Reading News with Maps: The Power of Searching with Spatial Synonyms

The NewsStand system is an example application of a general framework that we are developing to enable people to search for information using a map query interface, where the information results from monitoring the output of over 8,000 RSS news sources and is available for retrieval within minutes of publication. The advantage of doing so is that a map, coupled with an ability to vary the zoom level at which it is viewed, provides an inherent granularity to the search process that facilitates an approximate search. This distinguishes it from today’s prevalent keyword-based conventional search methods that provide a very limited facility for approximate searches which are realized primarily by permitting a match via use of a subset of the keywords. However, it is often the case that users do not have a firm grasp of which keyword to use, and thus would welcome the capability for the search to also take synonyms into account. In the case of queries to spatially-referenced data, the map query interface is a step in this direction as the act of pointing at a location (e.g., by the appropriate positioning of a pointing device) and making the interpretation of the precision of this positioning specification dependent on the zoom level is equivalent to permitting the use of spatial synonyms. The issues that arise in the design of such a system including the identification of words that correspond to geographic locations are discussed, and examples are provided of the utility of the approach, thereby representing a step forward in the emerging field of computational journalism.