Two new open-access articles published in Regional Studies, Regional Science this week, highlight the potential of data visualisation in understanding the significance of connections and linkages in regional studies.
In his article, Visualization of the 2017 #EURegionsWeek on Twitter, Claudio Nichele analysed all the Twitter exchanged during the European Week of Regions and Cities, where almost 6000 participants gathered to disseminate and discuss regions and cities in Europe’s future. Claudio was interested the exchanges that took place over social media during that event. 
He analysed visibility of Twitter accounts by numbers of interactions to determine who the influencers might have been over the course of the week.
In the second paper, Visualization of firm linkages in the Chicago ICT cluster, Eoin Byrne, John Hobbs and Justin Doran mapped and analysed the ICT sector in Chicago to visualise the linkages between ICT firms. Not only does their analysis provide a geographical footprint of the cluster’s ecosystem, they also suggest that in understanding the various linkages that firms in a cluster engage in, targeted policy recommendations can be developed to build on strengths and address weaknesses.
Read both the articles online here.