ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the theory and practice of civic mapping developing in two major directions that generally reflect the cognitive and structural concepts. Cognitive mapping is the kind of mapping previously described which can be defined more formally as an attempt to catalog the actors in a community, their positions in the community and their relationships to each other, and their relationships to journalists. This is the methodology that was developed and disseminated by the Pew Center for Civic Journalism and The Harwood Group between 1999 and 2002. Structural mapping is more complex and thus better suited to complex research. Its hallmark is an attempt to capture graphically the social networks, layers of civic life, and the spatial relationships among people and institutions. Executive Editor Gil Thelen arrived at The Tampa Tribune in May 1998 and promptly applied for admission to the first Harwood civic mapping seminar to be held the following year.
