Egyptian society to create an environment that does not tolerate sexual harassment”.

“I write and express my concerns and my thoughts without fear of the interpretation of the words or the core, the first thing that needs the idea of feminism”

“An advice for the girls: The most important thing is when you're walking in the street be up on the sidewalk and not under the sidewalk and side cars I see like many times I see someone who knocks girl sensitive areas, while when he was riding a motorcycle”

Netnography: participant observation

“Brilliant, great to see the % figure rising so rapidly. It is really encouraging. What next?”

“Congratulations guys, this is so useful!”

“Yes, I will tonight after my job and tomorrow too. Thanks”

Give 20 minutes today - your help urgently needed to help fill in the map of #Haiti areas affected by #HurricaneMatthew to help the American Red Cross respond!

First time? Watch a training video: https://www.youtube.com/playlist…

Then start mapping! http://tasks.hotosm.org/

Netnography: participant observation

“Neaples is a special place...."Are you sue that culture doesn't make economy..." Mapper: gbarbaro06

“Neaples is worldwide know for being the most beautiful and the most dirty as well...I wanna show off to the world and to my fellow citizens that's not like this... “

Just reported obscene grafitti about and hour and a half ago; walking back home the grafs are gone- well done to the FixMyStreet team and well done to Lewisham council!

Kay ThomasKay Thomas Just reported flytipping but was then sent email from council making me report it on their website too. So double the work for me

Betty EdwardsBetty Edwards This rubbish has been here two weeks or more,and more added to it, it is on the canal path, reddish bridge gorton. M18 7 JF

FixMyStreet Hi Betty, if you'd like to report this to your local council, please go to www.FixMyStreet.com and input your postcode. from there you can click on the map to show the exact positioning, and the report will go to the right council to deal with it.

Crowdmapping Mirafiori-sud

“We firstly tried to tackle digital divide in the area, especially with th help of interaction betweenYounger and older citizens (digital litieracy)...a part from it, i think the main reason why project succeded was because people got a feedback and a real commitment by Municipality”

Ushaidi Burundi

Syria Tracker offers a crisis mapping system that uses crowdsourced text, photo and video reports and data mining techniques forming a live map of the Syrian conflict since March 2011.

“Reporting Live from Syria: Fusing Citizen and Digital Diplomacy” by Hend Alhinnawi @syriatracker

Interviews to crowdmapping opinion leader and experts

“OpenStreetmap communities are like an archipelago”

“Google is a capitalist who's able to create an economy based on sharecropping of the feud it owns”

“Newcomers quite often leave after the first mapping party (OSM)”

“OSMappers are like a sect, they don't want to even hear about Google”

“i think most of crowdmappers believe no matter what: either Google or OSM, most important thing is reaching the objective”

“Very few women among crowdmappers....i don't know how come”

“It's undoubtely a form of civic engagement, even though quite often crowdmappers Participate to have fun, sometimes to compete....”

“In my opinion crowdmapping is a kind of 'egoism-altruism'”

“Digital divide is a big issue in developing countries....somehow also in developed countriesSince many people don't know how to effectively use the Internet”

“All the 'DIY' (do it yourself) creates cohesion, when peoplecollaborate to reach an objective collectively, group cohesion

increases, that's why also social capital increases. Nevertheless, in case of extremely professional activities, such as those demanded

by HOT (Humanitarian OpenStreetMap), no relationships are created, social capital neither”

Crowdmappers interviews

“Crowdmapping is a way to know more about my surrounding” “Crowdmapping is using the power of many people who can be working from different locations and at different times to build better maps remotely”

“I crowdmap to boost the local knowledge on the Internet“It's a mutual help”“There are many of us all over the world with some time and with the skills and the interest to help out”“I make it for fun, yep, basically for fun”“Because i need to map all the facilities in town that i usually use”

“Sometimes we have different option on certain issues. But we still know we have a common goal”

“The main thing in crowdmapping is crowds. The technical part is easy. If you cannot gather and get crowd involved, then there is no map. So, the main element there is to generate enough enthusiasm around an issue, an event or a cause, and sustain it for a period of time”

“Spare time is limited”

“Crowds are vital. So there are factors, such as the level of freedom in an area or the presence of a critical mass of crowdmappers and bloggers or the level of access to mobile technologies, etc. that can determine how crowdmapped a concrete area is .

“Mapping for Google is like volounteering for Coca-Cola”

“I don't participate to any typical political actions, neither do i've been member of political or cultural association. I don't vote, but i think that promoting Open Source Movement is itself making politics”

Participation and mediated citizenship

Media are a way to give voice to a group to express collective identity (Dahlgren, 2012)

Cultural citizenship (Hermes, 2007)

Civic cultures (cultural resources) > Civic agency (Dahlgren2012)

There are many ways to be citizens.

Civic identities are variable and broad-spectrum.They evolve by means of civic cultures which are heterogeneous in relation to the social environment (including the Internet) and the institutional mechanism. (Dahlgren, 2009)

Mass individualism lead to considering participation from another perspective: a private or cultural partecipation aiming at self-promoting

There's participation only when a co-decision process is ongoing (it can be concerned with contents, policy and/or technologies) or in case of subverting of producer decisions, such as hacking practices (Lievrouw 2011).


Participation more extensive than intensive (Rivolsi, 2014)

Participation depends on sociality (for example mapping party is a sociality practice which support and strenghten and express a sens of community) (Dahlgren)

Crowdmapping community are featured by an immediate sens of the “belonging” as feeling part of a group with which sharing interests and causes (mediated participation)

Relationships as affiliates rather than members.

Personalized collective action through which digital media become integral organizational parts (Bennet, 2008).


Lievrouw underlines «cultural fragmentation and radical subjectivity of postmodernity, the only tenable way forward for politicai activism is smaller, episodic, nomadic, rapid-response moments of "resistance", not revolution».

l Digital divide (inequalities)

l Accessl Social and cultural capitall Information overloadl Political, social and cultural context

Prosumption

l Prosumer Capitalism l Privacyl Googlization of the knowledge

Open vs Closed

Nevertheless, maps can still be a kind of counterpower

Bashar al-Assad regime vs Al Nusra rebels

Life politics, civic hacking and new form of participation involving more acitve players can activte new movements. We shouldn't have, on this regard,too many expectations as Arab Spring proved (Dahlgren)

Nevertheless, as Peter Dahlgren himself says:

The publically talkative, chatting society is more likely to remain democratic

than a mute one

Thank you for your attention

Umberto Mezzacapo

For any further questions/info/whatever

[email protected]