Network Nations

From Teachiwiki

Schouten and Engelhardt discuss network mapping and data visualization, relating it to how the visual representation of different abstract concepts may create a more accessible format for people to tap into, and to eventually better understand and determine the significant metadata, from the excess. This medium is made successful when approached on an interdisciplinary level, pulling pieces of information and technique from different fields of study, and often creating a multimedia-based and interactive interface. (Is it more control that the user has over the site or outcome, or is it an actual level of interaction between the user and the interface that effects level of success?)

three projects are highlighted:
City'O'Scope
http://www.macrofocus.com/public/about.html
http://www.macrofocus.com/public/products.html
-this project's data was collected only once, or, "at a fixed moment in time and is therefore more or less static." (p64) This is an example of a similarity chart, items with similar characteristics are grouped together, and are placed in closed proximation to each other; contrastly, data with dissimilar features is presented further away from each other.

Newsmap
http://www.marumushi.com/apps/newsmap/index.cfm
-this is basically a streaming map of google news and global news coverage, the site collects data throughout the day as it is created within the networks of mass media, allowing a visual representation of news coverage in different countries to be constantly compared/comparable. As the map makes visible different patterns of coverage in various countries, those amounts of coverage for different topics becomes more clear, as color coding and a treemap setup is utilized. "A treemap is based on the proportional division of a display surface into sub-surfaces, where the surface areas stand up for quantitative attribute in the represented domain...ideal for visualizing quantitative proportions within hierarchically-nested data structures." (65)

Logicaland
http://www.logicaland.net/0.1/index.php?sid=ee080e36b07d5826afd65cd3cef45efb
http://www.logicaland.net/info.html
-from what i can gather, this seems like a gaming inspired-wikipedia participation style mapping of worldwide information. Three different views of the same data can be seen, and changes to specific countries can be made mid-mapping (i think, that's what it seems like from the description.) the fact that there are unlimited users/participants (hence collaborators) was a main focus for the development of the project; whose primary goal is, "to engage people into strategies of raising human sensibility and responsibility within the global networked society. the challenge is to develop ideas, tools and visualizations that fit the requirements of complex correlating systems and our world's complex participative environment.." (from logicland.net/info.html)

All the projects, including many of those encountered while looking the book's examples up, share the goal in presenting the networks of power and connectivity that realistically exist on a global level in a multi-dimensional and user-geared/interactive format.

The chapter highlights several interaction principles/techniques in order to discuss how different visualization elements can encourage different kinds of use/exchanges among users. Segwaying into the significance of visualizations as a separate element almost, and how these tools are aiding in the transformation of the map--or the exercise of mapping--to become not only a physical representation of place or a way of archiving personal memory, "they are becoming tools of communication and collaboration," (p67) exposing what may have appeared to be invisible before, as well as working to demystify what does exist within the layers of these networks of power, trade, finances and general existance.