Location via proxy:   [ UP ]  
[Report a bug]   [Manage cookies]                
Scribd Logo
Upload

Welcome to Scribd!

  • 64 views

    Volunteered Geographic Information

    Uploaded by

    trixcomp
    This document proposes using McLuhan's tetradic analysis framework to examine the implications of volunteered geographic information (VGI). The tetradic analysis involves analyzing how a new medium or technology enhances certain practices while making others obsolete, retrieves previously existing practices, and may reverse its effects when overextended. The author argues VGI will enhance public participation in geospatial data production and applications. It may retrieve time-geographic analysis as more personal, local data becomes available at finer scales. However, VGI could also reverse itself by posing threats if not subject to standards and protocols, especially regarding privacy, liability, and potential inequities.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd

    Volunteered Geographic Information

    Uploaded by

    trixcomp
    64 views2 pages
    This document proposes using McLuhan's tetradic analysis framework to examine the implications of volunteered geographic information (VGI). The tetradic analysis involves analyzing how a new medium or technology enhances certain practices while making others obsolete, retrieves previously existing practices, and may reverse its effects when overextended. The author argues VGI will enhance public participation in geospatial data production and applications. It may retrieve time-geographic analysis as more personal, local data becomes available at finer scales. However, VGI could also reverse itself by posing threats if not subject to standards and protocols, especially regarding privacy, liability, and potential inequities.

    Original Title

    Sui_paper.pdf

    Copyright

    © © All Rights Reserved

    Available Formats

    PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd

    Did you find this document useful?

    Is this content inappropriate?

    This document proposes using McLuhan's tetradic analysis framework to examine the implications of volunteered geographic information (VGI). The tetradic analysis involves analyzing how a new medium or technology enhances certain practices while making others obsolete, retrieves previously existing practices, and may reverse its effects when overextended. The author argues VGI will enhance public participation in geospatial data production and applications. It may retrieve time-geographic analysis as more personal, local data becomes available at finer scales. However, VGI could also reverse itself by posing threats if not subject to standards and protocols, especially regarding privacy, liability, and potential inequities.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as pdf or txt
    64 views2 pages

    Volunteered Geographic Information

    Uploaded by

    trixcomp
    This document proposes using McLuhan's tetradic analysis framework to examine the implications of volunteered geographic information (VGI). The tetradic analysis involves analyzing how a new medium or technology enhances certain practices while making others obsolete, retrieves previously existing practices, and may reverse its effects when overextended. The author argues VGI will enhance public participation in geospatial data production and applications. It may retrieve time-geographic analysis as more personal, local data becomes available at finer scales. However, VGI could also reverse itself by posing threats if not subject to standards and protocols, especially regarding privacy, liability, and potential inequities.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as pdf or txt
    You are on page 1of 2

    Volunteered Geographic Information:

    A tetradic analysis using McLuhans law of the media


    Position paper for the Specialist Meeting on
    Volunteered Geographic Information, Dec. 13-14, 2007
    Daniel Sui
    Texas A&M University
    Following the success of earlier open-source software development such as the development of
    Linux, consumer-driven business development such as E-Bay, and most recently user-led
    knowledge production such as Wikipedia, the past five years have witnessed the emergence of
    user-created web content in the spirit of Web 2.0 as evidenced by the growing popularity of
    MySpace, FaceBook, YouTube, and more broadly the reality TV or game/competition programs
    with increasing viewer involvement. Some observers even define this as a new cultural/societal
    trend for lack of a better description the cult of amateur (Keen, 2007).
    The wind of this more broader societal trend of wikification, as defined by Tapscott and Williams
    (2006), has started blowing in the GIS community during the past two years. The emergence of
    volunteered geographic information on the web raises a series of new questions that deserve
    attention by the research community. A specialist meeting devoted to VGI is very timely indeed.
    Back in the pre-Google Earth time, Sui and Goodchild (2001) proposed the idea that GIS was
    rapid emerging as media using the nascent evidence available then. The launching of Google
    Earth and Microsofts Virtual Earth validated our speculation (Ball, 2005; Sui, 2005a). But until
    recently most people are passive users of the vast geospatial information available on-line. With
    the development of websites like wikimapnia or OpenStreetMap, everybody has been converted
    from being passive consumers to becoming active producers of geospatial information. This new
    development has implications for the GIScience community at multiple levels.
    Just as we did for GIS and LBS (Sui and Goodchild, 2003; Sui, 2005b), I believe a tetradic
    analysis based upon McLuhans law of the media can be a useful framework for us to think about
    the multiple implications of VGI. In this position paper, I will briefly outline some of the key
    points and I hope they are useful for discussing the themes of this conference.
    McLuhans laws of media has four major dimensions: any innovations in the dominant mode of
    communication media will invariably (A) intensify/enhance certain elements of social practices in
    a given culture, while at the same time (B) making other aspects of social practices cultural
    practices obsolete. Furthermore, all media innovations will also (C) retrieve a phase of certain
    social or cultural practices long ago pushed aside, and finally (D) undergo a reversal when
    extended beyond the limits of their potential. The four phases of the tetrad manifest also sets the
    limits of the cultural impacts of an artifact, by showing how a totally saturated use would produce
    a reversal of original intent.
    Following the tetradic framework, we can ask the following questions for the nascent phenomena
    of volunteered geographic information (VGI): 1. what specific practices and applications does
    VGI enhance and intensify? 2. what geospatial practices will VGI obsolesce? 3. what practices
    will VGI retrieve? 4. what will VGI reverse into when pushed beyond the limit?

    I hope this specialist meeting will provide some more illuminating answers to these questions.
    Here Id like to share some of my preliminary thoughts. Obviously, VGI will intensify and
    enhance public participation in both GIS data production and application at new level. But
    obviously, not all domains of GIS applications benefit equally from this kind of practices. I dont
    think VGI will automatically obsolete many of the conventional GIS practices by government or
    industry, but how to interface VGI with the data collected by conventional means will be worth
    exploring.
    With more data created via VGI at the local and personal level, VGI will retrieve time-geography
    to the fullest extent as Hgerstrand advocated 40 years ago. We will witness another round of
    explosion of available data at much better spatial and temporal resolution. This will renew
    research efforts for better data representation models, data mining and visualization techniques
    that are scalable and interoperable across multiple computing platforms.
    Without proper protocols and standards established, VGI can also reverse itself into disasters that
    could pose serious threats to community and society at multiple scales, especially in areas related
    to public health and homeland security (Sui, 2007). Privacy and liability are obviously two
    primary concerns, but I see equity is another important issue that can potentially crush the whole
    paradigm of crowd-souring as a business model. Is the altruistic wikification process a passing
    fad or a sustainable way of running a business? What are the motivations and incentives for
    people to engage in producing VGI? Is the wikification process enlarging disparities in society
    by allowing the favored few exploiting the mediocre many?
    References cited:
    Keen, A. 2007. The Cult of the Amateur: How Today's Internet is Killing Our Culture. Publisher:
    Currency.
    Tapscott, D. and A. D. Williams, 2006. Wikinomics: How Mass Collaboration Changes
    Everything. Publisher: Portofolio.
    Ball, M., 2005. Google verifies that GIS is media. GeoWorld, December Issue, page 5.
    Sui, D.Z., 2007. Is GIS a liability in the war against terrorism? GeoWorld, March Issue, 22-25.
    Sui, D.Z., 2005a. G for Google? What can we learn from Googles success so far? GeoWorld
    (formerly GIS World). March, 18-22.
    Sui, D.Z. 2005b. The media and message of location-based services: A tetradic analysis. Journal
    of Geographic Information Science 10(2): 166-174.
    Sui, D.Z. and M.F. Goodchild, 2003. A tetradic analysis of GIS and Society using McLuhan's
    law of media. Canadian Geographers 47(1): 5-17.
    Sui, D.Z. and M.F. Goodchild, 2001. Are GIS Becoming New Media? International Journal of
    Geographical Information Science, Vol. 15, No. 5, pp. 387-390.

    You might also like