Voluntary information and PGIS (VI & PGIS)

This chapter discusses the role of geographic IT (geoIT) and virtual globes (e.g.
Google Earth) at the interface of public policy and citizens. GeoIT can potentially give
citizens power -traditionally held by the government- to participate in all spheres of
policy making by allowing them to produce and share geoinformation, therefore
organize accordingly. Moving away from the traditional conception of bureaucracy
which acts as a filter between policy makers and citizens by transforming their
requirements into formal procedures, we outline an emerging framework where geoIT
act as mediators between policy-makers and citizens. We show that the emerging
framework holds the potential of allowing citizens concerned, in our case, about the
quality of water services, to influence policy makers directly. The virtual globe acts as a mirror to the traditional eGovernment framework and lends a different societal
visibility both to public services provision, and to localized citizens’ needs.

Here, we focus on the role of geoIT and virtual globe technology in improving
citizen participation in problem acknowledgement and agenda setting. To do that, we
discuss the extent to which virtual globes can expand the limited focus of
eGovernment, based on preliminary findings and insights from our own research in
two empirical cases.