Matthew Zook

Leadership-for-geography

Matthew Zook is an American geographer and professor in the Department of Geography, University of Kentucky. He studies the geography of the Internet, the GeoWeb, economic geography and domain names[1][2] In 2009 Matthew Zook and Mark Graham cofounded the FloatingSheep blog to understand the interactions between the GeoWeb and the offline world.[3] In 2011 Zook cofounded the New Mappings Collaboratory at the University of Kentucky to focus on public engagement in Lexington, 'big data' and user-generated Internet content, as well as the affordances of place-based thinking, analysis, and representation.[4]

Early and personal life

Matthew Zook was born to mother Bonnie Zook and father Gordon Zook.[5]

Education

  • Ph.D., University of California, Berkeley - Dept. of City and Regional Planning. 2000[6]
  • M.R.P., Cornell University (Ithaca, New York) 1995.[6]
  • B.A., Earlham College (Richmond, Indiana) 1989[6]

Research

Much of Zook's early work is on how economic factors have influenced and shaped the internet and the ICT industry (Information, Communications and Technology). He discusses how the infrastructure of the ICT industry was constructed upon an existing network of Venture Capital [grounded capital]. This research showed how despite the image of the internet being a tool of egalitarian communication and commerce, the resources of production were creating a digital divide.[7]

See also: History of Walmart

His work as an economic geographer contributed to a greater understanding of the expansion and impact of Walmart in USA. Zook also created a heat map generated from the data being collected from the Price of Weed project, which was featured in Wired.[8]

His more recent research looks at the GeoWeb. Although the transition was gradual, what seems to have started with mapping content creation[9] has turned into a fascination with mapping not only user generated content, but specifically geo-coded data.[10]

Awards

  • University of Kentucky Provost's Outstanding Teaching Award (2013)[11]
  • Maps made by Matthew Zook[12]

In 2006, Zook provided expert testimony about the Geography of Internet Pornography in a federal court case American Civil Liberties Union vs. Alberto Gonzales[13]

  • In 2007 and 2013 Matthew Zook won a Fulbright Fellowship to study in Estonia.[6]
  • In 2015, Zook was named the Kentucky State Geographer by Governor Steve Beshear.[14]

Publications

Notable Work [15]
Title Journal/Publisher Year Cites
The Web of Production: The Economic Geography of Commercial Internet Content Production Environment and planning A/PION LTD 2000 174
Old Hierarchies or New Networks of Centrality? American Behavioral Scientist/SAGE 2001 127
Grounded Capital: Venture Financing and the Geography of the Internet Industry Journal of Economic Geography/Oxford University Press 2002 124
The Geography of the Internet Industry: Venture Capital, dot-coms, and Local Knowledge Wiley-Blackwell 2005 145
The Creative Reconstruction of the Internet: Google and the privatization of cyberspace and DigiPlace. Geoforum 2007 93
Volunteered Geographic Information and Crowdsourcing Disaster Relief: A Case Study of the Haitian Earthquake. World Health and Medical Policy 2010 89

References

  1. ^ "Matthew Zook". ICANNWiki. 2012-11-15. Retrieved 2013-08-09.
  2. ^ "Download ICANN 45 Toronto: Matthew Zook Of ZookNic Hulkshare". Hulkshare.me. Retrieved 2013-08-09.
  3. ^ Graham, Mark (2009-06-09). "Introduction". floatingsheep. Retrieved 2013-08-09.
  4. ^ "Welcome to the New Mappings Collaboratory". New-maps.com. Archived from the original on 2013-06-14. Retrieved 2013-08-09.
  5. ^ Zook, Matthew."Acknowledgements." The Geography of the Internet Industry: Venture Capital, Dot-coms, and Local Knowledge. Blackwell, 2005. pg xiii
  6. ^ a b c d "Matthew A. Zook : CV" (PDF). Zook.info. Retrieved 2013-11-29.
  7. ^ Zook, Matthew. "The Geography of the Internet Industry: Venture capital, dot-coms, and local knowledge". Wiley-Blackwell, 2005
  8. ^ Bird, Cameron (August 30, 2011). "Infoporn: The Price of Pot". Wired.
  9. ^ Zook, Matthew. "The web of production: The economic geography of commercial internet content production". PION LTD, 2000, Environment and Planning A, volume 32, issue 3, pg. 411-436
  10. ^ Graham, Mark and Matthew Zook. "Visualizing Global Cyberscapes: Mapping User-generated Placemarks." Routledge, 2011, Journal of Urban Technology, vol. 18, issue 1, pg. 115-132
  11. ^ "Provost's Outstanding Teaching Awards Presented Today | UKNow". Uknow.uky.edu. Retrieved 2013-08-09.
  12. ^ "In the News". floatingsheep. Retrieved 2013-08-09.
  13. ^ "American Civil Liberties Union et al v. Alberto R. Gonzales" (PDF). Aclu.org. Retrieved 2013-11-29.
  14. ^ "New Maps Plus: Home of Kentucky's State Geographer". Retrieved 2016-03-05.
  15. ^ "Matthew Zook - Google Scholar Citations". Scholar.google.com. Retrieved 2013-08-09.