Volunteered geographic information and networkedpublics? Politics of everyday mapping and spatial narratives

Wen Lin

� Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2013

Abstract The issue of a changing public that

undertakes and underpins Volunteered geographic

information (VGI) practices has not been discussed in

depth in the existing literature. This paper seeks to

tackle this issue of publics regarding the intersection

between VGI and public participation GIS. I draw

upon the notion of ‘‘networked publics’’ to illustrate

the complexities of social relations intersecting with

VGI practices. Networked publics involve a connected

set of social and technological developments associ-

ated with the growing engagement with digitally

connected media. Networked publics embody several

major characteristics including multiple memberships

spanning over vast locations and possibilities for

horizontal connections and bottom-up engagements. I

argue that the emergence and proliferation of VGI

reflect the major characteristics of networked publics.

Through two examples of VGI constructions in China,

I depict types of networked publics involved in these

processes. I show that the mutual constitution of

networked publics and sociopolitical and technolog-

ical transformations has produced new landscapes of

civic engagement in China. I also show the limits and

challenges of these VGI practices in this context. As

such, this study contributes to the efforts of theorizing

the geoweb through conceptualizing and foreground-

ing these new forms of social relations and interactions

engaging with VGI practices, which in turn may entail

new forms of knowledge production and politics.

Keywords Volunteered geographic information

(VGI) � Networked publics � Network culture � China

Introduction

In the introduction of Kaiwenmap (www.kaiwenmap.

org), an interactive mapping site, there is a statement

as follows, ‘‘We make records of the environment’’.

This site, written in Chinese, aims to provide a plat-

form for sharing information about environmental

issues in China. The site creator is a teenager from

California in the USA who had lived in China for

several years. Through a video on the site, he intro-

duces the motivations of building this site, how the site

has been used, and how people can contribute to

reporting on environmental issues. In particular, he

hopes that with this platform, everyone can report

environmental issues close by and engage in public

discussions and community services to improve the

environment in China. It is noted that around twenty

non-governmental organizations (NGOs) have used

this site, on which the site creator commented in his

video, ‘‘Not bad!’’ This site is one of the many

examples reflecting the growth of user-generated

geographic information in recent years, through which

W. Lin (&)

School of Geography, Politics and Sociology, Newcastle

University, Room 3.73a, Level 5 Daysh Building,

Claremont Road, Newcastle upon Tyne NE1 7RU, UK

e-mail: wen.lin@ncl.ac.uk

123

GeoJournal

DOI 10.1007/s10708-013-9490-1

spatial and locational information has been provided

and disseminated by people who usually do not have

training in traditional cartography or GIS. Researchers

have attempted to conceptualize these practices

through a number of terms, including volunteered

geographic information (VGI) (Goodchild 2007), the

geoweb (Elwood 2010), neogeography (Turner 2006),

and Maps 2.0 (Crampton 2009). In this paper, I focus

on examining practices of geographic information

provision and dissemination that are carried out by

users knowingly conceptualized as VGI. I consider

VGI as part of the geoweb, which refers to ‘‘the

merging of geographic information with the abstract

information that currently dominates the Internet’’

(Haklay et al. 2008, p. 2012). As suggested by Elwood

and Leszczynski (2012), the geoweb is constituted by

new spatial content forms, new spatial data practices,

and new spatial media—the informational artifacts

and technological devices on the geoweb. In this

sense, VGI here includes both practices of ‘volun-

teering’ geographic information to the geoweb by non-

experts and new forms of user-generated geographic

information associated with the geoweb, such as those

produced through OpenStreetMap, WikiMapia, and

Google Maps. Focusing on this aspect of the geoweb, I

seek to contribute to theorizing the geoweb through

discussing new forms of social relations and interac-

tions revolved around geographic information pro-

duction and usage in the Web 2.0 age.

In particular, who are ‘‘we’’ acknowledged in the

statement noted above? How might ‘‘we’’ differ in

various contexts? And consequently, how might the

audiences of such mapping platforms get enrolled and

involved in ‘recording’, ‘reporting’ and ‘mapping’

various issues? I argue that a further theorization of the

interplay between these VGI authors and audiences (for

which the line is increasingly blurred) connected through

one or more than one networked technologies is needed.

Notable research has been conducted to examine the

social processes associated with the recent emergence of

VGI. However, there have not been many studies that

explicitly examine the possible transformation of ‘pub-

lics’ engaging with an array of networked technologies

that underlines these ‘volunteering’ practices.

On the other hand, discussions of civic engagement

tend to invoke practices and actions from subsets of

civil society that include grassroots organizations,

community groups, labor unions, interest groups,

religious groups, and civic associations (Castells

2008, p. 83). This is evidenced in the literature of

Public Participation GIS (PPGIS) (c.f., Sieber 2006).

Recent discussions on the role of VGI in participatory

mapping are also informed by such conceptualizations

of actors involved in civic engagement (see also

Kingsbury and Jones 2009). Yet, these conceptualiza-

tions may neglect the role of the increasingly signif-

icant networked forms of social relations recently. I

suggest that the notion of ‘‘networked publics’’ by

Varnelis and other researchers (Varnelis 2008a) is

useful for understanding the social transformation

intersecting with the emergence of VGI production.

Networked publics involve ‘‘a linked set of social,

cultural, and technological developments that have

accompanied the growing engagement with digitally

networked media’’ (Ito 2008, p.2). This notion follows

a broad definition of network as a set of connected

nodes—what a node can be depends on the context in

which it is being discussed (Castells 2010). Networked

publics engage in multiple networked communities

facilitated by digital technologies, and they can

produce political commentary and cultural criticism

in a way outside the logic of traditional mainstream

media operation. There are also significant forms of

unequal power relations in networked publics. While

networked communities and publicity are not entirely

new, it is significant that increasingly individual and

group identities are shaped by and constructed through

networked communications among users not neces-

sarily residing in a shared locale, facilitated by the

development of new information communication

technologies in recent decades. I further draw upon

Thompson’s (1995) work on publicness and argue that

such a framing of networked publics underpins some

new meanings of ‘public’ with increasingly diverse

types of engagements and acts that may blur the lines

of conventional meanings of public and private, and

politics and play.

The emergence and proliferation of VGI reflect the

major characteristics of networked publics, such as the

growing community of crisis mapping across nation-

state boundaries (e.g., Meier 2011), highly diverse and

quotidian mapping practices by a growing number of

people on the Web and through mobile devices (e.g.,

Tulloch 2007), and unequal power relations among

participants in their digital spatial data contributions

(e.g., Crutcher and Zook 2009). This conceptualiza-

tion also emerges from evidence of VGI production in

China, where nascent networked publics, I argue, have

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played an important role in shaping these VGI

practices. Through interrogating two examples of

VGI initiatives in China, I show that the mutual

constitution of networked publics, subjectivities, and

technological transformations has produced new land-

scapes of civic engagement. In particular, four types of

networked publics are delineated in this context. One

type is constituted by individuals with shared interests

but may be dispersed in many different locations.

These shared interests may not directly revolve around

political or social issues. They may resemble various

club memberships in many ways, but without any

formal organizational structure. The ‘backpacking

group’ in the first VGI example analyzed here belongs

to this type. A second type I outline involves more

intimate personal feelings and everyday life routines.

Those that interested in highlighting their favorite

restaurants and enjoyable experiences through VGI,

for example, are part of this category. Such acts can be

entirely personal, but they can also constitute a form of

resistance to dominant social spaces that are highly

commercialized in my example. A third type of

networked publics is more explicitly concerned with

social and pubic issues, such as environmental issues

in both examples. This type of networked public is still

largely issue-based in the context of my empirical

investigation. A fourth type of networked publics is

more heterogeneous and perhaps closer to the general

public in a traditional sense. But it may be much more

fleeting and fragmented in its digital forms. This is

reflected in those participants performing a political

act through virtual strolls in the second VGI example.

These types of networked publics may not be exclu-

sive to one another, and the boundary of each

community may be constantly shifting and evolving.

As such, I suggest that conceptualizing these highly

dynamic and networked publics that participate in

VGI production would help to enhance our under-

standing of the sociopolitical implications of VGI and

rethink possibilities of forms of civic engagement

situated in different contexts.

The publics in critical GIS and the ‘crowd’ in VGI

The questions of who owns and uses GIS technologies

and who are the public have been examined in the

literature of PPGIS (Sieber 2006; Elwood 2009). In

general, the public has been broadly defined in PPGIS

initiatives that may range from neighborhood resi-

dents at the local level to the general public at the

national level (Sieber 2006; Tulloch 2003). In these

debates, it has been recognized that there are multiple

publics involved in PPGIS practices within particular

contexts (Schlossberg and Shuford 2005; Bosworth

et al. 2002). In particular, drawing on the planning

literature on the notion of stakeholders, Schlossberg

and Shuford (2005) identify three broad types of

publics in participatory decision-making processes:

(1) those that are affected by a decision or program; (2)

those who can bring in important knowledge to the

program; and (3) those who have power to influence

the decision-making process. The authors further

delineate a range of publics that might be involved

in PPGIS, ranging from simple to complex types of

public. In this framework, a simple public will involve

a relatively small number of actors that are relatively

well defined, such as decision-makers. In contrast, a

complex public will include a substantive size of and

or highly heterogeneous actors and it is less well

defined (Schlossberg and Shuford 2005). This frame-

work, while insightful, implicitly suggests a radial

structure of publics, which may exclude some more

mundane, multiple, and decentered engagements

emerged in VGI practices.

While the notion of the public may not be explicitly

discussed in some other studies, a rich body of work in

PPGIS has investigated the complexities of actors and

organizations involved in PPGIS initiatives. It has

been well demonstrated that PPGIS practices are

highly contingent upon local contexts and political

culture (Elwood 2004; Ghose 2005; Sieber 2006).

These PPGIS practices are also influenced by broader

social political conditions, such as neoliberal policies

and initiatives (Elwood 2004; Ghose 2007). It is also

important to note that exogenous players may play an

important role in these PPGIS practices, who may get

involved and operate at multiple scales (Sieber 2006;

Sawicki and Peterman 2002; Ramsey 2008) and

through networks (Leiter et al. 2002; Elwood and

Ghose 2004; Lin and Ghose 2008). For example,

international NGOs have been important actors in a

number of PPGIS initiatives (Convis 2001; Kyem

2004; Sieber 2006). However, Sieber (2006) points out

that the public is still relatively less delineated in

PPGIS research, as many technological adaptations

tend to focus on supply-side approaches. She also

suggests that the growing usage of web-based PPGIS

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increases the difficulty of tackling the question of what

constitutes the public in PPGIS because more heter-

ogeneous actors from a broader spatial extent may get

involved (ibid).

As such, existing discussions regarding the publics

in PPGIS tend to focus on citizens and communities

that share the same locale, while also addressing the

influences of external organizations and agencies. I

argue that it is not only that the scale of public

outreach has been enlarged or changed facilitated by

new information communication technologies, but

also that new forms of social relations and interactions,

especially constituted by the emergence of Web 2.0

technologies more recently, have also been involved.

These new socio-technical assemblages can change

the composition of the general public and meanings of

community that underpin ways of civic engagement

and co-production of spatial data in a complex way.

Such complexities are embedded in the recent emer-

gence of VGI practices, which can take place at

multiple spatial levels such as global, national,

regional and local (e.g., Miller 2006; Tulloch 2008;

Meier 2011).

Regarding these changes, an important area in VGI

research has been to investigate the role of crowd-

sourcing in geographic information production (e.g.,

Goodchild 2007; 2008; Haklay et al. 2008; Elwood

et al. 2012). The ‘‘crowd’’ here generally is used to

indicate the much more massive scale of user and

producer of geographic information on the geoweb

than traditionally more easily recognized user groups

of geospatial technologies. Another field of inquiry

has sought to unravel who may form the crowd and

why, and to interrogate the sociopolitical implications

of such VGI production. For example, with respect to

the private actor that traditionally involves software

providers, advertisers have played an increasing role

in geographic information production and dissemina-

tion (Zook and Graham 2007). In the meantime, there

are significant efforts to develop open source codes

and platforms, indicating a growing open source

community (Haklay et al. 2008; Haklay 2010). A

prime example is the development of OpenStreetMap

(www.openstreetmap.org), a project initiated by Steve

Coast from the University College London in 2004. It

adopted the model of Wikipeida, aiming at producing

user-generated maps that are free to use (Haklay and

Weber 2008), which has greatly shifted the power

geometry of the major spatial data providers not only

in the UK, but also worldwide (Ramm et al. 2011). As

such, there are different levels of accessibility to

mapping and data provision facilitated by the pro-

prietary mapping platforms and open source platforms

online. Associated with this is that there have emerged

a vast number of users that produce VGI, with varying

degrees of contributions (e.g., Tulloch 2008; Kings-

bury and Jones 2009; Elwood et al. 2012).

Related to this theme of actors and stakeholders is

research on the motivations and subjectivities of these

mapping practices (Crampton 2009; Elwood 2010;

Schuurman 2004; Dodge and Kichin 2007; Wilson

2011). A number of studies have examined the

motivations of VGI contributors (e.g., Budhathoki

et al. 2008). Budhathoki et al. (2008) link the desire of

contributing user-generated content to open source

software development, which in turn has a parallel

with other social movements (e.g., Hertel et al. 2003).

The motives of open source software movement are

similar to those of voluntary action ‘‘within social

movements such as the civil rights movement, the

labor movement, or the peace movement’’ (Budhath-

oki et al. 2008, p.16). This line of investigation stresses

the voluntary and altruistic aspect of users’ contribu-

tion. Another stream of work emphasizes more on the

transformation of subjectivities in the context of

pervasive computing and mobile technologies. For

example, Wilson (2011) conceptualizes ‘a geocoding

subject’ that is constituted by practices of the cartog-

raphers that are constantly in the making through the

act of ‘seeing’ and utilization of data and code. These

new cartographers are not the traditional experts who

may be mainly concerned with perspective, projec-

tion, and accuracy. Underling these dynamics and

changes are the increased immerse of individual life,

streaming of daily activities and locational informa-

tion, as part of the mapping data and practices.

Studies have discussed the role of the crowd

engaging in user-generated content in relation to ways

of organizing labor and socioeconomic transforma-

tions (Graham 2011; Leszczynski 2012). Leszczynski

(2012) employs a political economic approach to the

analysis of VGI production, seeking to contextualize

the technological and business transitions underpin-

ning the geoweb’s emergence. Leszczynski (2012)

suggests that the radical shift in geographic informa-

tion production to more user-generated information

exemplified by VGI constitute new regimes of

production. Such regimes are implicated in political

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economic shifts in the forms of ‘rolling back’ of the

state. Through analyzing three dimensions of neolib-

eral political economy: free labor, private ownership,

and unaccountability that are implicated in the geoweb

construction, Leszczyniski argues that the state is

moving from a role of ‘‘sole purveyor of geographic

information and arbiter of cartographic truth to that of

one of many producers and facilitator or institutional

body of oversight’’ (ibid, p.78). Meanwhile, non-state

entities ‘roll out’ to play a more active role in

providing, disseminating, utilizing, and visualizing

geographic information, reflecting market-based

regimes of governance. This analysis is insightful, as

it provides an important dimension of conceptualizing

VGI beyond the focus on ‘‘the technical developments

and business solutions of Web 2.0’’ (ibid, p.86). Yet, the

author also points out that it is not a clear-cut dichotomy

of the state’s rolling back and the market’s rolling out.

Citizens also actively provide and share geographic

information beyond a mere state or market driven

initiative, such as in the case of OpenStreetMap.

Therefore, a further analysis of the composition of

the publics and subjectivities is necessary to investi-

gate the mapping practices that do not necessarily fall

within state or market-driven initiatives. This may also

allow new imaginations of countering the ‘‘neoliberal

recoding’’ of the geoweb and VGI (ibid, p.85). In

particular, I argue that the notion of networked

publics, discussed further in next section, is helpful

to examine these dynamics and ambiguities situated in

particular social and technological conditions.

The Web and networked publics

Numerous accounts have discussed the impacts of the

Internet on civic engagement, political activities and

social relations (e.g., Lim and Kann 2008; Fluri 2006).

Castells (2010) argues that networks have become the

predominant organizational form of the society, and

the emergence of new communication technologies

has further transformed the network society. In this

newer edition of his trilogy on network society that

was first published in 1996, Castells (2010) contends

that the transformation of communication is the most

apparent social change taking place in the past decade,

manifested in two significant shifts. First, there is a

much greater diffusion of the Internet globally,

reflected in its rapid increase of users in the recent

years.1 Second, there is exponential growth of wireless

communication worldwide. Increasingly, wireless

connections have become a major means of getting

access to the Internet, especially in the global south

(ibid).

Varnelis (2008b) further suggests the emergence of

networked publics, derived from economic, political,

and cultural transformations. First, while there is

continued dependency on material production, the

production and transmission of information on net-

works has become the key organizing factor in today’s

world economy (see also Castells 2010; Sassen 2002).

Second, accompanying the changes of global capital

circulation, world political order has also become

more diffused and extended beyond nation-state

boundaries with transnational governing bodies, con-

stituting what Hardt and Negri (2000) conceptualize as

‘‘Empire’’ (Varnelis 2008b). Varnelis (2008b) further

suggests that the networking of individuals, or

networked publics, resemble Hardt and Negri’s

(2000) notion of ‘‘multitude’’, which can serve as a

possible counterforce of Empire. Nonetheless, it is

also recognized that the effects of such a counterforce

remains to be seen (e.g., Lim and Kann 2008).

Third, there is a certain kind of network culture

characterized by remix and shuffling the diverse

cultural elements. An important aspect of network

culture is the growth of nonmarket production. This is

reflected in the open source software movement,

which has also been addressed in the VGI literature

(e.g., Budhathoki et al. 2008). This is what Bauwens

(2005) calls ‘‘peer production’’ that can facilitate

large-scale community activities in various areas that

are voluntary and nonmonetary (van Dijck 2009;

Tapscott and Williams 2006). There is also growth of

cultural products that are made by amateurs, which

does not follow the traditional logic of markets.

Perhaps one of the most notable examples is the

Wikipedia project. In these cases, it is recognized that

users who contribute these contents have motivations

ranging from social status enhancement, pure enjoy-

ment, and the belief of free circulation of knowledge

1 This transformation can be attributed to several factors

including ‘‘regulatory changes, greater bandwidth in telecom-

munications, diffusion of personal computers, user-friendly

software programs and the rapidly growing social demand for

the networking of everything, arising from both the commercial

needs and the public’s desire to build its own communication

networks.’’ (Castells 2010, xxv).

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(Varnelis 2008b). Nonetheless, the effect of such

nonmarket production with respect to its challenge to

big media and powerful corporate conglomerates

remains to be seen, and this form of cultural produc-

tion may embody new forms of exploitation of free

labour as has been discussed by a number of

researchers (e.g., van Dijck 2009). The ability of

global capitalism to adopt and facilitate the network

mode of production and the implications for military

conflicts are among the major concerns raised by

researchers (e.g., Castells 2010). Also, noting Dele-

uze’s (1992) concern, Varnelis (2008b) points out that

network culture may also result in the perception that

resistance is outmoded.

These economic, political and cultural changes are

intertwined with the change of self. In these changes,

the subject is less an autonomous individual as the

conventional notion of a modern subject. Employing a

postructuralist perspective, Poster (1990) also notes a

new form of subjectivity that is decentred, fragmented,

and multiple, influenced by the emergence of elec-

tronic media. What becomes more significant with

respect to the more decentred subject formation,

according to Varnelis’s (2008b) view, is that ‘‘the

contemporary subject is constituted within the net-

work’’ (p. 152). In this sense, the Cartesian subject has

dissolved ‘‘in favor of an affirmation of existence

through the network itself’’ (ibid, p.154). As such,

there is no straightforward division between the self

and the Net.

The emergence of network culture is also in parallel

with a significant reconfiguration of the public sphere.

The public sphere has been viewed by many theorists as

a key force in civil society that serves as a check on the

State. However, there have been many discussions on

the decline of the public sphere in the twentieth century

(see for example, Putman 2000; Dewey 1954; Habermas

1989). Habermas (1989) sees such a decline as resulted

from the increasing privatization of the public sphere by

mass media consumption and growth of media con-

glomerates. Meanwhile, there are other discussions on

the multiplication of the publics and other forms of civic

engagement that may differ from the classic bourgeois

public sphere model (e.g., Thompson 1995). In partic-

ular, the emergence of identity politics in the 1990s has

become a significant phenomenon (Castells 2010).

Social movements have enrolled identity politics to

fight for social justice for marginalized groups, in which

these marginalized groups such as minority groups,

feminists, youth, and so on, are termed as ‘‘counterpub-

lics’’ (Varnelis 2008b, p.155).

Outlining these abovementioned changes, Varnelis

(2008b) identifies several major characteristics of

networked publics. First, people inhabit multiple

networks that may be overlapping. Some of these

networks are composed of connections with intimate

personal relationships, while others may be composed

of a large number of weak ties and even strangers close

or far away. For example, individuals may frequent

forums, newsgroups, and blogs sites to develop

acquaintanceship with others. Networked publics

mainly constitute the latter type of networks although

the lines between the two may not always be clear cut.

Second, political commentary and cultural criticism

may be generated from below as much as from above.

Reports through new media have drawn attention to

issues missed or bypassed by traditional media outlets

(Varnelis 2008b; see also Fluri 2006) Third, there are

other significant forms of unequal power relations

shaping, and embedded in, the Internet. The Internet is

far from an ideal distributed model of network,

reflected in uneven access (Warf 2001) and online

representations (Graham 2011), the long tail effect

(Shirky 2003; see also Crampton 2009), and cyber-

balkanization (Chang 2008). The issue of digital

divide with respect to access to the Internet remains

challenging while the gap may be smaller with the

increasing number of Internet users in recent years.

Information censorship at various levels is another

threat. Moreover, influences from commercial inter-

ests such as pre-designed code that shapes the ranking

of search outcome is another example. Nonetheless,

barriers for entry into the public sphere have been

greatly reduced, and electronic media can create a

mass audience with multiple scales that are of global

and local (see also Bohman 2004).

I further draw upon Thompson’s (1995) work to

illustrate how the visibility brought by the Internet

might transform the meaning of public. Thompson

(1995) identifies that there are two basic senses of the

public–private dichotomy. One sense is concerned

with the relation between the domain of institutional-

ized political power from the state and the domains of

economic activity and personal relations fall outside

direct state control. This sense of the public–private

dichotomy largely overlaps with the distinction

between state and civil society. The second sense of

the public–private dichotomy is concerned with

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publicness versus privacy, and visibility versus invis-

ibility. In this sense, ‘‘a public act is a visible act,

performed openly so that anyone can see; a private act

is invisible, an act performed secretly and behind

closed doors’’ (Thompson 1995, p. 123). Based on the

second sense of public–private dichotomy, Thompson

(1995) further argues that in the late twentieth century,

alongside the development of communication media,

traditional model of publicness as co-presence has

been transformed to ‘‘new forms of interaction, new

kinds of visibility and new networks of information

diffusion’’ in which participants need not to be in the

same spatial–temporal locale. Viewed from this

dimension of publicness, multiple networked commu-

nities may become networked publics through visible

acts, both on and off line.

These dynamics and characteristics associated with

networked publics can be identified in the processes of

VGI production and dissemination. First, the two

significant transformations of communication technol-

ogies (Castells 2010) are an integral part of technolog-

ical factors in shaping VGI production in different parts

of the world (e.g., Elwood et al. 2012; Meier 2011), For

example, Elwood et al. (2012) note that the Internet and

smartphone systems are the major means of engaging in

VGI initiatives in the global north, while text messaging

is increasingly used in the global south. Meier (2011)

documents the emergence of several task forces for

crisis mapping, responding to crises that might take

place far away from the mappers’ residence. Second,

user-generated geographic information production in

many ways is similar to practices by the larger user-

generated content community, as discussed by a number

of studies (e.g., Sui 2008; Haklay et al. 2008), along with

the embedded social inequalities (e.g., Crutcher and

Zook 2009). Actors and stakeholders are diverse and

connected through multiple networks (e.g., Tulloch

2008). Furthermore, networked publics are context-

dependent and it is important to illustrate how particular

networked publics might evolve in particular historical

and geographical contexts, which is the aim of the

empirical investigation below through the case of China.

Networked publics with Chinese characteristics

Networked publics evolve and are shaped by different

spatial and temporal contexts. I argue that nascent

networked publics have emerged in China, which has

been intersected with the emergence of VGI practices

in China. These networked publics share the major

characteristics of Varnelis’s notion. However, they

have also been shaped by socio-political conditions in

China, manifested in various subtle ways of interac-

tions and communications of resistance and civic

engagement. For example, Chinese netizens2 crea-

tively use different linguistic terms to bypass or mock

Internet censorship. Second, these publics are still

largely issue-specific and fragmented, partly due to the

political control by the state (Yang and Calhoun

2007). In particular, Guobin Yang’s (2009a) rich and

thought-provoking account of Chinese online activism

underlines the emerging networked publics, although

Yang does not employ this notion in his analysis.

Before I present Yang’s analysis further to make the

link, it is important to outline some broader back-

ground information regarding the cyberspace in

China.

It has been generally recognized that the economic

reforms since the late 1970 s have greatly transformed

the Chinese society as compared to its pre-reform era.3

Moreover, with these socioeconomic transformations

and the recent information communication technology

developments, netizens have played an increasing role

in public discussion in recent years. Chinese netizens,

with a rise from 22.5 million in 2000 to currently more

than 500 million (CNNIC 2012), have been considered

representing an important voice in public discussion.

More recently, the digital landscape in China has

experienced some significant changes with greater

usage of Web 2.0 technologies and mobile devices.

First, Chinese netizens are increasingly mobile and the

2 I use ‘‘netizens’’ here to refer broadly to anyone that is

engaged with some forms of Internet usage.3 First, the state has retrenched from its all-encompassing role

in the Maoist era to a more indirect way of social control (e.g.,

Huang 1999; Wu 2002). Second, the roles and composition of

communities have also been transformed with respect to

community participation. As noted by Plummer and Taylor

(2004), in the Maoist period, the significant role of communities

in China is manifested in providing labour to collective

production through mass mobilization. This form of community

participation, while still has some influences at a much smaller

scale (Boland and Zhu 2012), is significantly weakened

(Plummer and Taylor 2004). Third, China’s media landscape

has been transformed with greater privatization. While the state

still has strong control on mainstream media, the voices

channelled through new media and the Internet have been

recognized as an important form of public opinion and require

the attention from the state (Yang 2009a; see also Lin 2012).

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123

Internet has become a very important source of

information. Almost 70 per cent of the users access

the Internet through mobile phones, closer to the rate

of using desktop computers at 73.4 per cent. There is a

high rate of using the Internet for news sources that is

more than 70 per cent (CNNIC 2012). Second, the way

netizens communicate with each other has undergone

some changes with the very recent emergence of social

networking sites, which have grown rapidly in China,

especially the micro-blogging sites. There are 48.7 per

cent of the netizens using micro-blogging sites, while

other more conventional ways of online communica-

tions such as email, bulletin board systems (BBS) and

blogs have dropped4 (ibid). In particular, users of

Weibo (www.weibo.com), China’s equivalent of

Twitter,5 have grown to more than 280 million in 2011

(http://www.199it.com/archives/21026.html).

In parallel, there are public discussions of the

growth of civil society in China. The major discus-

sions centre on the growth of NGO, of which the

number has grown from around 4,000 in 1980 to more

than 380,000 in 2008 (An 2010). The increasing role

of netizens’ discussions on citizenship rights defence

and putting pressure on public policies has also been

recognized as a major factor (Gao 2010a). What is

interesting is that these discussions are carried out in

the digital media, which can take a form as a forum

discussion that is broadcasted by online media (Gao

2010a) or a video lecture sponsored by online media

groups (Gao 2010b). For example, there is an annual

selection of the Top Ten Civil Society Incidents,

which was embarked in 2010 by Beijing University

Civil Society Research Centre. Many of the selected

incidents involve the role of netizens in voicing

concerns over social injustice.

However, scholars also suggest increasing and

more sophisticated political control over the Internet

(e.g., MacKinnon 2010). As such, on the one hand,

there is vast Internet censorship in place, filtering

sensitive information or blocking many websites that

the government sees as threatening (Qiu 2000; Kluver

2005). On the other hand, Chinese netizens have found

ways of navigating the censored digital landscape.

Yang (2009a) argues that despite the increasing

political control, the Internet culture that is full of

humour, participatory, and contentious is growing.

Drawing from social movement theories, Yang devel-

ops a multi-interactionism framework, namely foreg-

rounding online activism in interaction with state

power, culture, the market, civil society, and transna-

tionalism (ibid).

In particular, the feature of user-generated contri-

bution opens possibilities of appropriating the Internet

in creative or subversive ways (Yang 2009b). Without

doubt, the Internet changes the speed and extent of

information circulation. Yet, social factors also play

an important role in shaping these online interactions

and communications, for which the ‘Jia Junpeng

phenomenon’ is a telling example. On July 16th, 2009,

a message of ‘Jia Junpeng, your mother is calling you

back home for dinner’ was posted on a computer

gaming forum, which soon spread China’s cyberspace

with more than 300,000 comments and 8 million views

of the original post by July 18th (People’s Daily 2009).

The phrase later was also appropriated politically by

activists (Pierson 2009). This phenomenon, while seen

by some as a mere reflection of the Internet meme

culture as well as of loneliness shared by vast Chinese

netizens (People’s Daily 2009), has also been associ-

ated with ‘subversive undertones’ of virality due to the

growing role of the Internet as a social outlet in

China’s society (Pierson 2009). Yang (2009b) further

elaborates three characteristics of Chinese Internet

culture that have shaped the Jia Junpeng phenomenon.

First, there is a rich and dynamic culture of BBS in

China as the earlier Internet users began their online

activities through BBS. Thus BBS remain an impor-

tant field for netizens’ participation, while blogs and

social networking sites are becoming more popular.

Such a root in BBS may have fostered a more

integrated Internet community in China due to the

forum-format discussions facilitated by BBS. Second,

this short original post of calling Jia Junpeng home for

dinner was not very specific, which in turn struck a

chord with many Chinese Internet users’ emotions that

may derive from a range of unsatisfactory issues both

online and offline, including concerns about social and

political issues such as corruption (ibid). Lastly, the

4 Specifically, the usage of email dropped from 54. 6 per cent in

2010 to 47.9 per cent in 2011, BBS from 32.4 per cent to 28.2 per

cent and blogs from 64.4 per cent to 62.1 per cent (CNNIC

2012).5 Weibo allows users to post comments on other users’

messages, photos and videos, which can spread information

quickly. In particular, users may use pictures to circumvent the

length limit of each Weibo post and the information censorship

that may restrict usage of certain texts.

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123

power of play as a social and creative act and

ingredient for community is another important factor.

Many jokes were produced responding to the Jia

Junpeng message, in which people competed to be

funnier. This playfulness is part of Chinese Internet

culture (Yang 2009a, b), and there is an increase of

such playfulness since the 1990s (ibid). This culture of

playfulness may not be unique, as similar traits can be

found in Kingsbury and Jones’s (2009) analysis of the

Dionysian dimension of mapping on Google Earth.

This event of Jia Junpeng, along with many other

online events that drew widespread attention and

discussions, is a good example of the emerging

networked publics in China. These citizens communi-

cate through multiple networks, especially through

online forums, blogs, chat rooms, and social network-

ing sites. These groups are young and are increasingly

more diverse, although there is a significant urban and

rural divide. They participate in discussions on public

issues as well as seeking entertainments online. In

addition to existing organizational-based online activ-

ism (Yang 2009a), there have been more spontaneous,

individualized but also converged discussions cover-

ing a wide range of social issues, in parallel with the

rapid growth of social networking sites and increasing

usage of mobile devices (see also Lin 2013, 2012).

Meanwhile, these communities in China also differ

from their counterparts elsewhere, as the interactions

and communications are also shaped by socio-political

conditions in China, for example, the netizens’ creative

usage of different linguistic terms to bypass or mock

the internet censorship. Second, these publics are still

largely issue-specific and fragmented, partly due to the

political control by the state (Yang and Calhoun 2007).

Such civic engagement often takes the form of the

netizens acting as virtual ‘‘onlookers’’, which refers to

the practice of following particular topic discussions

online by either posting in various forums, chat rooms,

or social networking sites (Hu 2011). By increasing

the amount of postings on that topic in question, it

presents a form of monitoring from the ‘‘crowd’’ and

creates pressure for related state agencies (ibid). Such

an act corresponds to Thompson’s (1995, p.123)

conceptualization of the second sense of ‘publicity’,

that is, ‘‘a public act is a visible act.’’ Many VGI

contributors have employed this tactic in China (Lin

2012; 2013). Next, I will discuss two cases of VGI

mapping to show how they intersect with these social

relations addressed here.

VGI by and for networked publics in China

In my analysis of the following two examples, I will

focus on illustrating how the processes of VGI

production are underpinned by, and intersected with,

multiple networked publics, comprising various sizes

of actors and stretching across space and time. The

first example is on a website called ‘‘FindingChina’’

(Fig. 1). Through this website, the founder, Wang,6 is

interested in providing a platform for people to

contribute and share a number of different issues

through marking down the related coordinates. The

homepage is divided into three major sections from

left to right. On the left part is the information for user

registration and login, followed by some postings

listed vertically. The section in the center has a map

bar listed on top, with a label noting ‘‘Finding China’s

Coordinate System’’. Following this map bar at the

bottom are particular examples of coordinates. On the

right part is a section on using maps and navigation.

If one clicks on the map bar in the center from the

homepage, a mapping interface will appear (Fig. 2).

There are eight categories of marking the coordinates

(shown at the bottom of the map in Fig. 2), which are:

food, culture, scenery, lodging, environment route,

private, and others. Each category has a particular

symbol assigned. If the user clicks on one of the

locations shown in the map (top part of Fig. 3), a

similar view of mashups to those in Google Maps will

appear. For example, in Fig. 3, the title in the pop-up

textbox of this particular location is ‘‘Chaos created by

city management guards in Kunming City’’. An image

is also included in the text. The reader can click on the

embedded link to read the more in-depth description of

the report (bottom part of Fig. 3).

In many ways, this website shares many character-

istics of a GIS system, with a layer oriented interface

and attribute information imbedded in each point. At

the time of fieldwork, this platform collected 203 sets

of coordinates. This mapping platform was built using

application programming interfaces (APIs) from Go-

ogle Maps. Wang’s college degree was in English

literature, and he learned by himself how to set up a

website and employ APIs from Google Maps to

develop this online database. Any user, registered or

non-registered, can download these coordinates in

6 Pseudonyms are used for the interviewees.

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three formats such as the Keyhole Markup Language

(KML) format.

Wang became interested in sharing geographic data

after his graduation from college when he was very

interested in travelling and backpacking in 1997.

Before the emergence of web mapping and wider

availability of GPS devices, he and his friends bought

‘‘very thick’’ map books (Wang, personal interview,

August 2011). However, it was not convenient to use

these thick books for backpacking. As such, he was

keen to adopt web-based maps. He also found that

information shared by fellow backpackers was help-

ful. For example, he could follow other backpackers’

routes to a particular place. Many of these places may

not be easy to find from the regular maps, as these

places may be very remote. Sharing geographic

information among backpackers thus can be helpful.

‘‘If I visit a place that is really beautiful, I can record

the location information using a GPS for example.

And I can share this with other backpackers. Similarly,

I can download a particular set of coordinates shared

by others and use that as the guide to find the place.’’

(Wang, personal interview, August 2011) Building

upon this initial interest, he started to build this

website in 2006. Gradually, these eight categories

have emerged based on the coordinates users

contributed.

Wang’s initial interest of sharing geographic infor-

mation within a particular group of shared interests,

backpacking in this case, is obviously not uncommon

or new. Yet the Internet has expanded the communi-

cation and exchange between these members that may

reside in various locations in the country, building

tight and loose bonds among group members. The

Web 2.0 and mobile technologies further facilitate the

sharing of geographic information. However, such

sharing of information extends to other areas as well,

such as these in the categories identified as ‘‘culture’’

and ‘‘environment’’, which emphasize more on social

issues. As such, users and contributors of this latter

Fig. 1 Screenshot of Finding China’s Homepage (Accessed 22 February 2012)

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type of information may come from a different

background as compared to those interested in exploring

new places. This site also provides a platform for

displaying both public and personal interests (such as the

‘‘private’’ category). In this way, multiple networks of

users and contributors have emerged.

Such sharing may in turn help to constitute and

construct group identities. As noted by Wang, ‘‘If

everyone can share information about the pollution

they see in their everyday life, it can create an

atmosphere… People will be more aware of the wider

environmental issues in China.’’ (Wang, personal

interview, August 2011) In this comment, Wang

stressed the importance of sharing mashups on

environmental issues and creating a certain atmo-

sphere for discussions and enhancing public aware-

ness. This atmosphere will be generated through the

digital space by multiple VGI contributions. In many

ways, these mashups are spatial narratives that are

oriented towards everyday life, but they can facilitate

community formation and broader discussions. A

similar line of thinking can be seen in the cultural

mashups in this example (see Figs. 3, 4). He states that

‘‘the cultural mashups have a function, that is, to

monitor what’s going on. If more people are sharing

this kind of information on the Web… it will be

similar to [creating an atmosphere through] the

environmental mashups.’’ (Wang, personal interview,

August 2011). In many ways, the efforts of the

‘Kaiwenmap’ example raised in the beginning of this

paper resemble the attempts of creating a certain

‘atmosphere’ through these mashups in this above

example, which can be perceived as producing forums

for public engagement.

Two types of networked publics can be identified in

this case. The first one is the community of backpack-

ers in this example, which is similar to traditional

social networks, but has also been influenced by

information technologies through linking members

from different locations. The second one is composed

Fig. 2 The major map interface of Finding China (Accessed 22 February 2012)

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of those who contribute to a wider range of topics,

attending to social issues. However, Wang was also

disappointed at the overall level of participation by

other users. He noted that this might be due to the fact

that the backpackers’ community itself, from which

the initial interest was derived, was a small network.

Those who were willing to share information through

online mapping were even a smaller number within the

group. He also noted that his lack of any aggressive

promotion of his site could be a factor. While it was

expected that other people rather than backpackers

were likely to contribute as well, he addressed that it

was the case that most users browsed and downloaded

the data rather than contributing new data to the site.

This is in resonance with other cases observed

elsewhere (van Dijck 2009), reflecting the long-tail

effect in the cyberspace.

The second example of VGI embodies two types of

networked publics: one is similar to that of backpack-

ers shown in the first example, while the other is wider

and more diverse, composed of those performing a

political act through the tool provided by this VGI

practice. Specifically, this VGI initiative is an online

interactive tool entitled ‘‘Strolling with 200 Mu,’’

created for an art performance project called ‘‘Every-

one’s East Lake’’ (EEL). This art performance project

aimed to speak out concerns regarding a land grab of

an urban lake in Wuhan City. Each performance was

pinned on an overview map using the platform of

Google Maps.

This ‘‘Strolling with 200 Mu’’ was developed by

three participants outside Wuhan. It was located at

where an area called ‘‘200 Mu’’ that was about to be

filled. This is an interactive tool embedded in Google

Maps. Users can click on a polygon of the size of two

hundred mu (33 acres) and move it around to any city

(Fig. 4). In this way, as one of the authors of this

project explained, users can understand how big two

hundred mu of the lake surface would be. But

furthermore, the term ‘‘strolling’’ has a special mean-

ing in current China, which is to protest. As such, using

and playing with this tool may be a simple act; yet, it

embeds particular political meanings and can be seen

as a form of virtual protest. I have examined the

meaning of this virtual representation further else-

where (Lin 2013). Here, I would like to highlight the

network aspect of this construction of mapping.

First, this project was one of the only two projects

allowed to be carried out without participants being in

the local site in Wuhan, a notion stressed by the

organizers of EEL. Linked by digital media and Web

technologies, this is a participatory act outside the

Fig. 4 Screenshot of ‘‘Strolling with 200 Mu’’ (accessed 11 June 2010)

Fig. 3 Top: an example of a location in the category of culture

for coordinates; bottom: screenshot of the more in-depth

description on a particular location (accessed 22 February 2012)

b

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local community who would bear the impact of this

land grab most. As noted earlier, this participatory act

is carried out by two networked publics. On the one

hand, this tool was developed by three VGI authors

living in Beijing, Shanghai and Shenzhen, part of a

networked public that comprise the artists and non-

artists who were directly involved in the EEL project.

This is similar to the case of the community of

backpackers shown in the first example, but perhaps is

of a smaller spatial scale.

The other networked public involved in this

participatory act is various map users who dragged

the polygon of ‘‘200 Mu’’ to their selected places

shown on the map and strolled with ‘‘200 Mu’’

virtually. This tool of ‘digital strolling’, enabled by an

interactive mapping platform, is accessible within

China. It attracted many users to ‘play with this tool’,

according to one of the tool builders. This is a much

wider and vaster networked public, containing more

weak ties and strangers, which may share similar

concerns about the consequences of rapid urban

growth and encroachment of urban public space. On

the one hand, many of these VGI practices are derived

from individual motivations rather than stimulated by

organizational goals. As one author of the ‘‘Strolling

with 200 Mu’’ project noted, he did not belong to any

organizations and he liked this way of participation

(Yang, personal interview, July 2011). On the other

hand, a sense of community of these networked

publics is also present, which can also be reflected by

the same author’s comment as follows: ‘‘These days

[of working on ‘Strolling with 200 Mu’] were the

happiest time in my life… I felt that I did something

for Wuhan.’’ (ibid) In a sense, the act of using this tool

and the popularity of doing so resonate with the

political appropriation of the case of Jia Junpeng

discussed in Yang (2009b), as both display a certain

level of playfulness and converged individual acts.

These dynamic networked publics coalesced

around various mapping platforms shown in these

examples suggest some important implications for the

meaning of civic engagement on two levels. First,

these networked publics in China emerged in a highly

regulated and censored cyberspace, and these mapping

practices constitute a form of resistance from the less

powerful (see also Lin 2012). It is also important to

note that these networked publics may involve actors

outside China, as my opening example of Kaiwen-

map.org indicates. Second, the everydayness and at

times playfulness embedded in these VGI practices

and constitution of networked publics underpin the

evolution and reconfiguration of publicness. This may

indicate new ways of political intervention in the Web

2.0 age.

Conclusions

A growing body of work in GIS and geography has

sought to unravel the mutual constitution of VGI and

its social and cultural contexts in which VGI is

situated. I argue that the notion of networked publics

(Varnelis 2008a, b) helps to better understand the

dynamics shaping VGI production. The emergence of

networked publics is associated with a wide range of

economic, social, and political transformations occur-

ring in the past decade. It is also implicated by self-

identity transition (Varnelis 2008b). Increasingly,

individual and group identities are shaped by and

through digital networked communications. This new

form of social relations distinguishes itself from

traditional social networks in a sense that the self

and the (digital) network merge as networked publics.

A certain kind of network culture has also emerged,

manifested through, for example, the open source

software development and user-generated content

contributions. These transformations set the backdrop

and shape the rapid emergence of VGI practices in the

Web 2.0 age. This does not mean that other types of

publics, such as those including grassroots organiza-

tions, community groups, and other civic associations,

have not had an influence on VGI practices. For

example, Elwood et al.’s (2012) VGI inventory has

shown the range of entities engaged in VGI initiatives.

Rather, I call for broadening the conceptualization of

social relations to understand these diverse and rich

constructions of VGI. This perspective also helps to

explore ways of countering the dominant neoliberal

logic in many socioeconomic contexts.

I further employ this conceptualization in an

empirical investigation of VGI production in China.

In many ways, networked publics in China are more

issue-based and fragmented, significantly shaped by

its sociopolitical conditions and transformations in the

past decade. With sophisticated political control over

the Internet, the Chinese cyberspace including the

recent Web 2.0 sites are a field of constant contentions

and struggles between netizens and the state. In these

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123

processes, individuals create their own spatial data and

narratives, and they can reach out to a larger audience

and build weak ties with other people. Four types of

networked publics are identified from this empirical

investigation to illustrate such dynamics and com-

plexities regarding civic engagement. With these

networked publics, voices from below have become

more visible, in this case, through engagements with

VGI. Yet these voices are still quite scattered, issue-

based and fleeting.

These VGI examples and other similar practices may

lack lasting power of mobilization for social changes

and material transformation. In addition, as noted

earlier, there have been a number of structural differ-

ences embedded in access to and usage of the Internet

and mobile devices, along lines of class, gender and age.

China’s case also represents strong state control on

political discussions, exemplified in its information

censorship. However, it is important to unravel these

struggles, negotiations, and creations through a broader

conceptualization of politics of everyday mapping and

agency. Elsewhere through the notion of ‘tactical spatial

narratives’ derived from Michel de Certeau’s work, I

have attempted to foreground and conceptualize one

form of such agency (Lin 2013) manifested in

performative neogeographic mapping practices. This

paper further discusses new forms of social relations that

intersect with VGI practices.

Therefore, such a conceptualization of networked

publics may help us to rethink and re-imagine forms of

civic engagement and participation manifested in

different and yet perhaps increasingly connected

contexts. In particular, these everyday mapping and

spatial narratives, performed by networked publics

and constituted through Web 2.0 mapping platforms,

resonate with the new forms of knowledge politics in

digital activism explicated by Elwood and Leszczyn-

ski (2012). Such knowledge politics embody visual

experiences through geovisual artifacts that tend to be

highly individualized, interactive, and exploratory.

These experiential cartographic representations gain

credibility through ‘‘practices of transparency, peer

verification and witnessing’’(ibid, p.10). More studies

are needed to interrogate what kinds of networked

publics have emerged and in what ways networked

publics have intersected with VGI constructions and

dissemination in various socioeconomic and political

conditions. These investigations will further provide

insights into understanding the implications of these

dynamic, decentered, and varied VGI practices.

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