+

Gendering the GeoWeb Analysing demographic difference in user

generated geographic information

Monica Stephens, University of Arizona (USA) Antonella Rondinone, Università di Siena (Italy)

Annual Meeting New York, February 24 -28, 2012

Producing Web 2.0

United Kingdom

Poland

Germany

Netherlands

France

Russia

Spain

UkraineBEL

Italy

CZE

Switzerland

NOR

Austria

SWE

Romania

LTU

DNK

SVN

EST

Bulgaria

BIH

FIN

Serbia

Greece

HRV

SVKHUN

IRL

United States

Canada

Mexico

JapanIndia

ChinaAZETUR

ISR

Nepal

PAKIran PHL

IDN

THA

MMR

BGD

MYS

SouthAfrica

Kenya

ETHMali

Brazil

ARGChile

Africa27,666articles

North America and Caribbean342,297 articles

S. America26,812articles

Europe775,867articles

Asia124,365 articles

Australia NZLOceania           37,749 articles

Antarctica7,833 articles

size of20,000articles

1,000 ­ 5,000 articles per million people 100 ­ 999 articles per million people Fewer than 100 articles per million people 

More than 5,000 articles per million people 

Geotagged articles per person

Distribution of Wikipedia Articles

Geographic Distribution of User-Generated Content in Google

United States

Canada

Germany

United Kingdom

Netherlands

France

Poland

Italy

Russia

Spain Switzerland

BEL

SWE

Austria Hungry

Norway

Denmark

CZE

IRL

SVK

PRT

FIN

ROU

EST

GRC

HRV

UKR

LVA

BGR

ZAF

MexicoPeru

BrazilARGCHL

JapanKorea

China

Australia

IND

THA MYS

TUR

NZL

PHLIDN

1 millionlinks to 

GeoreferencedContent

Fewer than 5,000 websitesper million people

*Nations with less than 60,000 hits were removed from this map.

Latin America& Caribbean

Africa

EuropeAsia &Pacific

More than 150,000 websites

per million people

Digital Divide   Access to Technology

  Distribution of Resources

  Digital Literacy

  Economic Divisions

“The enormous virtual dimension to place has been created by specific demographic

segments, and as a consequence many opinions and viewpoints have likely been left unsaid, just as many places remain virtually

hidden and invisible.” M. Graham (2009)

+ How are men and women contributing information differently?

Information is beautiful: Who rules the social web (2009)

  42% of all American adults use Wikipedia for information (53% of internet users)1

  Wikipedia readers (30.5% female, 69% male)2

  Wikipedia contributors (12.6% female, 86.7% male)2

  OpenStreetMap contributors (3% female, 96% male)3

  Twitter users (55% female, 45% male)4

  Facebook users (48->54% female, 42.5% male)5,7

  Foursquare users (60% female, 40% male)6

  Google+ (13% female, 87% male)8

  Flickr (55% female, 45% male)9

Gender divisions in user-generated content

+ How are men and women contributing geographic information differently?

Geographic user-generated content Female Male

Tagged a picture on Flickr or Picasa? 47% 39%

Tagged a picture on a social network? 77% 68%

Female Male Uploaded a picture taken with an integrated GPS device to a social network 37% 46% Uploaded a picture taken with an integrated GPS device to a photosharing service 37% 27%

geotagged a picture on a social network 26% 41%

geotagged a picture on Flickr or Picasa 40% 30%

Female Male

Open Street Map - Create new maps 19% 34%

Google Maps - Create new maps 23% 19%

Open Street Map - Contribute to existing maps 19% 41%

Google Maps? - Contribute to existing maps 4% 8%

NON-GEOGRAPHIC: FEMALES CONTRIBUTE

WEB CARTOGRAPHIC DEVELOPMENT: MOSTLY MALE GENERATED CONTENT

WEB APPLICATIONS PRODUCING GEOGRAPHIC CONTENT: FEW FEMALES CONTRIBUTE

Based on a survey of 1175 responses; 557 men, 548 women, 70 other; slight bias towards higher education

We define VGI as “that subset of [user-generated content] that

concerns the characterization of the geographic domain”

S. Elwood, M. Goodchild & D. Sui, 2011

“Voluntereed” Geographic Information

Digital footprints Users

unknowingly produce

geographic information

Toll Booth transponders, cell phones, IP

Mapping, Credit Cards, etc

Web applications that produce geolocalized information

Users unintentionally

produce geographic information

Social networks, Photosharing

etc.

Web cartographic application

Users intentionally

create or contribute to geographic information

OpenStreetMap, Google Maps, Wikimapia etc.

Categorized by degree of intention by those who generate it

+

χ2 Unintentional VGI α = 0.01 χ2 Test statistic = 29.9536 Critical χ2 value = 20.51500 P-value = .00001

χ2 All user-generated content (cartographic and non-cartographic) α = 0.01 χ2 test statistic =103.168 Critical χ2 value = 26.1245 p-value = 0.00000

footprints cartographic non-cartographic

VGI Contributions by Gender

χ2 cartographic Information α = 0.01 χ2 test statistic = 53.2095 Critical χ2 value = 20.5150 p-value = 0.00000

I don't like the idea of annoynmous knowing where I am at any paticular moment.

Reasons for not contributing geotagged social data:

Female men

Privacy 24% 16%

Do not know how to do ‘it’ 28% 15%

No need/no interest 37% 46%

Lack of technology 5% 11%

Other 7% 12%

Of males and females participating in social networking sites

Reasons for not contributing to web-cartographic applications: Female Male

I don’t know what to do with it 18% 6%

I don’t need it 16% 4%

I don’t have time 5% 3%

Of those aware of cartographic opportunities in OSM and GoogleMap

Reasons for contributing to OpenStreetMap: Female Male It is useful for me 82% 80%

It can be useful to somebody else 25% 51%

It is fun to contribute 36% 51%

Of those who have contributed to OpenStreetMap

I don't like the idea of annoynmous knowing where I am at any paticular moment.

Reasons for not contributing geotagged social data:

Female men

Privacy 24% 16%

Do not know how to do ‘it’ 28% 15%

No need/no interest 37% 46%

Lack of technology 5% 11%

Other 7% 12%

Of males and females participating in social networking sites

Reasons for not contributing to web-cartographic applications: Female Male

I don’t know what to do with it 18% 6%

I don’t need it 16% 4%

I don’t have time 5% 3%

Of those aware of cartographic opportunities in OSM and GoogleMap

Reasons for contributing to OpenStreetMap: Female Male It is useful for me 82% 80%

It can be useful to somebody else 25% 51%

It is fun to contribute 36% 51%

Of those who have contributed to OpenStreetMap

“Private things should belong to private space and information once given to the internet can never be deleted.” – Anonymous female respondent explaining why she doesn’t contribute social information

“Because it is community created rather than a commercial product”--Anonymous male respondent explaining why he contributes to OpenStreetMap

“The exclusion and under-representation of information from

and about marginalized people and places in existing data records is linked to the ensuing exclusion of

their needs and priorities from policy and decision making processes”

S. Elwood, 2008

Results:  User generated content is unevenly distributed

geographically

 This has implication on how places are represented

 Women are volunteering non geographic social information on the internet but are not intentionally volunteering geographic information even within a social context

 Men are the primary constructors of the world view that is represented by volunteered geographic information

 Women are loosing in this contest of describing/constructing the material world in virtual space

Special Thanks:   School of Geography & Development, University of Arizona   Graduate and Professional Student Council, University of Arizona   Università di Siena, Italy   Università di Firenze, Italy   Vespucci Initiative for Volunteered Geographic Information, Italy   New Mappings Collaboratory, University of Kentucky

mstephe@email.arizona.edu rondinone@unisi.it