Table of Contents

List of Illustrations    
List of Tables    
Introduction    
Jim Thatcher, Andrew Shears, and Josef Eckert
Part 1. What Is Big Data and What Does It Mean to Study It?
1. Toward Critical Data Studies: Charting and Unpacking Data Assemblages and Their Work    
Rob Kitchin and Tracey P. Lauriault
2. Big Data: Why (Oh Why?) This Computational Social Science?    
David O’Sullivan
Part 2. Methods and Praxis in Big Data Research
3. Smaller and Slower Data in an Era of Big Data    
Renee Sieber and Matthew Tenney
4. Reflexivity, Positionality, and Rigor in the Context of Big Data Research    
Britta Ricker
Part 3. Empirical Interventions
5. A Hybrid Approach to Geotweets: Reading and Mapping Tweet Contexts on Marijuana Legalization and Same-Sex Marriage in Seattle, Washington    
Jin-Kyu Jung and Jungyeop Shin
6. Geosocial Footprints and Geoprivacy Concerns    
Christopher D. Weidemann, Jennifer N. Swift, and Karen K. Kemp
7. Foursquare in the City of Fountains: Using Kansas City as a Case Study for Combining Demographic and Social Media Data    
Emily Fekete
Part 4. Urban Big Data: Urban-Centric and Uneven
8. Big City, Big Data: Four Vignettes    
Jessa Lingel
9. Framing Digital Exclusion in Technologically Mediated Urban Spaces         
Matthew Kelley
Part 5. Talking across Borders
10. Bringing the Big Data of Climate Change Down to Human Scale: Citizen Sensors and Personalized Visualizations in Climate Communication    
David Retchless
11. Synergizing Geoweb and Digital Humanitarian Research    
Ryan Burns
Part 6. Conclusions
12. Rethinking the Geoweb and Big Data: Future Research Directions    
Mark Graham
Bibliography    
List of Contributors    
Index    

About the Author

Jim Thatcher is an assistant professor of geography at the University of Washington Tacoma. Josef Eckert is an academic advisor for the Master of Library and Information Science program at the University of Washington. Andrew Shears is an assistant professor of geography at Mansfield University.
 

Reviews

“The drumbeat of `big data’ is reorganizing everyday life, for some. This important collection takes the pulse of this hype from the perspective of the discipline of geography, pursuing questions that highlight the peculiarities of this location-based, techno-cultural moment.”—Matthew W. Wilson, associate professor of geography at the University of Kentucky

“This collection is a key step along the road from hyperbole to engagement with regard to the significance and impacts of big spatial data. It offers key insights into big spatial data as both means and object of researcher, tracing the socio-spatial and epistemological possibilities and limits of this dynamic phenomenon.”—Sarah Elwood, professor of geography at the University of Washington

“Thinking Big Data in Geography delivers vital theoretical and empirical perspectives on the problems and possibilities of spatialized data in both extraordinary circumstances and everyday life.”—Craig Dalton, assistant professor of global studies and geography at Hofstra University