Zucker_Readings Response 10/4

In the first reading, ‘Mapping as a Contemporary Instrument for Orientation in Conferences’, I found the discussion quite fascinating in connecting theory to conference visualization however I think the graphic itself is somewhat confusing. With little background information, it is difficult to understand how the zoom levels correspond with one another as they disappear when zooming into another layer. The act of disappearance without an obvious connection or linked connection requires one to constantly zoom in and out to orient themselves which became frustrating with time. Lastly, the author states that the rich information now dynamically presented as a map shows the community, however I might argue the map only shows a portion of the community as many attendees were undoubtably unpublished but key actors in the community.

In the second reading, ‘Printing Walkable Visualizations’, the author begins by discussing a graphic at a DH conference that showed the networks of attendees. As mentioned above and by this article, complaints regarding exclusion from non-published attendees further reiterate the need for a more inclusive dataset to populate the map. I appreciated the article’s discussion of theory about the environment but again believe that inherent bias in this process may have been overlooked. When the topic of affordance is raised for instance, the author states ‘more precisely, it refers to all the opportunities that a thing, a person, or a space makes available to others’. When the opportunity only presents names of published individuals, the environment performs a bias excluding many attendees from the said community. The article focuses on physical case studies for visualization which is important to note as technologies advance and as noted, digital projections and data visualizations are available. It would have been interesting to see if both case studies had been projected digitally, if their adaptation to public comment and feedback throughout the events would allow for a more inclusive network and community.

In the last reading, ‘Mapping affinities in academic Organizations…’, I struggled with similar critiques in regards to affinity mapping as it leaves at many scholars that may be underrepresented in academic publishing such as undergraduate and graduate researchers. On the otherhand, I appreciated the way in which the authors provided context for the historic arc of actualization mapping by providing background as to the development of ideas rather than providing primarily definitions of new terms as presented in the previous article. The entirety of the article presents very technical approaches to the concept of mapping affinities which is helpful for readers with limited knowledge of the topic and Digital Humanities in general. The ability to unpack the methodologies used for the case studies and topic combined with the interviews presented at the end provides a more human understanding of an otherwise complex topic.