Geospatial

Local News at a Distance: Psychological Distance and the Formation of News Deserts

News deserts, geographical areas with little or no local news due to a lack of resources or news organizations, pose challenges to civic engagement and democratic life (Abernathy, 2023). Local news not only documents events but also shapes public perception of space and place in particular times by connecting geographic locations through stories. This paper proposes a framework linking news deserts to psychological distance using Construal-Level Theory (CLT) (Trope & Liberman, 2010).

Predicting the Success of Local Gatherings: A Comparison of Organizer- and Participant-side Success in Meetup

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.

Spatial Dynamics of Local News: Mapping City Co-Mentions in Alabama

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.

Quantifying Urban Change across U.S. Cities using the 1930s Redlining Maps: A Preliminary Study

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.

News Deserts as Information Problems: A Case Study of Local News Coverage in Alabama

This paper explores the phenomenon of news deserts as information problems to navigate research opportunities and theorize its dynamics. Drawing on the theory of local information landscapes, news deserts are conceptualized as more than merely an absence of news organizations or content; rather, emphasizing the structural and material dimensions of local news ecosystems, such as fragmentation, transience, and inconsistent distribution. We argue that news deserts should be understood as material pre-conditions of people’s access, interpretation, and engagement with information.

SAFETI: Strategic Analysis for Fine-granular Injury and Fatality PrEvenTion Insight

SAFETI is the first Mason–DOLI Innovation Lab initiative that turns more than 15 years of detailed Virginia workplace-accident records into forward-looking, preventive insights. Using predictive models, the computational approach developed for SAFETI estimates the likelihood of a fatality occurring within a specific time frame and sector, along with its associated probability. This shift from reactive to preventive measures is enabled by advanced spatio-temporal and predictive analytics.

Visualizing Local Information Inequality in South Korea: An AI-Based Approach Using Public Library Data

The goal of the project is to understand information inequality across geographical regions in South Korea and visualize them using an AI-backed visualization tool. Our plan, spanning three years, revolves around the development of an intuitive platform for the purpose of visualizing these disparities. During the first year, we aim to construct comprehensive metrics for assessing the level of informational inequality, based on the theory of local information landscapes (LIL theory).

Two-sided Cultural Niches: Topic Overlap, Geospatial Correlation, and Local Group Activities on Event-based Social Networks

As event-based social networks (EBSNs) such as Meetup.com and Facebook Events gain popularity in managing local events like farmers' markets and social gatherings, they create two-sided cultural niches where event organizers and participants benefit from the platform while influencing each other. Among various factors, niche overlap, an ecological feature, has been studied as a key factor that shapes the success of online communities.

In Search of Social Justice: The Role of Digital Technology in a Government Information System

In producing and providing services to local residents, municipal governments increasingly incorporate digital technology into their Information Systems (IS). In these digitally-enhanced government IS, how does digital technology affect social justice in the use and outcomes of the systems? By applying theories of distributive justice and analyzing data collected from Boston's 311 system for residents to request non-emergency services, we have found significant and lasting disparities between wealthy and poor communities in the use of the system's digital channels (mobile app and website).

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