This map visualizes global connectivity: the color of each
point is based on ground travel time to the nearest city of 50,000 or
more. It was
created in 2009 by researchers
at the European
Commission’s Joint Research Centre in Ispra, Italy, and the World
Bank. For 90% of the world, the nearest city is less than 2 days away.
It’s not easy to get away from it all.
Maps are one class of data visualization based on geography (which
inevitably produces distortion). A host of real-time collaborative tools for data visualization are emerging such as the
Many Eyes data analysis project
Ushahidi mobile mapping project
based in Kenya.
One type of data that’s very hard to measure or visualize is
public opinion. As Plato noted, “opinion is the medium between
ignorance and knowledge.” Opinion is notoriously ill defined and
subject to all kinds of biases and uncertainty principles (this won’t
come as a surprise to anyone who reads blogs).
U.S. State Department
tool for world opinion that we are developing with students and
colleagues at the UC Berkeley Center for New Media.
It’s an experimental interactive website where participants can
instantly see where they stand with respect to others around the
world. It uses dimensionality reduction techniques to display the
emerging diversity of viewpoints and collaborative scoring metrics to
help the community highlight comments that are most insightful.
The resulting map is not based on geography or predetermined
categories, but on similarity of opinion. The system is designed to
‘depolarize’ discussions by including all participants on a level
playing field, encouraging participants to consider comments made by
those they disagree with.
Discussion questions will consider a range of
foreign policy issues.
“”Opinion Space will harness the power of connection technologies to provide a unique forum for international dialogue.”
“This is an opportunity to extend our
engagement beyond the halls of government directly to the people of the world.”
You’re invited to participate in this experiment. Your input will help us evaluate how well the system is working and how we can improve it.
It only takes a few minutes to express your opinions and see where you stand at the
Opinion Space website.