Participation on the Geoweb
“Definitions are turtles all the way down”
Sieber and Rahemtulla
(1) How do you define participation?
According to Wordnet, which has become the standard lexicon of the Internet, participation is “engagement: the act of sharing in the activities of a group”; involvement (the condition of sharing in common with others (as fellows or partners etc.)) (http://wordnetweb.princeton.edu/perl/webwn?s=participation). The definition forces us to then define engagement. And involvement. And group. And sharing. And then we’d have to define each of the definitions. So participation is sufficiently vague that “it’s turtles all the way down” (Stephen Hawking 1988: A Brief History of Time). Even if we did create a single definition, it’s contextual. Participation is “not a unique and shared construct. It is a complicated process with multiple meanings that lead to numerous expectations” (Smith and Graglia 2001, p.5).
You may know of the classic ladder of Sherry Arnstein (Figure 1). This ladder shows participation in the context of policy making. You can see that it focuses on political power and communication. As one ascends the ladder, the communication changes from one-way communication and top-down diffusion of information to two-way communication and a bottom up contribution of information. Power shifts from government-controlled to citizen-controlled.
These days, there are multiple participation ladders and models (Kingston 2002, 2003) that offer fundamentally different approaches/orientations to the basic idea of participation. In addition to Arnstein, (political power orientation), there’s Wiedemann and Femar (with an administrative orientation), Conner (conflict resolution) and Dorcey et al. (which also focuses on the planning process). Like Arnstein these models are sequential, progressional and hierarchal (see Kingston 2002).
Traditional participation techniques/approaches follow these types of models. Where do we position the Geospatial web (Geoweb) in terms of participation? For instance, is the Geoweb about enhancing citizen power and control over decision-making (Arnstein) and/or about the continuous involvement in the planning process (Dorcey et al.) and/or conflict resolution (Conner)? Is participation on the Geoweb unidirectional (one-way, top-down), progressional and hierarchical in line with current participation ladders/models? Perhaps it’s simply about uploading content; not uni-directional but many to many interactions.
Furthermore, simply implying that one wants participation in his or her Geoweb effort can imply radically different interpretation of the supposed outcome of participation. As Smith and Graglia (2001) state, without clearly identifying and defining orientation and objective of participation (e.g.. context, interest and motivation) there is ample room for confusion between the multiple actors who are governing, administrating or participating in the process (see Q2).
Finally, is participation on the Geoweb an end in itself? As Smith (2001, 6) states, the nature of participation “can change overtime even within a single decision-making process; that certain public participation approaches (e.g., traditional GIS such as paper-mapping) maybe necessary at the beginning of the process, while other participation methods maybe more appropriate towards the final stages (e.g., public participation GIS). Conner (1988), Jackson (2001), Schlossberg (2001) and Kingston (2001) echo this dynamic nature of participation as well.
(2) Who participates? Who are the actors?
Assuming one can define participation on the Geoweb …
In Smith and Graglia (2001) and Ellul, Rahemtulla and Haklay (2009), there is no single public (or actors), but different levels of public (or actors) based on context and differing levels of interest, motivation, ability (spatial and computer literacy) and engagement with information and communications technology (ICT). This matches Bosworth and Donovan (2002, also see http://www.ncgia.ucsb.edu/varenius/ppgis/papers/bosworth.html) as well.
Actors on the Geoweb likely include the following categories of people: general and interested publics, non-governmental organizations (NGOs), public and private sector (see Sieber and Rahemtulla, in process a, b). Note that in the Geoweb, as opposed to traditional forms of participation, government (public sector) is as much an actor as the others. On reflection, one could explore the characteristics of those “general and interested publics” participating on the Geoweb through geodemographic profiling (see Longley et al. 2000), level of new ICT engagement (see Longley et al., 2002), position in the innovation adaptation cycle (e.g., early adopters, see Rogers, 1965) and formal learning curve, as well as integrating/ assessing the factors outlined above.
Figure 2. Types of participants on Web 2.0 (Forrester Research)
(3) How do people participate?
This can be addressed with reference to Forrester’s Research Web 2.0. model (Figure 2) based on an analysis of online participation and consumption practices, the authors identify six segments of users, ordered by way in which people participate:
On the Geoweb, participation activities include: consuming information; contributing digital multimedia, information and applications (e.g. mash-ups); webinars, crowdsouring, building on existing value-added information and immersive experiences.
(4) What tools are used?
The Geoweb can be said to exist within the [Internet] cloud as “an integrated, discoverable collection of geographically related web services and data that supports the use of geographic data in a range of domain applications” (Lake and Farley, 2007, 15). Geoweb tools and services are platform independent and include numerous tools: digital earths, social networking tools and applications, crowd-sourcing applications (e.g., Open Street Map) and even the immersive massively multiplayer online role playing game Second Life.
(5a) To what end (purpose of tool)?
When we consider the purpose of the tool from which perspective are we looking? From the commercial (e.g., Google), developers (e.g., application developer) or users’ perspective? The purpose of the tool will depend on the context (e.g., informal, play, social, and formal), interest, motivation (e.g., individual, group or community project/initiative, planners) and ability of the individual (see Q2). Purpose could range from contributing and sharing information, social inclusion or reducing marginalisation, altruism, building social capital, collective intelligence, empowerment, self-promotion and/or generating revenue, to mention just a few.
(6) What results from this participation? What characteristics define effective participation?
How does one define ‘results’ and ‘effective’ on the Geoweb? We probably have to refer back to purpose (see above)? For any one project (if we can call Geoweb activity a project), commercial companies, developers and users likely do not have the same purpose or goal. By extension, there are multiple measures of effectiveness. For instance, effective participation for a commercial company maybe about the click-throughs per hour while for a community site it maybe about information exchange, contribution and sharing.
(7) Tell us about your theories of participation? Is there friction?
Theories include: (a) Participation ladders (e.g. Arnstein, Wiedemann and Femar, Conner and Dorcey et al); (b) Social construction and power (e.g. Foucault); (c) Social networks (e.g. Castells); (d) traditional participatory methods like participatory rural appraisal, and (e) studies of the Internet (see Rheingold; Turkle; Pew Research). We also draw on the Public Participation GIS and Participatory GIS (Renee, Jon), Geoweb (Scharl), Neogeography (Turner) and Volunteered Geographic Information (Goodchild, Elwood).
We see some friction in applying the Geoweb to participation. These include the way the Geoweb challenges: (1) the sequential and unidirectional nature of the participation ladders; (2) the motivation of people to participate underpinning the current set of participation ladders/models; (3) a change from the top-down nature of participation as outlined in these models which have wider implications on the role of new ICTs. We will expand on these during the conference call.
See the attachment below for identical text and figures
