Abstract
This paper presents the results of an exploratory quantitative analysis of gendered contributions to the online mapping project OpenStreetMap (OSM), in which previous research has identified a strong male participation bias. On these grounds, theories of representation in volunteered geographic information (VGI) have argued that this kind of crowdsourced data fails to embody the geospatial interests of the wider community. The observed effects of the bias however, remain conspicuously absent from discourses of VGI and gender, which proceed with little sense of impact. This study addresses this void by analysing OSM contributions by gender and thus identifies differences in men’s and women’s mapping practices. An online survey uniquely captured the OSM IDs as well as the declared gender of 293 OSM users. Statistics relating to users’ editing and tagging behaviours openly accessible via the ‘how did you contribute to OSM’ wiki page were subsequently analysed. The results reveal that volumes of overall activity as well editing and tagging actions in OSM remain significantly dominated by men. They also indicate subtle but impactful differences in men’s and women’s preferences for modifying and creating data, as well as the tagging categories to which they contribute. Discourses of gender and ICT, gender relations in online VGI environments and competing motivational factors are implicated in these observations. As well as updating estimates of the gender participation bias in OSM, this paper aims to inform and stimulate subsequent discourses of gender and representation towards a new rationale for widening participation in VGI.
Highlights
Empirical evidence suggests that overwhelmingly, the creators of this data, including those corporate editors, are young men with an interest in technology and the computer skills and knowledge to match (Budhathoki and Haythornthwaite 2013; Schmidt and Klettner 2013). This skewed participation model has subsequently been problematised by feminist GIS scholars on the grounds that it fails to represent the geospatial interests of the wider community, women
By allocating users’ stated gender to their recorded mapping behaviours, this paper has demonstrated a range of effects that arise from the gender participation bias in OSM contributing
This study reveals subtle differences in modes of editing as men demonstrate higher values than women for updating, altering or modifying existing data. These findings relay a sense of a male focus on the accurate cartographic representation of topographical features; women’s focus on the creation of new data, conveys instead an emphasis on initial visibility i.e. demonstrating the existence of topographical features where they might be otherwise entirely absent from the map
Summary
Empirical evidence suggests that overwhelmingly, the creators of this data, including those corporate editors, are young men with an interest in technology and the computer skills and knowledge to match (Budhathoki and Haythornthwaite 2013; Schmidt and Klettner 2013). This skewed participation model has subsequently been problematised by feminist GIS scholars on the grounds that it fails to represent the geospatial interests of the wider community, women.
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