Mapping Public Web Space with the Issuecrawler

Abstract

This chapter concerns with the visualization modules made for one Web "mapping" device, the Issuecrawler network location software. It briefly periodizes understandings of Web space by examining the contexts in which Issuecrawler mapping modules were conceived and built: the site inlink lists (in the "Web as hyperspace" period), the circle map or virtual roundtable (in the period of the "Web as neo-pluralistic space"), the cluster or issue network map (in the "Web as network" period) as well as the geographical map or the distributed geography of an issue (in the current "locative" period). The focus moves from the metaphysics of software-made space (sphere, network) to the specific info-political geographies that can be charted with the aid of the Issuecrawler and allied tools. Controlled Vocabulary Terms cyberspace