Social Aspects of GIS

the other side of the coin

Outline

Privacy

Accessibility

Ethics

Hegemony

Is GIS

Value free ?

Objective ?

An innocuous tool ?

Privacy

Leaving an Electronic Trail…

Loyalty Cards

Debit and Credit Cards

Library Cards

University registration

…or internet trail in internet space

...leads to Geodemographics

Geodemographics = who is where

Characterizes areas or regions of people with similar lifestyles - assuming that people tend to live in close proximity with others like themselves.

Increase in technology = individual profiling

Data profiling

Information from loyalty cards and other sign-up details

Combined with areal socio-economic data

= a profile of your “lifestyle” and an opportunity to directly market to you

GDIS is used for

Direct marketing

Commercial site selection

Public Services

Political Redistricting

But…

GIS in marketing is unregulated

What impact does it have on:- your right to privacy- the nature of that privacy

What if the information about you is incorrect? (i.e. credit history)

Conspiracy Theories Mandatory GPS in your car

Mandatory GPS in you – or are we already there?

Linking data profiles to service providers

The death of privacy

Accessibility

Is GIS equitable?

Is GIS democratic?

“on the one hand, GIS has unprecedented power to disseminate access to usable information. On the other hand, it still supports a division which generates a technocratic elite.” (Clark 1988: 303)

GIS Accessibility is Constrained by Data availability

Cost of technology and data

Computer literacy

English literacy

Physical accessibility

Power

If information is power - spatial information is even more power

Unequal access to spatial technologies results in unequal access to this power and therefore social inequalities.

PPGIS

Attempts to overcome problems of accessibility – but limited

COMPASS

Potential of internet to minimize some factors

Ethics

Can GIS Kill?

Is GIS unaccountable?

Is technology neutral?

Are the ethics of the application of the tool separate from its development?

Do we as GIS developers and users have some responsibility?

Ethics

“When GISs are used there is a danger of some GIS-inspired decisions killing people, ruining businesses, and wasting public resources. The converse is also true, in that not using GIS technology may actually lead to poorer decision-making and this could also increase the risks of harm…The concern here is that because GIS is such a widely applicable technology and is being adopted widely, then attempts need to be made to render it intrinsically safe” (Openshaw 1993: 451)

Ethics

GIS Lies (purposefully or accidentally)

Fudging data and manipulation is very easy to do in a GIS to get the required results

Re-aggregation and Reclassification of data can = very different results

MAUP (modifiable areal unit problem)

MAUP

The division of space into zones is subjective – they are artificial

2 aspects: scale and zone effect

Electoral redistricting and gerrymandering (officially sanctioned for the sake of minorities) the political power of geography

Hegemony

GIS Imperialism

GIS is a limited way of seeing the world

GIS = real world?

How does GIS impact research?

“GIS reifies western definitions of knowledge and meaning represented as technical data in a computer system” (p198 Pickles)

GIS “will fit uneasily or not at all into the organizations of people who have little or no experience with computers, whose experience of the landscape is not informed by maps, or who do not think in terms of the dominant paradigms of modern science”

(Hoeschele 2000: 295)

What are the consequences of the exclusion of certain types of knowledge and forms of reasoning that are not well represented within a GIS?

GIS Experts Versus Local Experts

It is very easy to apply GIS using RS data without having to physically see what is there e.g. land use classification

disregards local experts

assumes what is represented in the GIS is true

Does GIS provide more weight for planners making decisions than the local experts?

Quantitative versus qualitative

“Does society really want a Forest Service of GIS users at computer terminals rather than one of rangers on horseback?” (Goodchild 1995: 48)

Consequences

GIS Control Technology can be used to promote

democracy and deny it.

GIS as basis of political and economic decisions

GIS is controlled by private industry – what influence does this have on the production and development of GIS?

Summary

“GIS is a set of tools, technologies, approaches and ideas that are vitally embedded in broader transformations of science, society and culture”

(Pickles 1995: 4) Thus we cannot ignore the context of

GIS in its application.