Crowd-sourced cognitive map

Abstract

Discourse on place identity has remained as one of the vital topics in urban studies for economic and social benefits it brings to sustainable development of cities. However, conventional qualitative research techniques that have been used to assess place identity face the problem of subjectivity, leaving concerns for the reliability of results. By borrowing the form of cognitive map and leveraging social-media text data, this study suggests a new visual representation of collective urban identity - “crowd-sourced cognitive map”- that combines the advantages of both conventional and state of the art research techniques. Two research questions are addressed in this thesis: (1) Can crowd-sourced text data be utilized in representing place identity? (2) Can collective place identity be expressed in a form of cognitive map? To answer these questions, Instagram hashtags of four cities in Korea - i.e. Bundang, Dongtan, Ilsan, Songdo - are collected to extract place identity semantics, which are portrayed in the crowd-sourced cognitive map. The result of the study opened the possibility for the use of social media text data in capturing identity of cities, as well as suggested a graphic display by which people without prior information could also easily apprehend the overall image of the city. The work in this paper is expected to provide a methodological technique for appropriate decision-making and evaluation of urban identity to shape a more unique and imageable city.