Abstract
Volunteered geographic information (VGI), delivered via mobile and web apps, offers new potentials for civic engagement. If framed in the context of open, transparent and accountable governance then presumably VGI should advance dialogue and consultation between citizen and government. If governments perceive citizens as consumers of services then arguably such democratic intent elide when municipalities use VGI. Our empirical research shows how assumptions embedded in VGI drive the interaction between citizens and government. We created a typology that operationalises VGI as a potential act of citizenship and an instance of consumption. We then selected civic apps from Canadian cities that appeared to invoke these VGI types. We conducted interviews with developers of the apps; they were from government, private sector, and civil society. Results from qualitative semi-structured interviews indicate a blurring of consumer and citizen-centric orientations among respondents, which depended on motivations for data use, engagement and communication objectives, and sector of the respondent. Citizen engagement, an analogue for citizenship, was interpreted multiple ways. Overall, we found that government and developers may increase choice by creating consumer-friendly apps but this does not ensure VGI offers an act of civic participation. The burden is placed on the contributor to make it so. Apps and VGI could potentially further a data-driven and neoliberal government. Planners should be mindful of the dominance of a consumer-centric view even as they assume VGI invariably improves democratic participation.
Highlights
Cities across North America and Europe are collecting Volunteered Geographic Information (VGI) via mobile and browser-based apps
We review the ways in which the VGI and related literatures have characterized the volunteer and the way this characterization propels thinking about governance in the Web 2.0 era
Forcing a citizen into a customer role can transactionalise their relationship with government, eventually producing a hegemony of the market that displaces politics and democracy
Summary
Cities across North America and Europe are collecting Volunteered Geographic Information (VGI) via mobile and browser-based apps Their hope is that VGI can lead to better decision-making, improve service delivery, and empower municipal residents to become more involved in governance (Mooney, Sun, & Yan, 2011). Authors argue that VGI in governance fundamentally shifts the relationship between the citizen and the state, in part because VGI challenges the notion of authoritative data (Coleman, 2013). In this formulation, the contributor becomes an essential component of new incarnations of the city, like the smart city, because their VGI is crucial to a dynamic location awareness of the urban environment (Roche & Rajabifard, 2012)
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