GIS and Society

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GIS and Society

• Seong Mun Chang
• (313186)

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What GIS does

• Analysis display tools for spatial data
• Efficient and flexible storage, display and
  exchange spatial data
• In application
• Land-use mapping
• Transportation mapping and analysis
• Geodemographic analysis
• Utilities infrastructure mapping
• Natural resource assessment

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GIS as a Tool

• The role of GIS in ongoing IT developments
  affecting the whole of society with the emergence
  of IT States
• The nature of GIS as a database technology being
  used to represent information about people
• The use of GIS in spatial decision support
  applications that impact on people

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GIS users

• Federal, State, Local Government
• Private firms, Non-profit organization
• Grassroot, Community groups
• Universities, Research institutes

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Relationship between GIS Society

• How GIS is affecting the political, economic,
  legal, and institutional structure of society.
• How societal process affect the form taken by the
  technology itself.
• Research Approach
• Social theory perspective
• Institutional perspective
• Legal and ethical perspective
• Intellectual history perspective
• Public participation GIS perspective

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Relationship between GIS Society
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GIS as a media

• Media
• Means of sending message or Communicating
  information to the general public
• Mass media
• Instrument by which mass communication takes
  place in modern societies

Goodchild and Sui(2003)
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GIS as a media

• Communicate information to an audience in
  society.
• ESRI advertises its software products as a
  common language for speaking about and
  discovering the world.
• Intergraph name its products GeoMedia.
• Communication aspect of GIS has its parallels in
  catrography
• Catrography as a language for communication
• Map-making process

GoodChild and Sui(2003)
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McLuhans law of media

• Tetradic Analysis
• Enhancement 
• What does this medium enhance or amplify?
• Obsolescene
• What does this medium make obsolete?
• Retreival
• What does this artifact retrieve from the past,
  that was previously obselesced?
• Reversal
• What does this artifact reverse into, or, flip
  into, when pushed to extreme?

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What does GIS enhance?

• Human faculties
• Hands
• Production of variety of virtual and real maps
  through Drawing and mapping
• Eyes
• Remote sensing, Aerial photography
• Brain
• Navigation system, GPS
• Minds and thinking
• Artificial intelligence, Spatial analysis
  modeling
• Accessibility of Geographic Information
• The place of GIS in Society is enhanced

GoodChild and Sui(2003)
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What does GIS make obsolete?

• Traditional catrographic practice
• The use of drawing pens
• Traditional field techniques
• The desire to collect Firsthand data collection
• Secondary data are available in digital format

GoodChild and Sui(2003)
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What does GIS retrieve?

• The study and incorporation of naive geography
• The limits of computation have revealed
• Focus on cognitive model of geographic world and
  the potential role of naive geography in
  development of better tools
• Link GIS to various aspects of social theories
• Shift metaphors in our social discourse
• From visual mode(eye) to aural mode(ear)
• A close dialogue among different palyers in
  society

GoodChild and Sui(2003)
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What does GIS reverse into?

• Environments are shifted to fit GIS
• Problems are modified to meet requirements of GIS
  technology
• Ignore uncertainty, rather than developing GIS to
  fit diverse environments
• Cease to promote democratic practice
• GIS development are driven by corporate or State
• Citizen become slaves of GIS(media)

GoodChild and Sui(2003)
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PPGIS (Public Participation GIS)

• Background
• The growing role of the powerful GIS technology
  in a democracy
• The use of GIS can make it difficult for average
  citizen to participate in policy debates.
• GIS is not just a tool designed to solve one
  aspect of a particular problem.
• The developmet of GIS is a social process

Obermeyer(1998)
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What is PPGIS?

• Used by members of the public, both as
  individuslas and grass-root groups.
• For participation in the public process affecting
  their lives
• Endeavors to involve youth, elders, women, First
  nations and other segments of society
• Interdisciplinary research, community development
  and environmental stewardship tool
• Linked to social theories and sciences
• Enables public access to cultural, economic,
  biophysical data
• Supports lifelong learning

Aberley, Sieber(2002)
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PPGIS example
http//crssa.rutgers.edu/ppgis/