Doing Public Participation on the Geospatial Web

Renée E. Sieber, Pamela J. Robinson, Peter A. Johnson and Jon M. Corbett

Annals of the American Association of Geographers, 2016, vol. 106, issue 5, 1030-1046

Abstract: The emergence of Web 2.0, open source software tools, and geosocial networks, along with associated mobile devices and available government data, is widely considered to have altered the nature and processes of place-based digital participation. Considerable theorizing has been dedicated to the geographic version of Web 2.0, the geospatial Web (Geoweb). To assess the theories, we draw on four years of empirical work across Canada that considers the nature of public participation on the Geoweb. We are driven by the question of how easy or difficult it is to “do” Geoweb-enabled participation, particularly participation as envisioned by researchers such as Arnstein and planning practitioners. We consider how the Geoweb could transform methods by which citizens and nonprofit organizations communicate with the state on environmental issues that affect their lives. We conduct a meta-analysis of twelve research cases and derive new findings that reach across the cases on how the Geoweb obliges us to redefine and unitize participation. This redefinition reifies existing digital inequalities, blurs distinctions between experts and nonexperts, heterogenizes the state as an actor in the participation process, reassigns participation activities in a participation hierarchy, and distances participation from channels of influence.

Date: 2016
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/24694452.2016.1191325 (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:taf:raagxx:v:106:y:2016:i:5:p:1030-1046

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.tandfonline.com/pricing/journal/raag21

DOI: 10.1080/24694452.2016.1191325

Access Statistics for this article

Annals of the American Association of Geographers is currently edited by Jennifer Cassidento

More articles in Annals of the American Association of Geographers from Taylor & Francis Journals
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Chris Longhurst ().