Objective
Geographic information systems (GISs) are becoming routine analysis and display tools for spatial data, used extensively in applications such as land-use mapping (for urban planning purposes), transportation mapping and analysis (for determining efficient transportation routes for deliveries and emergency response), geodemographic analysis (for facilities location), utilities infrastructure mapping (for precise gas, water, and electric line mapping), and multiple applications in natural resource assessment (including water quality assessment and wildlife habitat studies). GISs allow efficient and flexible storage, display, and exchange of certain kinds of spatial data, as well as potential interface opportunities for a variety of quantitative spatial analysis models. Users include: federal, state and local governments and their agencies, private firms, non-profit organizations, grassroots and community groups, universities, and research institutes. Yet, like all technologies, GIS co-evolves with the societies of which it is a part.
Research into the inter-relationship between geographic information systems and society addresses two broad questions: how the spread of this technology is affecting the political, economic, legal, and institutional structures of society; and how societal process affect the form taken by the technology itself. In the last two years, these topics have become central to GIS research, becoming one of three areas in which the NCGIA is encouraging new research initiatives, and gaining rapidly increasing attention in the academic community. Thus research addressing the relationship between GIS and society will often be a component of other GIS research, and of more general research into the relationship between new information technologies and society. Yet direct attention to this relationship is also important. This white paper seeks to lay out a revised research agenda for research focusing primarily on the topic of GIS and society, addressing specifically the geographic aspect of information and information systems.
Background
The theme of GIS and society has come to be addressed from a variety of approaches to GIS research. At present these include:
A critical social theory perspective, which is concerned with limitations in the ways that populations, locational conflict, and natural resources are represented within current GISs and the extent to which these limits can be overcome by extending the possibilities of geographic information technologies; with the ways in which the nature of and access to GIS simultaneously marginalize and empower different groups in society with opposing interests; and with questions of how the evolution of geographic information technologies reflects both societal structures and priorities as well as the practices of those who develop and utilize the technologies (Chrisman, 1987; Harris and Weiner, 1996; Harris and Weiner, 1998; Pickles, 1995; Poiker and Sheppard, 1995).
An institutional perspective, which is concerned with the implementation of GIS by institutions; with the costs and benefits associated with implementation, and the equity of the distribution of these costs and benefits among individuals and social groups; with the development of theories, tools and techniques for determining the impact of GIS on policy decisions and on expectations about the agencies implementing them; and with their impact on interactions between agencies, on citizensí relationships with government agencies, and on people's beliefs and actions in regard to the use and management of land and resources (Kishor et al. 1990; Epstein et al. 1996; Tulloch and Neimann, 1996; Ventura 1995).
A legal and ethical perspective, which is concerned with the changing institutional processes and pricing mechanisms governing access to spatial data; with the proliferation of proprietary spatial databases; with how these changes are rooted in governmental and legal regulation; with the ethical implications of these changes; and with possible legal remedies (Chrisman, 1987; Curry, 1997; Onsrud and Rushton, 1995).
An intellectual history perspective, which is concerned with tracing the evolution of geographic information technologies; with the dynamics through which dominant technologies are selected from a variety of potential geographic information technologies at critical points in time; with the societal, institutional and personal influences governing these selection processes; and with the question of whether and why productive alternative technologies have been overlooked (Chrisman, 1988; Mark, 1997).
A public participation GIS perspective, which is concerned with how a broader effective use of GIS by the general public and by community and grassroots groups can be attained; with the implications for empowerment and marginalization within such groups using GIS; and with how new geographic technologies can be developed which address problems associated the use of current GIS technologies in these contexts (Schroeder, 1997).
This research amounts to a broad variety of conceptual and methodological approaches, ranging from quantitative analyses of the breadth of application of empirical hypotheses, to intensive extended case study methods designed to assess how certain propositions about GIS and society apply in particular contexts (cf. Sayer, 1984). This breadth reflects the complexity of the questions raised and the fact that many of them are not susceptible to positivist modes of analysis. Yet, notwithstanding this breadth, many questions have received inadequate attention, and others which have received attention are still in the early stages of understanding.
The UCGIS Approach
The University Consortium for Geographic Information Science (UCGIS) needs to facilitate a broad interest and involvement in GIS and society research. Research into the relationship between GIS and society requires an interdisciplinary approach involving individuals with expertise in geography, planning, policy analysis, the social and cognitive sciences, software design, ethics, and legal studies.
In its first white paper on 'GIS and society,' UCGIS proposed the following research priorities, developed at a 1995 specialist meeting sponsored by the National Center for Geographic Information and Analysis (Harris and Weiner 1996):
Based on an assessment of research reported during the last two years, these priorities need to be modified to make sure that (i) attention given to the impact of GIS on society is counter-balanced by attention to the impact of society on the evolution of geographic information technologies; (ii) attention to the determinants and consequences of GIS in public agencies and institutions is balanced by the study of their use by private firms and by community and grassroots groups; (iii) attention to empirical questions regarding the societal determinants and consequences of GIS is counterbalanced by attention to ethical and legal implications.
(i) With respect to the reciprocal relationship between GIS and society, the following types of questions are important:
a) Questions about the capabilities and limitations of currently dominant GIS software, and how these capabilities have evolved:
What can and cannot be done easily with current software, and who is most comfortable using it?
How can various non-Euclidean complex and ambiguous conceptions and representation of social and physical space be embedded within a GIS? Is currently dominant GIS software more appropriate for some cultures and social groups than others?
How can the dominance of certain types of GIS be explained: on efficiency grounds? by societal priorities? by historical contingencies? by the needs of large public and private institutions? by the ways in which complex networks of GIS developers and users have created a standardized set of ideas about what makes GIS important to society (Chrisman)?
What alternative GISs are possible, and who would be best served by their development?
b) Questions about the implications of these capabilities for different social groups and society in general:
How are GISs affecting: the relationships among and between different types of users and non-users; the ability of individuals to achieve their goals; and the relative influence of different groups over society?
In which ways is GIS empowering social groups and individuals, making them aware of their rights (for example, to land) and increasing their participation in and influence over democratic processes?
In which ways is GIS marginalizing social groups and individuals, by preventing equal access to information, by downplaying particular views of the world, by creating unequal capacities for surveillance, and by creating inequalities in access to appropriate and effective tools for geographical analysis?
How does the use of GIS affect usersí social practices and their views of society and nature?
How is the use of GIS changing the geographical organization and the ecological and social sustainability of human societies, in different parts of the world?
How are geographic information and geographic information technologies altering the nature of space and place as social constructs?
(ii) With respect to broadening the scope of the users of GIS, a core set of questions needs to be asked about each of the different groups of potential user organizations identified above (government agencies, research and educational institutions, private corporations and firms, community and grassroots social organizations, and individuals). The most important of these questions are:
How is the adoption of GIS affecting the tasks an organization undertakes, its ways of thinking about the environment within which it operates, the ways in which it goes about its tasks, and the effectiveness and efficiency with which these tasks are completed?
For each group, who is and who is not adopting GIS, and what are they doing with it?
How does the adoption of GIS affect the relative influence of different participants within an organization?
What are the implications of inequalities in GIS adoption within a group for the overall organizational structure of each of these groups of institutions (e.g., is it reinforcing the concentration of economic power within the private sector, or the power of local government in the public sector)?
How do the networks of users that develop (both within but also across the different groups) affect the views and norms held about the use and utility of GIS, and influence the direction of development of GIS technologies and databases?
Beyond the group of organizations affected by its use of GIS, who else is affected by this use, and which of them benefit from or are hurt by it?
(iii) With respect to ethical and legal implications, the following questions are important:
What are the ethical implications of geographic information technologies? Should software design be governed by ethical considerations?
Should there be a code of ethics and a certification process governing GIS use, what should it entail, and how should it be implemented?
Who has access to spatial data, and how does accessibility affect the influence of users over social processes?
What additional intrusions into privacy result from the capacity to map geographic information, and what cartographic techniques can be used to maintain confidentiality of individuals?
In which ways does GIS enhance surveillance capabilities, and which regulatory mechanisms are necessary or possible to limit surveillance?
What is the impact on other parts of the world of the diffusion of GIS and associated regulatory and legal norms developed elsewhere?
Importance to National Research Needs
Basic research into the relationship between GIS and society is of significance to the national research agenda for a multitude of reasons. GIS technology is now found in nearly all Federal and state government agencies, educational institutions and large private firms, and is now rapidly being adopted by local governments, environmental organizations, neighborhood organizations, and small firms. Increasingly, spatial data are being shared among these organizations. The technology has metamorphosed beyond a simple mapping tool to a methodology that is used for urban planning, environmental monitoring/analysis, marketing, transportation, management, and analyzing complex spatial problems. While there are many ways in which human activities can be carried out more effectively and democratically through the application of GIS, it is equally clear that GIS can create unintended consequences which reinforce existing social and spatial inequalities and intrude into private lives. NSF and the NAS have become concerned in general with the ethical, legal and social dimensions of information technologies, and there are particular dimensions of this associated with the visual power and locational precision of GIS. In order to limit the undesirable consequences of GIS, to create new geographic information technologies of relevance and use to all members of society, and to remain critically aware of the unintended consequences of access to geographic information, the study GIS and society is essential.
Priority Areas for Research
1. Case study research
Since the evolving relationships between society and GIS can take many directions depending on their context, and given that we know less about actual consequences than we do about potential consequences, initial progress is best pursued through a series of carefully selected case studies of particular organizational and geographic contexts. Since less is known about GIS in the private sector and in community organizations, case studies of these contexts will be particularly useful to both further develop and also challenge and improve our understanding of theoretical scenarios. Possible cases could address:
The use of geodemographic marketing by firms: Its effect on the success of those firms, and its effect on the attitudes, purchasing behavior and social make-up of the neighborhoods and social groups targeted by such GIS software.
The use of GIS software by neighborhood organizations in low income and minority communities, seeking to improve the social and physical environment available to community residents: Its effect on the ability of these organizations to make or negotiate improvements; and its effect on the internal coherence of these organizations and their ability to represent the diversity of views of local residents.
The ways in which norms about where and how GIS should be used, about how GIS is thought and talked about, and about the putative benefits of GIS, result from the practices of GIS and the networks of GIS users and GIS organizations.
The influence of GIS on the actions of government agencies, and on the capacity of the general public to assert democratic influence over those agencies.
Studies of controversial applications of GIS, paying attention to what can be learned about appropriate ethical principles and legal regulatory mechanisms.
2. Comparative analysis of case study results.
In concert with and drawing on such individual case studies, comparative analysis across case studies will be important to tease out which kinds of contextual conditions affect which kinds of outcomes. This will be as important for the study of how social practices influence the evolution of GIS technologies as it is for the study of the social implications of GIS. Such analysis should compare both case studies of similar organizational contexts in different places, and case studies of different organizational contexts in similar places.
A successful outcome of such comparisons would be the development of mid-range generalizations about the relationships between GIS and society, and about ethical and legal principles, which may be capable of further examination through a combination of extensive empirical analyses and new targeted case studies. Progress on these questions will depend crucially on fostering collaborative research networks.
3. Alternative GISs.
It is important to develop a parallel area of research into new types of GIS technologies, perhaps more reflective of the flexibility and communicative logic of Java and the Web than the complex logic of expert programs over which users have little influence. To be effective in designing geographical information systems that are appropriate for all areas of society, such developments should combine the practical experiences of new users struggling with currently dominant GISs; the expertise of programmers, graphic artists and communications specialists; and that of individuals skilled in the study of GIS and society. Focused research in this area will increase the possibility of lateral development of new approaches to GIS which can qualitatively enhance their relevance for an equitable and democratic society.
References
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