The Role of Social Media Geographic Information (SMGI) in Spatial Planning

This contribution reports on ongoing research carried on by the authors on the role of Social Media Geographic Information in spatial planning, design, and decision-making. Explicit and Implicit Volunteered Geographic Information (VGI) from social media platforms, namely Social Media Geographic Information (SMGI) resources, were used to explore novel methods and tools for analysis and knowledge construction. The results concern three main research streams carried on with the common feature of integrating social media and other volunteered and authoritative sources of information from Spatial Data Infrastructures (SDI). These findings demonstrated that the integration of SMGI with more traditional Authoritative Geographic Information (A-GI) may offer a high potential for eliciting pluralist knowledge for spatial planning.