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Beyond Broadcast: Maps as Public Media/Mapping Public Media

email   discuss Posted by Jessica Clark on Mar 3, 2008 at 4:35 PM

For the past year, I’ve been tracking the evolution of participatory maps as a new form of public media, a trend I outline in an In These Times story titled “The New Cartographers.”

Maps are everywhere these days. The ubiquity of global positioning systems (GPS) and mobile directional devices, interactive mapping tools and social networks is feeding a mapping boom. Amateur geographers are assigning coordinates to everything they can get their hands on—and many things they can’t. “Locative artists” are attaching virtual installations to specific locales, generating imaginary landscapes brought vividly to life in William Gibson’s latest novel, Spook Country. Indeed, proponents of “augmented reality” suggest that soon our current reality will be one of many “layers” of information available to us as we stroll down the street. …For some, mapping has become a vibrant new language—a way to interpret the world, find like-minded folks and make fresh, sometimes radical, perspectives visible.

At Beyond Broadcast 2008: Mapping Public Media we’ll be showcasing public media projects that use mapping, data-driven visualizations and geotagging to help tell stories and form communities. We’ll also be examining the changing “map” of public media— a promising landscape of new platforms, fresh opportunities for interaction, and policy battles that can help to sustain participatory digital media for public knowledge and action.

The rapidly shifting mediascape is itself a popular topic for neogeographers—but often it’s hard to locate public media on the maps they create. Take the 2008 Web Trends Map, in which designers from the Japan-based firm iA plot 300 of the most influential web sites onto the greater Tokyo-area train map. Public broadcasting merits nary a mention. Only a few traditional media brands even make it into the picture: Disney, ESPN, ABC, The Washington Post, The New York Times, The Economist, the Wall Street Journal, LeMonde. Niche political sites make an appearance: The Huffington Post, Crooks & Liars, Daily KOS, Media Matters. And comedy, as always, has its place: The Onion, The Daily Show, Beppe Grillo’s blog. But the bulk of the sites are new and rising players, from individuals to large commercial enterprises: entertainment blogs like Go Fug Yourself and Perez Hilton, single service-oriented sites like Monster and eHarmony, and influential trendspotters like Doc Searls and Robert Scoble. What does this map tell us about the future of public media?

That’s a question I’ll be posing regularly on this blog between now and the Beyond Broadcast conference. Each week I’ll showcase a different online media map, searching for signs of public media and highlighting shifts in the larger media landscape. I hope you’ll join me here, and in DC on June 17. As always, we welcome your comments and suggestions!


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Maps are everywhere these days. The ubiquity of global positioning systems (GPS) and mobile directional devices, interactive mapping tools and social networks is feeding a mapping boom. Amateur geographers are assigning coordinates to everything they can get their hands on—and many things they can’t. “Locative artists” are attaching virtual installations to specific locales, generating imaginary landscapes brought vividly to life in William Gibson’s latest novel, Spook Country. Indeed, proponents of “augmented reality” suggest that soon our current reality will be one of many “layers” of information available to us as we stroll down the street. ...For some, mapping has become a vibrant new language—a way to interpret the world, find like-minded folks and make fresh, sometimes radical, perspectives visible. At Beyond Broadcast 2008: Mapping Public Media we'll be showcasing public media projects that use mapping, data-driven visualizations and geotagging to help tell stories and form communities. We'll also be examining the changing "map" of public media-- a promising landscape of new platforms, fresh opportunities for interaction, and policy battles that can help to sustain participatory digital media for public knowledge and action. The rapidly shifting mediascape is itself a popular topic for neogeographers--but often it's hard to locate public media on the maps they create. Take the 2008 Web Trends Map, in which designers from the Japan-based firm iA plot 300 of the most influential web sites onto the greater Tokyo-area train map. Public broadcasting merits nary a mention. Only a few traditional media brands even make it into the picture: Disney, ESPN, ABC, The Washington Post, The New York Times, The Economist, the Wall Street Journal, LeMonde. Niche political sites make an appearance: The Huffington Post, Crooks & Liars, Daily KOS, Media Matters. And comedy, as always, has its place: The Onion, The Daily Show, Beppe Grillo's blog. But the bulk of the sites are new and rising players, from individuals to large commercial enterprises: entertainment blogs like Go Fug Yourself and Perez Hilton, single service-oriented sites like Monster and eHarmony, and influential trendspotters like Doc Searls and Robert Scoble. What does this map tell us about the future of public media? That's a question I'll be posing regularly on this blog between now and the Beyond Broadcast conference. Each week I'll showcase a different online media map, searching for signs of public media and highlighting shifts in the larger media landscape. I hope you'll join me here, and in DC on June 17. As always, we welcome your comments and suggestions! http://www.centerforsocialmedia.org/blogs/beyond_broadcast/963/ ' />

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