The geography of innovation as reflected by social media

Corradini, C. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1980-7993 (2021) The geography of innovation as reflected by social media. Environment and Planning A: Economy and Space, 53 (2). pp. 227-229. ISSN 1472-3409 doi: 10.1177/0308518X20961107

Abstract/Summary

Capturing whether mysteries of trade are ‘in the air’ remains a central issue for understanding the spatial nature of innovative activities. We offer new insights on the intangible dimension of the geography of innovation comparing the spatial distribution of patenting rates and a novel measure of ‘innovative buzz’ from a 9-billion-word corpus based on 900 million geolocated tweets across US counties. We find the use of words connected to innovation and technology to be characterised by significant spatial concentration. The results show the presence of strong bivariate correlation in the spatial clustering between the two elements, pointing to stimulating opportunities in the use of big data from social media for economic geography research.

Item Type	Article
URI	https://reading-clone.eprints-hosting.org/id/eprint/108036
Identification Number/DOI	10.1177/0308518X20961107
Refereed	Yes
Divisions	No Reading authors. Back catalogue items
Publisher	SAGE Publications
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