Community Informatics

This study examines the dynamics of local community gatherings facilitated by EventBased Social Networking platforms, a growing mode of social interaction in urban settings. While these platforms are increasingly used to organize real-world events, limited research has explored the factors that shape the success of these events across diverse city environments and how local socio-spatial contexts influence participation and engagement.

This study investigates how the relationships between cities are represented in local news by analyzing co-mentions of cities in 31,004 news articles from Alabama. Using a large language model, we extract geographic references and construct co-mention networks that reflect both spatial proximity and symbolic connections. To interpret these links, we develop a classification framework of relationships between cities, including common impacts and sequential dynamics. Our preliminary analysis reveals that different news categories produce distinct patterns of spatial association.

A wide range of studies has explored historical events and their long-term impacts, with urban redevelopment, particularly in the contexts of urban renewal, gentrification, and redlining, emerging as a rich area of research. However, despite extensive attention to its causes and consequences, quantifying how urban structures have changed over time remains methodologically challenging, as scanned historical maps contain visual noise and annotation.

People with disabilities (PWD) and their family members often find it difficult to find information about available services. One of the approaches to address this information access problem is by understanding the ecology of available information sources. However, identifying the landscape of information sources is challenging due to the variety of sources and their varying visibility. This study proposes a computational approach to processing open-ended survey answers by constructing a hierarchical taxonomy of information sources.

Purpose: This study investigated the relationship among information awareness, access, and socioeconomic deprivation in the context of local health information. Drawing on theories of information poverty and the digital divide, this study examined how socio-economic deprivation influences individuals’ ability to become aware of and access local health information.